Completed Painting: '[dc]Underfall 01'

 

'[dc]Underfall 01', Acrylics, Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2026

Having indulged in a relatively rapid painterly critique of the ongoing Iran war debacle, I felt inclined to do something a little less despairing of human psychosis. Hence, the little painting shown here - entitled ‘[dc]Underfall 01’. It clearly fits into the ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ oeuvre, being heavily map-derived, as well as fluid in its attitude to spatial or temporal structure, There’s even a fairly route-one deteritorialising smear placed front and centre. This time, however, I abandoned reference to specific texts or current events, and just made ‘place’ the overriding theme.

In terms of locational reference, the painting overlays map references to my immediate surroundings in Leicester, and Bristol’s equally familiar (to me) harbour entrance/Cumberland Basin/Underfall Yard/River Avon New Cut complex. This zone has featured regularly here in recent years, due to it being the focus of my ongoing ‘The Basin’ project, and ground-zero for my regular trips to that city. What is new, however, is a reference to that region in an actual painting. To date, all ‘Basin’-related material has been photographic, video-based or literary. Without any conscious plan, I suppose this spontaneous little panel (produced after my most recent Bristol trip, a couple of months back) may therefore suggest some move to unify the ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ and ‘The Basin’ work. Of course, I appreciate that such compartmentalising probably feels more significant to me than anyone else, and this piece certainly emerged with little or no prior strategising, either way. All this stuff is really just arepeated attempt to construct narratives in response to the places I find myself in, whatever medium I employ, or label I apply.

The title here relates to Underfall Yard, specifically - a feature of Bristol’s floating harbour that sits adjacent to Cumberland Basin. If the Harbour entrance and associated locks represent the mouth of the old docks, then the Basin itself might represent a gullet through which the water and shipping must pass in a controlled manner, to reach the city docks beyond. In this analogy, Underfall Yard could be seen as the first stage of digestion, given its primary function as a mechanism for processing at least some of the clogging sediment that has always been the curse of Bristol’s maritime traffic. Initially conceived as an ‘overfall’ feature, by which silt-bearing water might flow over a sluice, its operation was subsequently inverted for greater efficiency. This being Bristol, I.K Brunel generally gets all the credit here, although, the truth is that many other eminent engineers were involved in the developing the Yard’s infrastructure, as is true in many other cases routinely attributed to the man in the big hat. And Underfall itself makes up part of a larger mechanised picture in this part of the Victorian harbour with various complex pumping and hydraulic-control systems being operated from here, and from the Pumphouse, opposite. Nowadays, the Underfall Yard houses various maritime businesses (with associated moorings) alongside a cafe/heritage centre, and forms a larger complex with the adjoining  Harbour Master’s headquarters. It also forms an entry point to the southern dockside walk. 

The name is straightforward enough as a descriptor, but potentially freighted with ambiguity at the same time (I’ll let you decide for yourself what ‘underfall’ might mean when separated from engineering terminology). My own relationship with the site is inevitably layered and romanticised accordingly. Whilst I'm unable to ascribe a precise meaning myself, I know there’s strange poetry there for sure. Superficially, the site represents my habitual first refreshment/reflection stop on any visit to the city. Following a few hours of motorway driving, I will normally head straight to Cumberland Basin, park-up and stroll through to Underfall in search of toilets and the first coffee/lunch of the trip. The canopied outdoor seating area provides a perfect vantage point from which to study the adjacent buildings and boats, or the wider vistas of the Floating Harbour as it curves away into the city centre beyond. My meditations may shift from the industrial heritage of the site itself, to observations of the passing customers, dockland explorers and boat restorers, or my own personal history and ‘temps perdu’ in this part of the city (and back again) all in the duration of one cup of coffee. Such pause for thought will often also pressage the first photo-grabs of the trip, or provoke my first stroll along to the ‘Spike Island art complex, or two-wheeled circuit of the entire harbour.

