Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 7'

 

'Deleuzian Cartography 7', Paper Collage, Acrylics & Mixed Media on Panel,
600 mm x 600 mm, 2025

Here's the next in my series of 'Deleuzian Cartography' hybrid paintings, 'Deleuzian Cartography 7'. This is the third produced in this 60 cm square format, and shares the same essential aesthetic as 'DC 5' & '6'. As with those, the piece presents as essentially monochromatic, albeit with numerous nuanced accents of additional colour within the dominant hue. Of course, the saturation levels are ramped-up considerably this time, making this one uncompromisingly, 'The Yellow One'.

Repeat visitors here may be aware of my enthusiasm for 'significant yellow' found objects. It does occur to me that, these days, my approach to colour has shifted dramatically from the atmospheric functions it one fulfilled in my earlier fumblings. Nowadays, the approach seems much more emblematic, often relating to the physical textual or semiotic content of the city, as encountered on my habitual urban derives. In this case, the yellows employed could be related to the high-viz fluoro and safety cadmium that have punctuated the large tracts of west Leicester that have been undergoing redevelopment for many years. This is my regular patch, and I long ago grew accustomed to living adjacent to a vast, ever-evolving construction site, along with its parade of yellow cranes, earth-movers, hazard signage and safety wear. It's no accident that the architectural footprints rising to the surface here relate to buildings that emerged as a result.

The other notable geometric/textual element here is, of course, the parking penalty notice - the collaging of which represents another small departure from previous 'DC' pieces. Car parking is another category of urban subject matter that has cropped up repeatedly here over the years, and notably, another often signified by primary yellow. It also chimes with the themes of territorialisation and deterritorialisation, as juxtaposed throughout the phillosophy of Gilles Deleuze (and Felix Guattari). If the movement and flow of traffic around the city represents one of its key currents, the ever tightening channelling of that movement, and strict  control/monetisation of where vehicles come to rest, is an obvious example of (re)territorialisation. To be honest, I can't think of many more territorial issues than the whole fraught area of parking in cities. 

As a motorist, the occasional collection of of parking tickets, and indeed, the eternal search for unpenalised/affordable parking, may frame that tension in fairly clear-cut terms. However, simplistic, narratives are pretty useless when applied to the complex realities of modern urban life. To those who walk or cycle, the colonisation of the city by motor vehicles may appear as a restriction as much as it is an aid to 'freedom of movement'. Like many others, I find myself a member of all three demographics, and am aware of how one's perceptions are continually altered by each change of chosen transport. The competing associated narratives and prejudices are as subject to processes of de/reterritorialisation as the arena they play out within.

Written without A.I. [For better or worse]

Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 6'

'Deleuzian Cartography 6', Paper Collage, Acrylics & Mixed Media on Panel,
600 mm x 600 mm, 2025

 

This is the sixth of my ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ mixed media ‘paintings’, and the second to be completed on a panel of these dimensions. My thoughts about scale, as it relates to this imagery, can be read in my last post. Suffice it to say, nothing much has changed in that respect.

Clearly, the prevailing aesthetic of this piece is very similar to that of ‘DC 5’, as are the methods by which it was achieved. It appears that I am once more immersed in one of those series of variations on a theme/vocabulary, to which my work so often defaults. That’s fine - I’m clearly happy working this way and (hopefully) sufficiently aware of the dangers of empty repetition and self-defeating comfort zones to know when a particular well is running dry. 

What has changed in this particular version is the nature of the primary motifs (being those that bob to the surface relatively late in the process of resolving the piece. Instead of some form of architectural schematic, here we have a series of five found LED circuit diagrams. If the perpetual flux of de/reteritorialisation within urban environments is a primary theme of this work, so too is the sense of flowing currents and information streams through which so much of that dynamic is facilitated. Each of the five figures may recall the regular geometry of buildings as described on the map, but clearly the infrastructure they represent is devoted purely to flow and transmission of information/alerts, as coded through the millions of winking LED lights that punctuate our world. In purely formal terms, the lexicon of circuit components also feels like a new addition to the overall vocabulary of the ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ work.

In this context, the small accents of silver which enlivened the almost monochromatic palette of ‘DC 5’ are allowed even freer reign here, (however poorly my photographs may reveal them). Notions of the quicksilver nature of electricity and the metallic glitter of cabling and circuitry seem fairly apposite here. There’s also something very interesting about the way metallics allow a painting to transform its appearance based purely on the incidence of light and the angle of view. I like the idea of inferring the shimmer of screen-based or illuminated imagery in such a pleasingly low-tech manner. In passing, I’m reminded that Jacqueline Humphries produced a  series of silver paintings in the past. Now there’s a thought…

[Written without A.I. - for better or worse]

Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 5'

'Deleuzian Cartography 5', Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
600 mm x 600mm, 2025

As promised, here's the next 'Deleuzian Cartography' painting (can I still accurately describe works like these as 'paintings'? - I'm not sure). This is the first one to expand in scale, and it definitely feels like some kind of escape from the world of tiny pieces I've been inhabiting for rather too long. We're still not exactly talking huge here - this is a standard (for me) square format at dimensions I'd normally think of as 'medium'. Nevertheless, it's definitely pleasing to have a bit more real estate to work with again, and perhaps implies a boost in overall confidence levels too.

