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]

'The Basin': Art Trail 1' - 'Visible Form' [Draft 1.0]

 

All Images: Floating Harbour, Bristol, February - April 2023

‘Visible Form’:

Art has the capacity to draw us into mental and emotional places where we can go, let go, and come back. Inserted as a way-marker at the intersection of two such zones, this exhibit is typical of those earliest sculptural forays in what would become a significant international career [one in which such concerns remain constant]. If we can enter the area the forms occupy, we do so only to gain further experience of them and to confirm a sensation of space and volume which the sculpture offered from a distance.

 

Colour is totally demanding once it becomes a priority, and the cadmium imperative is fully condensed here [occurring as a bright yellow coating on sphalerite or siderite, deposited by meteoric waters]. It is an important truth that emphasis upon colour has helped to liberate the modern artist from particular circumstances in his search for general [natural] truths in personal experience.The piece constitutes a delectable arbitrary imposition upon the landscape, but degrees of purpose still accrue [errant incursion is denied; a bootlace may be tied]. The sculpture invites this kind of close involvement. The scale is always a human scale, and the occasional apparently irrational detail serves to hold our attention at close quarters. In this context, botany can never be ruled out, although plants have no excretory mechanism for cadmium.

Significant Yellow Item: #2021.Y004.2 (Third Encounter)

All Images: August 2021

The third instance was characterised by a profound enmeshing.  The grid of cells became scalar and realigned with an architectonic reverie.  The implications of this visitation were being made concrete - stacked within the greater fabric  and swatch-clad.  The clear evidence of adaptation indicated that infiltration was already well advanced  

Time flowed in opposing directions. This new encounter aligned with a spent golden hour.  The presaging was retrogressive, and testament to the wasted disease years.  Chronology -  elasticated.  Wavelengths - extended.

The theory of colour could not be ignored.  But this was the fluid triumph of lumens.  The functions of glow and shimmer defied cataloguing.  Standard frequencies shifted and emanated from within.  Geometry began to dissolve.  It was a sublime facade.

Within the container, the occupants might survey yet greater perspectives.  The loss of resolution signified a greater unification.  Might even a subtle warping be detected, perhaps?  They could gaze down upon the glistening lines, as travellers returned, speculating upon new, unimagined realisms.  Or else - south and east, to the dispatching zone, from whence the infection took hold.

Significant Yellow Item: #2021.Y004

 

Significant Yellow Item: #2021.Y004, Southeast Leicester, January 2021

First contact was made on a bleak day, amongst the city's sweated southeastern tracts.  Overlooked by grim, mal-audited fortresses of piecework, the street itself was an entropic backwater of scattered debris - long drained of energy.  We were already deep into the current emergency, but official restrictions remain of little consequence in such zones.  Consequently, the constant  shift patterns remain unbroken, transmitting one unto another in fulfilment of the contract.  The encounter was soundtracked by a subdued machine clatter, syrupy orchestration and that familiar cinematic wailing, typical of the territory.  Dim illumination perspired from diseased tubes, behind greasy windows, on those occupied storeys.  In the street, the cold was a windless, steady-state fact - bitter and irrefutable.       

We can only speculate about the selection of such a setting.  Motivations remain obscure at the best of times, and the correct context is (as is commonly recognised), essential.  What does seem certain is that an insertion of such high visibility could only have been performed in order to manifest some small release of parallel reality.  The precision-moulded grids and structural intricacies employed, speak of a technology far in advance of our own - as could seen by comparison with other primitive stacked structures that littered the scene.  But it is the chromatic physics of the self-coloured enclosure which really place it outside everyday optical constraints as currently understood.  In the prevailing conditions, it was impossible to comprehend how these wavelengths of light could operate amidst such despondency.  Might even an entirely divergent system of physics be in operation?      