 

Whilst undeniably picturesque as all this is, this portion of the docks also retains a few vestiges of an older industrial grunge. It remains, at least in part, a working environment - with many of the associated textures, odours and sounds one might expect. On my last visit, I was entertained by the tortuous manoeuvring of a large boat, even as neighbouring diners discussed a complex asylum case they were engaged in. I strolled on a few metres to photograph two skips full to the brim with mud-encrusted bikes, trolleys and other  dredged debris, accompanied by a soundtrack of construction work - relating to the restoration of one of the Victorian buildings that fell victim to an arson attack, some years ago. This particular rebuild is encouraging, even if the charred timbers held their own tradgi-textural resonance for several years. As has often been demonstrated on here, where there’s building work - there’s scaffolding and hi-vis to photograph, whilst thoughts of transformation, becoming, and the future unfolding into history can never be far behind. As ever (and wherever), past, present and future, and the familiar and unknown, all nest within each other.

That’s quite a lot for one little painting to carry, so let’s return to more technical matters. It’s worth mentioning the relatively ‘pretty’ palette of colours - a welcome departure from the dour schemes of the ‘Machine’ pieces, but also possibly reflecting some of the confected architecture of Bristol’s hyper-inflated heritage property market. Photogenic rainbows of terraced villas famously gaze down from various Bristol hill tops - a reminder that even were I to attempt to re-relocate there, the cost would no doubt be prohibitive. Accents of fluro yellow allude to both the aforementioned builders, and to the reflected sails of a nearby yacht-training session, whilst an underpinning ground of black might relate to some of the more industrial aspects mentioned above. Oh, and it’s possible that the encrusted central cancellation suggests some aspiration towards greater painterliness in future works.

Completed Painting: '[dc]Victory Machine 01'

'[dc]Victory Machine 01', Acrylics, Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
400 mm x 400 mm, 2026

'[dc]Victory Machine 01' is the third in my recent trio of small paintings, produced fairly spontaneously in response to the currentsituation in the Middle-East. Unsurprisingly, the war triggered by Trumpo the Clown is far from reaching anything resembling a clear resolution, and has seemingly become one of those 'forever wars' that hubristic American governments have been unable to resist down the years (and which Trump himself stood for election in supposed opposition to). Indeed, one could argue, I suppose, that the perpetual enmity between America/'The West', Israel, and radical Islam (as represented by Iran and its proxies), is the very definition of a forever war. Nevertheless, the news cycle churns on in its default state of attention-deficit (even as the on again - off again - on again  hostilities seem set to crash the entire global economy, along with energy/food/medicine supplies), Trumpo is incapable of staying awake, and I myself feel like I have other artistic fish to fry over the second half of this year. Therefore, this is possibly the last of this little group, for now. Who knows if I'll feel provoked to produce any more? - I'd love to think it might not be necessary... 

Anyway, as any sense of a coherent internal logic behind Trump's gesture war-mongering has never really been evident (Israeli motives may be a little more basic), the narrative essentially devolved into a futile battle over who can claim at least the perception of 'victory' in a world turned upside-down. And the current situation really seems to be one in which all good sense is inverted - given the total impasse all sides claim to be in control of. Trumpo's desperation to claim definitive victory, and an associated end to the conflict (he can no longer hope for a swift conclusion), sees him seemingly concede more and more to a nominally 'losing' side, whilst remaining unable to admit it. Meanwhile, Iran, whilst denuded of much of its original leadership and traditional weaponry - and with much of its infrastructure seriously compromised, has proved itself able to hold the world to economic ransom and demonstrate an ability to subvert any illusory peace 'deal' at will - stripping the American regime of yet more status and credibility in the process. Just as is simultaneously demonstrated in Ukraine and Russia, any clear notion of 'winners' and 'losers' in modern warfare, or of the power dynamics between them, appears much harder to divine of late. No wonder then, that the struggle to control narratives becomes paramount, when events and facts  themselves prove so intransigent. In the context of Iran, can anyone really be surprised that a repressive fundamentalist theocracy might be a match for a narcissistic game-show host when it comes to propagandising? [1.] Perhaps it was always thus - but truly, this feels like the spirit of our age, in all its spectacular delusion.