Given the cartographic impulses at play in these pieces, scale and expansiveness feel like key issues. As a mapping concept, scale feels fairly straightforward, although we can quickly find ourselves dealing with more the emotional/intuitive aspects of distancing, detail focus, personal relationship to specific terrain etc. In this context, I'd reference the familiar thrill of zooming-in/out in Google Maps, and the instantaneous changes in emotional relationship to territory it affords. I'm also reminded of Borges' very short story, 'On Exactitude in Science' [1.], in which an unnamed Empire produces a 'perfect' map at 1:1 scale, completely covering the terrain with its own representation, and rapidly rendering itself useless in the process. As usual, Borges unlocks a world of philosophical speculation with the most economical of means. A close inspection of my own 'DC' pieces reveals how the collaged/mulched cartographic fragments vary in scale dramatically, indicating the themes of simultaneity and dissolving territorialisation that I've tried to build into them. The intention is definitely not to accurately map things with any degree of overall continuity - exactly the opposite, in fact.

Spatially, it's hardly original to observe that there's only one endless map (ultimately adjusted to wrap around a globe), and a set of arbitrary decisions about how we chop it up. That alone has caused me to speculate what happens as one breaks those boundaries and crosses into the next portion of the chart. Clearly, there's no reasons why any expansion should result in a regular square/rectangular border. Indeed, it feels highly desirable that it shouldn't. To that ends, I've been working for quite a while (under the radar, admittedly,) to produce a variety of paper-based sheets using the same techniques and general aesthetic you see here, but stopping at the point one might term 'backgrounds'. The intention is ultimately to start stitching these together in order to work/map further onto the resulting composites. 

What you see here, then, is a more direct stopgap attempt to increase scale by just building a bigger panel and getting on with it. Any reticence in launching into this had to do with uncertainties over the relative scale of individual marks/motifs and the effect that might have on an overall composition. At this stage, (and relatively modest zoom ratio), it appears that the problems are negligible. Given the found/digitised/highly mediated nature of my source imagery, there's not too much the scaling functions of a photocopier, or Photoshop, or even just an old-school OHP, can't overcome. Also, the degree of all-over 'Pollockisation' effects that seem inevitable as this kind of imagery increases in scale seem both enjoyable and appropriate so far. The often monumental examples of Mark Bradford, Julie Mehretu, Cy Twombly, etc. would suggest there's a long distance to travel yet in that respect. 

In all honesty, I'm not really sure where all that caution and tentative uncertainty came from of late. However, I do know that if just chopping up larger bits of MDF, embracing risk and accident, and working as quickly as the method allows, are proven ways to break out of that - well then the answer is obvious...

 

[1.]: Jorge Luis Borges, 'On Exactitude in Science' (Trans. Andrew Hurley), From: 'The Aleph', London/NYC, 1949/1999

Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 4'

 

'Deleuzian Cartography 4', Paper Collage, Acrylics & Mixed Media on Panel,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

My social media interactions have definitely dwindled in recent months, for a variety of reasons. I've certainly become bored by the sheer admin of it all (all that needless checking several times a day, and the sense of being 'available' at any hour). I've also found myself increasingly reluctant to participate in the perceived degradation of discourse and our 'culture' generally (or at least what I once thought it to be). Simultaneously, I've found myself redirecting my attention back towards more traditional sources of information (long-form music, books - remember them?), and also realising that there is still far too much unread literature, unheard music, and unrealised art activity awaiting me, to waste time feeding vampiric (American) social media platforms. I've only got so many years left to me now, after all - endless vacuous distraction is the last thing I need. 

However, I guess it's important not to totally forget the small ways in which digital conduits may still prove useful/enlightening if rationed and consciously targeted. This blog was only really started as a potential showcase for my own creative endeavours in the first place, and there's no reason why it shouldn't continue to function as such from time to time. Making paintings might feel like a far more rewarding way to spend time than documenting and pontificating about them, but I'm not ready to make my practice a 100% inward-looking/onanistic undertaking quite yet.