That the artefact should act as a receptacle for routine detritus was  a notable incongruity, even on that most quotidian of days.  Despite its shored-up and expedient surroundings, basic  opportunistic practicality seems inappropriate to its crisp geometry and concentrated radiance.  Such a yellow appears to exceed mere function.  Taking this into account, and also reflecting upon the distinctly artificial off-kilter positioning - the overriding impression is, once more, of some manifestation having been deliberately secreted in plain site.

Completed Painting: 'Untitled 11 (Constructed City)'

 

'Untitled 11 (Constructed City)', Acrylics, Screen Print, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape,
French Polish, Ink, Spray Paint  & Pencil on Panel, 600 mm x 600 mm, 2021

Here's the eleventh 'Constructed City' painting, and the first to be completed in 2021.  Like a lot of other things on here just recently, it's self consciously yellow - with chromatic reference to the saturated and hi-vis primaries often seen on the construction sites that inspire these pieces.

The photographically and digitally-derived motifs floating across the surface are a little sparser this time, whilst the collaged layers of information behind them are far denser and more nuanced than previously.  The balancing of those two tendencies feels like something of a step forward - as does the greater intrusion of overlapping meshes that provide a systematic form of compositional scaffolding.

In keeping with my current habit of having several in progress at once - there's another one, following close behind.  It looks like that will be significantly yellow too.  We'll see...

Significant Yellow Items: #2021.Y001 & #2021.Y002

 

Item: #2021.Y001, Central Leicester, January 2021

• A pair of closely-related golden portals, separated by a few scant metres, within the same parade of commercial frontages.

• In each case, a palpable air of intrigue is generated, despite the presence of specific clues to the current (or intended) function of the spaces within.

• Such clues can also be read as signifiers of frustrated (or deferred) intention, and active change of use, respectively.

• Both items incorporate textual elements of particular interest - primarily:

1. An Admirably Literal Descriptor (Item: #2021.Y001):  Note how the almost total objectivity of this legend is undercut only in respect of kerning.
2. Phantom Graphics - Relating to Previous Function (Item: #2021.Y002): Whilst the city evinces many such palimpsests, it is unusual to witness one of such chromatic intensity.  What might the failure or disinclination to adjust the colouration of the frontage suggest, regarding short-term planning or opportunistic investment?

• Whilst Items: #2021.Y001 & #2021.Y002 occupy separate physical premises [1.], the correspondence between their shared colour palette is so fortunate as to appear planned [2 & 3.].  In each case, uncompromising fields of saturated, primary yellow (possibly cadmium-derived?) act against cool neutrals and accents of reprographic cyan [4.].  Such juxtaposition might, in other circumstances, evoke vibrant energisation.  However, in current, interlocking contexts, the effect is rather one of despondency or tawdriness (or indicative of misplaced design decisions?) [5.].

Item: #2021.Y002, Central Leicester, January 2021

• The issue of inversion is particularly relevant - notably, in the following respects:

1. Chromatic:  In Item: #2021.Y001 a vivid yellow door radiates from within darker, neutrally-coloured surroundings.  This situation is reversed in Item: #2021.Y002.
2. Geometric:  The overall composition of Item: #2021.Y001 plays out within a landscape format.  The door and associated surround are the only major vertically-orientated elements, within a wider framework of horizontally-inclined rectangular fields (certain small graphic elements being the only exception to this organisational principle).  In the case of Item: #2021.Y002, the overall orientation of the rectangular main components is vertical.  Here, a variety of subsidiary horizontal counterpoints can be found within: upper fan-light glazing and associated, vestigial signage framework (incomplete/damaged), letterbox and associated glazing bar, and respective individual window graphics and doorbell/intercom labels - to left and right of door (see also below).  Notably, each of the latter two categories are themselves organised within vertically-inclined boundaries.
3. Occupancy:  Item: #2021.Y001 appears to be vacant and inoperative, being essentially in a state of either redundancy, or deferred occupation.  Both sets of premises comprising Item: #2021.Y002 exhibit overt or implied evidence of at least partial occupancy.
4. Function:  The overall presentation of Item: #2021.Y001, and certain textual clues displayed within it, indicate its intended function within the hospitality/recreation sectors of the economy.  An associated sense of frustration and/or negation is consequently inevitable, within the current context.  Item: #2021.Y002 reveals a dual purpose - split between the domestic and employment related.  The separation between these two modes of activity plays out in the mirrored sequences of temporary-employment vacancy notifications, and resident idents, mentioned above.  Might they also be reunited around the problematic relationship between precarious employment, and the need to meet regular rent payments?