Analysts are keen to point to this conflict (and to the parallel Russia/Ukraine one) as defining the very nature of 'asymmetric warfare' in the twenty-first century, and so it seems only fitting that images of an Iranian drone and an American fighter jet should take flight across the surface of my painting. The tools each side might employ to gain the upper hand are clearly no longer equivalent in scale, sophistication, or indeed, cost. The degraded field beneath them contains yet even more comprehensive allusions to the idea of 'corruption', as well as fragments of text from Reza Negarestani's 'Cyclonopedia' [2.] (both discussed in my previous post) - along with a barely-discernible mapping of the strategically critical Straits of Hormuz. As before, this painting also employs an element of oily varnish, and multiple weapon-site motifs, for obvious reasons. The latter are somewhat smaller now - but also more numerous, helping to reinforce a slightly greater 'all-over' quality in this painting. If that contributes to a sense of reduced resolution intelligibility - that's perhaps only appropriate.

[1.]:  I note that Iran's recent multi-day funeral demonstrations for its slain Supreme Leader (as reported, at least), appeared to model a scale and supposed unity of purpose only dreamt of in The White House.

[2.]:  Reza Negarestani, 'Cyclonopedia', Melbourne, Aus, re.press, 2008

Completed Painting: '[dc]Petrochemical Machine 01'

'[dc]Petrochemical Machine 01', Acrylics & Mixed-Media on Panel,
400 mm x 400 mm, 2026

Here’s the second of my recent Middle-East war-related paintings, ‘[dc]Petrochemical Machine 01’. Although slightly larger than its predecessor, it’s still pretty modest in scale and  also arrived relatively quickly as the news cycled. Iran’s Kharg Island reappears once again - in slightly more detail this time, meaning we’re still in the world of ‘Deleuzian Cartography’, as far as I’m concerned. Weapons-sight motifs also recur in this one, for obvious reasons.

Of course, the overriding theme here is the importance of oil and other petrochemical products to any discussion of conflict in the Middle-East (or of global politics, economics and trading relations in general, to be honest). None of that is exactly a secret. Whatever other twisted agendas may have sparked this grubby little punch-up (regional hegemony, apocalyptic religious mania, Israeli expansionism, nuclear paranoia, megalomaniacal hubris, macho over-compensation, mortality denial, feigned concern for the oppressed Iranian population - what else have you?) the real story rapidly became how any impediment to the flow of Middle-East oil, gas, fertiliser, etc. effectively equates to a global economic crisis. It’s perfectly consistent with the absurdism of our age that a state supposedly denuded of both military capability and regime leaders within a matter of hours, could subsequently hold the rest of the world hostage, possibly indefinitely, through simple facts of geography. If US threats to obliterate Kharg Island were an early feature of the conflict, it soon became apparent that whoever controls the Straits of Hormuz is the more urgent issue. Cartography, indeed - but I guess reading terrain and interpreting maps is really just the kind of treacherous behaviour one might expect from a devious enemy or nay-saying ‘experts’.

The whole idea of flows, rather than fixable or controllable territory seems key to the current situation, be that flows of liquid oil, flows of commerce and finance, flows of the sea through the Straits of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, flows of information and propaganda, or, indeed, flows of energy/desire/becoming in a Deleuzian sense. Indeed, it may be that an appreciation of fluidity (or failure of same) as a quality, is a key differentiator between the assumptions of ‘The West’, and Middle-East Eastern/Persian/Arabian mind-sets.

In relation to this, it’s worth mentioning ‘Cyclonopedia’ [1.], a work of 'theory-fiction' by the Iranian writer and philosopher, Reza Negarestani. Whilst I don’t doubt Negarestani’s intellectual rigour or academic respectability, it’s fair to say that ‘Cyclonopedia’ is so arcane and convoluted a read as to become almost unintelligible, in large part, to the lay reader (or is that just to me?). Indeed, were he to admit that the whole thing is actually just a massive philosophical joke, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. However, it is also one of those baffling works by which the sensation of bafflement actually becomes a strangely pleasurable sensation. Though a complex concoction of global politics, geology, Middle-Eastern studies, oil trade mechanics, post-Deleuzian philosophy, esoteric/occult insights, hyperstitional invention, dollops of satire, and much else besides, Negarestani somehow hints at an alternative, distinctly metaphysical schema for interpreting the region’s pivotal significance in a world lubricated by oil flows.