In the light of which, here's a little painting that fell through the publicity cracks when I completed it a few months back. It's the fourth of the small 'Deleuzian Cartography' panels produced with some enthusiasm/energy, during the last weeks of 2024. In general terms, it certainly shares a common aesthetic and set of concerns with the previous three. However, this one perhaps feels a little cruder/more rapid in its execution. That probably reflects my desire to avoid mere repetition and also the fact that this one 'fought back a bit'. The version you see here was arrived at fairly quickly after an extended period of flailing and I was satisfied to simply leave things be, rather than pursuing further unnecessary refinement. 

Since completing this one, I've been working consistently with a view to exploring the same visual vocabulary of these 'Deleuzian Cartography' pieces on a larger scale. Much of that time has been spent preparing raw materials with a more composite, pieced-together approach in mind. More directly, there are also two newly-completed panels that prove that sometimes the thing to do is to just make a bigger panel and get on with it, without wasting time anticipating the potential problems. I'll try to be a bit more proactive and timely about revealing them...

Completed Untitled Studies ['Deleuzian Cartography'] 2

 

Untitled Study ['Deleuzian Cartography'], Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Paper,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

Here is a somewhat delayed round-up of the paper-based studies from my 'Deleuzian Cartography' work. Everything here was produced during the latter months of 2024, alongside the slightly more substantial/resolved panels which emerged from these explorations. The first and last images here represent studies at the larger 300 mm x 300 mm size, and could, I imagine be presented as exhibit-able work, should the opportunity arise. In the event, the intensity of work and degree of resolution they represent falls only slightly short of the small 'finished' panels which have resulted from all this to date.  

This & Following Five Images: Untitled Sketchbook Studies ['Deleuzian Cartography'],
Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Paper, 180 mm x 180 mm, 2024

The remaining images show sketchbook-based studies, which were thus somewhat more spontaneous and rapid in their execution. This fairly organic methodology is a key feature of this phase of work, with motifs, themes cartographic locators and solipsistic references all bobbing to the surface of an ongoing process of exploration. The hope is that anything that emerges might draw on previous discoveries or feed into as yet unmade images with equal facility. 

The key motivation behind all of the work is, I guess, the search for a form of intuitive, deconstructed/reconfigured cartography, in which the established geometries of the street plan are perpetually short-circuited through space and time by more fluid currents of potential meaning or narrative. As can be seen, this has expanded to encompass references to electrical/electronic circuitry, diagrammatic labyrinths and specific literary/philosophical  references, alongside the streets, buildings and allusions to digital/analogue mapping with which I began. Simultaneity and a sense of zooming-in/out feel like they're pretty key too, and I can't help noticing that the inclusion of specific textual elements has once more become a thing.

As regards media and technique, there's nothing especially new to report. Everything has evolved via my long customary mixed-media/collage-based methodology. It allows me to hang onto a degree of chance and spontaneity and is a well-proven way to act as an editor/manipulator of found material (and spaces). I can only hope there's been some refinement of technique or increase in sophistication/nuance over the years I've been working like this.

The whole 'Deleuzian Cartography' idea still feels very live, although I've currently taken a short pause for thought, largely to consider possible ways to retain the key features and spirit of this kind of imagery at a larger scale. I feel like there are relatively practical issues of enlargement  implied here, but also an imperative to explore the idea of extensiveness and the transgression of set boundaries too. In relation to that, it's impossible to ignore the fact that Jorge Luis Borges once wrote an account of a physical map produced at 1:1 scale, which grew to encompass every topographic detail of the entire empire it eventually covered [1.]. Time for some more practical experimentation, I think...

Untitled Study ['Deleuzian Cartography'], Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Paper,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

[1.]: Jorge Luis Borges, 'On Exactitude in Science', From: ‘The Aleph’, London/NYC, Penguin, 1998

Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 3'

'Deleuzian Cartography 3', Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

This is the third of this year's small ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ panels. It came into being in parallel with ‘DC2’ and I suppose they share a certain aesthetic - in colour range, if nothing else. The fragmented street maps and circuit diagrams are still there, although much of that content is even further subsumed into an ‘all-over’ composition this time.

For much of the piece’s development, I figured that might be the whole story, and that this one was going to represent a variety of urban hum approaching near blankness, rather than the more strident energy flows of the streets. Somehow though, this just wasn’t quite enough and a recognisable portion of Leicester’s inner gyratory system rose to the surface very late in the day. The final gesture of reaching for a pot of varnish and looping it off the handle of a brush occurred in wholly intuitive manner (late at night, and probably half asleep). It is often the case that such release creates the most fortuitous results, and in this time the drips appear to continue the ring road’s circuit organically through sheer chance. I couldn’t have made that happen if I’d tried.