[1.]:  In the case of Item: #2021.Y002, the cyan features are technically applied to the neighbouring premises (see also below).  However, as these documentary images reveal, the overall visual relationship vastly outweighs any such technical considerations.

[2.]:  A coincidental conversation - conducted whilst documenting these items, suggests shared ownership of both enterprises comprised within Item: #2021.Y002.  Whether or not this relationship extends to Item #2021.Y001, remains unconfirmed.

[3.]:  The relationship between chance and intention (within the urban context, and beyond), is a subject whose parameters extend beyond the scope of this post.

[4.]:  Likewise: the relationship between the physically manifested and mechanically-reproduced aspects of the visual city. 

[5.]:  How often are the dual (contradictory) expressive functions of yellow witnessed within the urban environment?

'Constructed City' 17: In Plain Site

All Images: Central Leicester, July 2020

My perambulations around Leicester, to document its major construction sites, have extended ever further over the weeks, as the number of active locations has multiplied.  Strangely though, this one had completely passed me by until now - despite being on one of the city's main arteries - and fairly centrally, to boot.  Midlands sports nostalgists may be interested to know it's on the site of the old Granby Halls - adjacent to the Leicester Tigers rugby stadium.  It's also notable that, for once, the finished building will contain a hotel - and not the usual student hutches. 

Anyway, I suppose it's evidence of how easily one can become entrenched in habits, given that I stumbled across this site during only a slight deviation from my regular route to visit another one, fairly nearby.  The lesson is clear for any self respecting flaneur en velo; the city will always deliver new surprises - as long as one keeps taking left turns.

In its current state, the edifice itself clearly belongs in the same category as those featured in my recent 'Steels' post - but maybe relates to the 'Building With Colour' images too.  Over the months, I've been struck by how each of these sites seems to take on a particular chromatic identity (itself being something which can change dramatically, as the work progresses), and there's no doubt this one is currently 'The Yellow One'.  Long time visitors here will know that 'yellow things' have represented another of my enthusiasms, over the years.  Other than that, it's the customary tale of yet another section of urban sky becoming hatched-in by a complex angular tracery of girders and bare-boned staircases.  Lovely!

Colour / Not Colour 9

Both Images: Central Nottingham, May 2019

It seems I've been resurrecting a few slightly neglected series on here, lately.  The images in this is post could easily fit into one of several familiar categories, including 'Yellow Things', 'Grey Things', 'Scaffolding', or 'Urban Geometry'.  All of those themes have recurred, in one form or another, at different times, over the last few years.  Ultimately though, it feels like the two images, captured only meters apart, in Nottingham, a few weeks back - best illustrate the idea of 'Colour' and 'Not Colour', played out in similarly abstracted subjects (albeit on two very different scales).  

I often tell myself not to be so predictable in my habitual selection of geometrically formal, picture-plane orientated, minimalist, quasi-abstract imagery - but then I walk past something like this, and off comes the lens cap, as if by involuntary reflex.  I guess the eye loves what the eye loves...

Anyway, he function of neutral 'Not Colours' in contextualising actual colours, is something all painters, in particular,  must come to terms with, sooner or later.  And it seems just as important a feature of the urban landscape - where drab masonry or utilitarian surface coatings often rub cheeks with saturated, synthetic (and often self-coloured) materials.  Certainly, both of these examples seem to typify the kind of artificial, industrial colours that interest me far more than traditional artist's pigments, these days.  And, of course - I'm always a sucker for Cadmium Yellow and Battleship Grey.