I won’t attempt any more insightful analysis than that, other than to say that ‘Cyclonopedia’, does at least supply some kind of unofficial account of how we may have got here (yet again), when - let’s face it, none of the standard strategies can claim any greater credibility. If the desert terrain of the Arabian/Persian world might be seen as a cradle of the nomadic desiring engine (‘War Machine’) that Deleuze and Guattari outlined [2.], perhaps the idea of a ‘Petrochemical Machine’ is no more far-fetched a concept - as motivating impulses go. Certainly, it’s fair to say that this latest Middle East conflict only seems to reinforce the sense of oil addiction being the ultimate hit as well as the craving that kills. Ultimately, flows gonna flow - for better or worse.

Given all this, it seemed only fitting that my painting should include some physical component of an oily nature. This appears in the form of polyurethane varnish, tinted with black enamel, which continued to slide down the painting for about 36 hours, before coalescing into the slicks and runnels that now remain. Although I habitually employ a variety of media, the majority tend to be water based, or at least fast-drying. Using the varnish was a reminder that nothing else quite replicates the viscosity of oil-based media, or their slow oxidisation.

In addition to the cartographic, textual and oleaginous elements on show, I’d also draw attention to the apparently pixellated geometric field occupying the painting’s upper section. This is something that has recurred several times throughout my ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ work. I’ve come to think of it largely as a signifier of failing or corrupted memory - both metaphorically, and as it might appear on a screen. However, in the context of these war-related pieces, maybe such motifs could imply other forms of corruption too. Whether that’s the corruption of moral integrity, of international law, of political credibility, of democracy - or purely of the venal kind (such as allows real estate deals to be struck on the side of supposed conflict resolution talks), I’ll leave for you to decide...

[1.]:  Reza Negarestani, 'Cyclonopedia', Melbourne, Aus, re.press, 2008

[2.]:  Particularly in: Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, 'A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia', (Trans. Brian Massumi), London, Bloomsbury, 1987/2001.

 

'[dc]War Machine 01', Acrylics, Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
300 mm x 300 mm, 2026

Having spent a relatively long period of time methodically developing my ‘[dc]circuit’ suite of paintings, it felt necessary to throw-out something new rather more spontaneously as spring arrived  - and perhaps, something with a few fewer layers of obscure ‘meaning’. As it transpired, Trumpo the Clown and his handler, Bibi, chose to embark on their absurdist attack on the theocratic dystopia of Iran around the same time (what could possibly go wrong?). Consequently, this little panel emerged fairly rapidly as a straightforward reaction to news events. It should require relatively little explanation, I suspect.

Despite its topicality, this piece still finds a place under the general banner of ‘Deleuzian Cartography’. The cartographic element here represents Kharg Island - Iran’s major oil terminal facility, and one of immense geo-political, economic and strategic significance. The weaponry sight motif is an obvious choice, although there is perhaps a small degree of semantic/semiotic nuance to be garnered from the overlaying of a sight, over a site, and the implications one may have for the other. The whole notion of de/territoralisation is clearly at the forefront of any war scenario in crude geographic terms. Sadly, the infantile hyperbole of ‘obliteration’ or ‘decimation’ casually thrown around by the psychos prosecuting this conflict indicates that they’re unlikely to ever get much further than simply grabbing land/assets, massacring school children and blowing stuff up. Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of constructive deterritorialisation is far more sophisticated and nuanced than they could ever hope to understand, and any hopes for a constructive paradigm shift must remain dim, at best.

Similarly, the idea of a ‘War Machine’ is equally clichéd at first glance. However, D&G’s concept of the same is somewhat less familiar - being concerned with the nomadic imperative to be in constant progress towards renewal and innovation. For them it is the engine that drives their desired-for state of perpetual ‘becoming’. The Machine/impulse only becomes about war per se, once it is captured and formalised by the a state in order to further its own ends - be they driven by apocalyptic faith, psychopathic narcissism, all-consuming  greed, or even just the megalomaniacal need to bolster a political base. Thus is it shifted from a vital force, to one with only catastrophic effects.