Without delving to dee eply into any of the complex, abstruse philosophical concepts which may (or may not) inform this body of work, the tension between formally established territory and more intuitive flows of urban life continue to feel like a key theme. Indeed, this may just represent another interpretation of the official/unofficial interface that’s been there in my work for many years (signage vs graffiti, crisp edges vs random mark-making, social democracy vs uninformed reactionary politics, etc.).

Another point worth noting is the suggestion of some pixellated, glitch-type artefact at bottom left of this image. There was actually more of this in ‘DC1’, and it does feel like another category of motif that may continue to recur in this body of work. For now, let’s simply regard it as a hint towards the digital lens through which we often chart the terrain. I’ll leave it at that for now, but the potential of Google Maps/Earth, OpenStreetMap, etc. to further mediate our understanding of geography is definitely folded into these pieces, and something to discuss at greater length another time

Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 2'

'Deleuzian Cartography 2', Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel, 300 mm x 300 mm, 2024

Here is the second of my small ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ panels, a small clutch of which have recently emerged in the wake of my summer sketchbook experiments. As ever, the quantity/rate of production may feel a little less than desired, but the reality is that progress been consistent, and I think I’m reasonably content with the general direction they have taken so far. I think I should give up worrying about stuff like that once and for all, and just accept that I’ve always been a fairly slow, methodical worker, with many of the usual mundane limits on available time and energy in addition. Furthermore, each one of these often takes longer to resolve than could ever be predicted and - let’s face it, just churning-out a series of predictable ‘product’ shouldn’t really be the aim either.

In fact, the real ‘issue’ to be faced now is probably more to do with scale (i.e. the space side of the space/time interface). Any imagery deriving from maps must, by its very nature, imply a degree of open-endedness or extension. Ultimately, there is only one map after all (and it is spherical and without definitive boundaries). The end of one chart is just the beginning of the next. Even my own modest and localised voyages of discovery around the city reveal a seemingly limitless range of possibilities (what happens if I take this route instead of that? what happens around that slightly less familiar corner? How far can I really follow this river beyond the city’s nominal edge? etc.).

This would all suggest that one simple ambition should be to move away from what has become (often for simple practical reasons – or is it timidity?) my default ‘small’ panel size. I’m not necessarily talking Mark Bradford scale here, but the annexing of a little more territory is indicated, nonetheless. If limits on working/storage/living space all imply some conflict with that ambition, a sensible solution might be to consider the extension of imager over several conjoining sections. Thinking about it – that would be in keeping with the cartographical nature of this work too (see above).

Anyway, that’s all in a possible future. As far as this little panel goes, there is clearly some attempt to further dissolve the street plan into an abstracted soup of possible routes and directions generally. There’s also clear reference to the idea of the city being a vast circuit of energies and informational flows - as much as it is an arena for physical journeys. Overlaying (and threaded through) all this, more fluid traceries and Deleuzian rhizomes attempt to arc across, or take mental/emotional flight from, the territorial geometries of the map. That’s my excuse for a bit of Pollock-style drippage, and I’m sticking to it!

Completed Painting: 'Deleuzian Cartography 1'

 

'Deleuzian Cartography 1', Paper Collage & Mixed Media, 300 mm x 300 mm, x 1 2024

This is the first small panel to emerge from all my messing about with maps over recent months. As mentioned in my previous post, this imagery emerges from a period of sketchbook experimentation, in which recurring motifs and working methods were allowed to evolve in a fairly organic manner without too many constraints. For all that may feel like a new phase of activity, I now realise that this kind of thing superficially resembles some of the street plan-derived work I made a few years ago.

'Map 2', Acrylics & Paper Collage on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2015

I guess that's how it goes sometimes - we set off in what we feel is a new direction, only to discover we've actually looped back round on ourselves without really knowing it. I'm going to tell/fool myself that this is hopefully less of a resort to some stifling comfort zone, and more of a re-statement of the central concerns within my work. As stated many time before - it's pretty much always about an interaction with my immediate (largely urban) surroundings, and the various ways in which it becomes codified and freighted with numerous tangled narratives. In this case, a conscious use of appropriated texts encountered at specific locations has given way (I think) to certain implied philosophical underpinnings - such as might be encountered in the work of Gilles Deleuze or Michel De Certeau, amongst others. 

There's far too much nuance there (and let's be honest - baffling complexity) to detail now. So, for the time being, I'll hang on to the hope that, rather than merely circling back to some earlier starting point, any movement achieved here is more representative of a spiral. Just as each time we pass through a certain location on the map - we may experience it in a slightly different way, so perhaps any return to possibly familiar creative territory may might contain the experiences, knowledge and insights gleaned since the last time we were there. Perhaps we can hope for a little more finesse too?

Yes - it may be another map-like yellow painting, but I've certainly torn up a load of paper, and read a lot more confusing books since the last one, so here's hoping...