Inevitably, one thing leads to another, and so there are already a couple more of these war-related pieces also completed. However, as I type this, some kind of supposed ‘deal’ to end the conflict is being touted in the news media, so perhaps there will no real need to produce any more (at least in the interests of topicality). I guess we’ll see…

Completed Painting: '[dc]circuit 04/Deleuze'

 

'[dc]circuit 04/Deleuze', Acrylics, Mixed Media & Paper Collage on Panel,
600 mm x 400 mm, 2026

My set of five ‘[dc]circuit’ paintings have been complete for a little while now, although I’ve been a bit slow in compiling posts like this to accompany them. Let’s crack straight on then, with ‘[dc]circuit 04/Deleuze’. With this one, we arrive at a dedication to the presiding philosophical presence behind all of the work I’ve been producing lately under the ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ banner. To be scrupulously fair, it should probably be titled for Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari jointly, as the specific textual reference is to their co-authored book, ‘A Thousand Plateaus’ [1.], but that risks making an already abstruse title even more unwieldy. Let’s just take it as read that Guattari was a key player in the formation of what we now regard as Deleuzian thought, both through that key text, and its foundational predecessor, ‘Anti-Oedipus’ [2.]. 

The ideas that Deleuze formulated, both with Guattari and in his own right, can be seen as some of the most radical and potentially obscure contributions to the mid twentieth century, post-Marxist (French) canon, and I’m not going to claim to be any kind of expert - or that I fully comprehend half of what they wrote. Even if I was across it all, there’s far more there than any painting (or blog post) can fully encompass. What is true though, is that even at their most dense or confusing, ‘AO’ and ‘1000P’ can provide a thrilling read of the kind that makes even the act of mis-understanding stimulating - and an incentive to keep reaching for further illumination. For anyone keen to follow that path, I would recommend reading around the subject without embarrassment, as there are plenty of commentators out there equipped to interpret the work without quite the same delight in technical language or mischievous obfuscation as D&G often employ. It quickly becomes evident that, as well as operating at the highest intellectual levels (both were highly advanced within their respective fields of Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis), they never lost an all-important sense of play within their project to overturn massive chunks of established theory. Often, one is simply left astounded by the audacity of another massive leap of imagination on their part, even as one is hacking through the next baffling paragraph of ‘explanatory’ text. Inevitably, it’s the questions, not the answers, and a willingness to intuit rather than simplistically box-off the ideas on offer, that really matter. This stuff needs repeated visits before it really starts to uncoil itself. For anyone in need of non-printed insights, I would  recommend the YouTube channels of Acid Horizon and Gavin Young Philosophy, as possible ways in, although, to be honest, there’s a host of others on there equally prepared to smooth the way.

As far as my own paintings are concerned, it may be enough for now to recognise certain key principles within the corpus of Deleuzian thinking. One such is the idea of immanence - a sense of everything, including all physical phenomena as well as our perceptions and understanding of reality, as being in a constant state of ‘becoming’. Clearly, this puts D&G on the side of the creative angels, and it’s certainly the case that they see art activity and creative thinking in general as intrinsic to another central concept - that of ‘production’. From my perspective, the idea of continual immanence also reflects the ceaseless processes of transformation that characterise the urban environment - something I’ve been attending to in my work and banging on about for a long time. 

In cartographic terms, D&G distinguish between ‘drawing’ and ‘tracing’. They see a drawn map as being one which continually adapts to a mutable range of influences and conditions - producing itself in the moment rather than simply tracing-over or ‘reproducing’ a pre-existing schema within established boundaries. They’re talking about understanding and our intellectual/emotional interaction with reality here as much as about the simple charting of terrain. Hopefully though, you can see where all the fragmentation and reconfiguration of street plans in my own work might fit in. The use of quasi-geographical terminology is a commonplace throughout the Deleuzian world, with ‘planes of consistency' or ‘immanence’ and, most importantly, the notion of ‘territorialisation/deterritorialisation’ recurring throughout. Again, the latter term relates ideas and thought generally - the simplistic interpretation being the idea that we should be aspiring to continually formulate new territories of understanding or activity through the dismantling, abandonment, or migration from older ones. Nomadism is thus an important principle for them, not in the sense that we might never pause or establish any new structures/territories, but rather that we should always be looking for a new ‘line of flight’ to propel us on to the next. For them the impetus seems to be less toward cementation and increasing reinforcement of established structures of thought, and rather the ‘assemblage' of concepts and decisive actions, with all avenues of potential dismantling and re-assemblage left open (in all directions). This relationship between the geographic and mental worlds fascinates me, given that my own work aspires to map the territories I regularly inhabit, but also those related to in my reading, and indeed, the meditations they inspire, as I move through my own urban surroundings.

Fluid dynamics (or, ahem - currents) are always more important to D&G than strictly constrained routes (keep ripping up those maps), with a sense of the 'rhizome' (a tangled, if still discrete formation), being far superior to any hieratic formations around a central structure. If the electrons are forced to run around a printed circuit, with all its stops and junctures, the photons that result may scatter in all directions, reflecting back from each new configuration of surrounding objects in the process. They regard the less predictable sprouting of new growth seen in a plant species such as the potato, as being of more value than the mirroring of roots and branches within a tree. Their objection to the latter is that it is merely a reproduction of forms within monolithic constraints, limiting rather than facilitating the generation of anything genuinely new. For them, arborescence represents tradition, the reproduction of established memes, resort to inferior/superior hierarchies - and by negative extension, the potential for fascism as an ultimate conclusion. Oh, and then there’s the ‘Body Without Organs’, but perhaps we should leave that for another day.

If any of this makes any sense at all, I can only hope that some of it might be reflected - even if only to a small extent, in these ‘Deleuzian Cartography’ paintings. If nothing else, I think it’s possible to see some attempt to inject even greater degrees of organic tangle and flow into this Deleuze-dedicated one. And whilst Pollock-dribbles are admittedly, a pretty hackneyed trope by now, there’s still a case to be made for Jackson’s vast, spontaneously-generated networks of fluid enamel as being amongst the most Deleuzian mode of painting - in their mechanics, at least. If you don’t buy that, then maybe just remember that D&G repeatedly emphasised the importance of play - and squiggly drips remain among the most fun you can have with a pot of paint and a stick!

I’ll extend this (admittedly, dense) post with a little more insight into the alchemical theme that also runs through this ‘[dc]circuit’ suite of paintings. The alchemists’ desire to manufacture gold from base metals (typically, lead), has a long and complex history, intersecting with pre-scientific belief systems of many stripes. There are numerous traditions and historical flowerings of the ‘Art’, some going back as far as the ancient Egyptians. In fact, practitioners persist even to the present day, albeit inescapably informed by modern science and in the knowledge of the essential impossibility of the task, in any practical sense. In passing, it would seem that this was probably intuited by many, long before the advent of modern chemistry. Certainly, many deluded and/or opportunist rulers craved the idea of limitless finance to fund their bellicose ambitions or personal coffers down the centuries (plus ça change). However, the picturesque punishments prescribed for any charlatan promising what they could not deliver suggests an understanding that the likelihood of funding another elaborate scam or faux-magical fireworks spectacle was far greater than any serious pay day. However, we also need to allow that pre-Enlightenment thought, even at its most elevated, was far more accepting of the idea of mystical dimensions or hidden knowledge than we can now grasp.

What quickly becomes apparent is that the parallel symbolic, metaphorical and metaphysical dimensions of Alchemy are at least as significant as the physical ones. Down the centuries, many of those involved have come to see the reactive/chemical stages of a misplaced proto/pseudo-science as mapping symbolically onto a deeper quest for philosophical wisdom and/or spiritual enlightenment. This inevitably also ushers-in a left-turn towards alternative readings of religious doctrine, to ‘magic’, and to the occult generally. Dependant on which tradition or interpretation of Alchemy we might consult, we could find three, four, five, seven (or many more) stages described - each connecting a specific set of ingredients and physical actions with associated lexicon of symbolic imagery and identifying colours. These can be seen to correspond with progressive steps in a cyclical journey towards true wisdom or spiritual awakening. No wonder then, that even in our post-empirical era, and long after the entire physical world around us has been entirely reshaped by modern chemistry (and economics), the picturesque, mysterious aspects of Alchemy still hold a fascination in New-Agey circles, or amongst those simply looking for a less-orthodox explanation of existence.

One clearly needs to take all this with multiple pinches of salt (ironically, also one of the ingredients favoured by many alchemists), and I’m certainly not about to grow a long beard or start embroidering moons and planets on my robes any time soon. However, it does feel like the whole idea of combining base mineral ingredients, arcane (possibly counter-intuitive) processes, intuition, and a transcendence of mere practicalities - in pursuit of something enlightening or ‘enriching’, does seem to say something about the whole art-making malarkey too. If Alchemy has long been relegated to the status of pseudo-science in any practical sense, it may still retain considerable currency as a signifier of creative endeavour more generally. 

We should also pause to note that, however accidentally, many of the experiments of the alchemists would lead to genuine discoveries within modern chemistry, once they became over-coded with the scientific method. Notably, these include the development of reliable pigments, as Philip Ball [3.], amongst others, has outlined. Indeed, rather than simply replacing one world view with another, one Enlightenment morning, the process was quite naturally one of gradually applying newer empirical attitudes and methodology to the adaptation of older precepts. As is often cited, one of the founding fathers of modern science (or 'Natural Philosophy', as it was originally called), Isaac Newton, was himself a self-confessed alchemist. That's when he wasn’t also totally revolutionising our understanding of colour or, you know - pioneering mathematical calculus or laying the foundations of modern physics.

In terms of this particular panel, the red or red-purple, ‘Rubredo’ stage was generally regarded as the penultimate (and for many, the most significant) step in the alchemical process. This was the production of the mysterious ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ - a precious and elusive compound supposedly possessing numerous miraculous properties. The ability to release of gold from base matter was certainly important amongst these, but its potential function as a facilitator of metaphysical insight, or even immortality, were clearly of yet-greater significance for many. On reflection, any one of the three would be pretty cool - and maybe not so different from the  aspirations of various artists, stated or unstated, down the years!

There's a world of background information available for those keen to learn more about Alchemical tradition, in both printed and digital forms. Philip Ball's own book on the wider subject [4.] looks well worth a read, but I'll confess I haven't got to that one yet. Those less inclined to turn pages may find useful ways in at: 

https://www.alchemywebsite.com/ 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ__PGORcBKxjPgYQaK1DEi5TmPQVP9xC

If both imply a certain degree of 'buy-in', they also encompass plenty of academic-level research and bona-fide historical sources.

Anyway, I should tie-up this unusually lengthy diatribe by returning to the real matter in hand, i.e. the panel depicted here. As a highly-regarded  academic philosopher - with his own mission to deterritorialise or re-articulate certain accepted doctrines in search of new understandings of reality, Deleuze (and by extension, Guattari), feels like the obvious dedicatee for the red component in my own little moment of transformative, cod-alchemical production. I won’t make any grandiose claims for its ability to act as any kind of Philosopher’s Stone, but if even just a small quota of enlightenment was achieved in its emergence, the effort wasn’t totally misplaced.

[1.]:  Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, 'A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia', (Trans. Brian Massumi), London, Bloomsbury, 1987/2001.

[2.]:  Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, 'Anti-Oedipus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia' (Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem & Helen R. Lane), London, Bloomsbury, 1972/2021.

[3.]:  Philip Ball, 'Alchemy in the Colours of the Renaissance' (Article), London, University College London Chemistry Dept. Bulletin, 2002.

[4.]:  Philip Ball, 'Alchemy: An Illustrated History of Elixirs, Experiments and the Birth of Modern Science', New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2025.