I often reflect how, in recent times, I've spent hundreds of hours staring at the bits of cities most people just pass by - and how I've sourced far more of my materials in the aisles of B&Q, than in any art materials supplier. 

Primary Source

West Leicester, April 2018

I went out to photograph white vans, the other day, and ended up with this primary-coloured gem, as well (actually, the white vans are there too - in the background).  It doesn't really relate to anything specific in my current work, but is just the kind of thing that purely delights my eye without any other agenda.  It does, I suppose, fit into my recurrent category of 'Yellow Things', although the conjunction of all three primary colours actually feels more significant here.

Actually, I'd been waiting for ages to capture this particular subject.  I pass it regularly, but it's nearly always obscured by the frenetic human activity of one of those busy hand car-wash spots that proliferate in every city.  My chance finally arrived when everyone knocked-off, briefly, for an Easter breather - just as the sun came out.

Given that juxtaposing the three primaries will always tend towards a certain stridency - it feels like my subject has arrived at a perfect proportional balance of yellow-blue-red through entropy alone.  Thinking about that made me reflect on how hard it can be to pull off this kind of thing deliberately in a painting.  What better excuse then, to have another look at one of my all time favourite paintings, 'Molen Mill In Sunlight', by Piet Mondrian?

Piet Mondrian, 'Molen Mill In Sunlight', Oil on Canvas, 1908

I consider Mondrian one of the great colourists in western art - and he would, of course, go on to make a habit of expertly balancing the three primaries in his later Neo-Plasticist paintings.  To achieve it within a coherent representational image, as he did here, feels even more impressive in many ways.  He managed to create a painting which is elegiac (almost hallucinogenically so) and yet also deeply meditative - using what might so easily have been the bluntest of tools.  Closer inspection reveals the importance of those lesser injections of greenish and violet and orange secondaries.  They seem to play a similar modulating role to that of the neutrally-coloured areas of erosion and grime in my own photographs.



  

Yellow Patches

West Leicester, September 2017

It's a while since there's been much yellow on here - so here's some.  I've been waiting ages to photograph this wall.  Finally, the other day, the carpark cleared sufficiently to afford a clear view - just as it became illuminated by limpid Autumn light.

The best things are worth waiting for...

Completed Painting: 'Map 2'

'Map 2', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2015

Here is ‘Map 2’, - my second, just-completed painting of 2015.  It’s always the case that everything seems to take a bit longer than one might hope.  However, my current strategy of working on groups of related pieces simultaneously does seem to be paying off in terms of what would be called workflow in the commercial sphere.  It’s certainly a boost to start the year by completing something new every few days.

It’s also useful to be able to just reach for something(s) else already in progress, whenever a particular piece has got a bit stuck or I’m just sick of looking at it for the moment.  Usually, when I return to the original painting, it seems easier to clear the perceived logjam, - if only because I’m looking with a fresh eye/mind.  There’s no doubt the individual paintings are informing each other and solving problems as they come along side by side.  The only real problem I can foresee is the danger of painting the same picture over and over again.  I need to ensure that these pieces keep spinning off each other, in small ways at least, (even if only I can see them).

'Map 1', Acrylics & Paper Collage On Panel, 60 cm X 60 cm, 2015

Like ‘Map 1’, this painting has been consciously produced with June’s ‘Mental Mapping’ exhibition in Rugby in mind, and most of what I wrote about that one also applies here.  The same basic collage/paint approach, (incorporating found advertising posters), was employed, as were multiple references to the specific site where they originated.  In this case, it’s the same junction in Leicester, and the same portion of street map is repeated at the same scale and orientation, (if a little less dominantly painted).  This was achieved using the same manual methods as before.  Were I to include all the legends, icons and other cartographer’s symbols from the actual A-Z map, it would be definitely become necessary to source a higher-tech form of applying these maps, (and hand over cash, no doubt).  However, for now, I rather like the way the basic street plan operates as an abstract, formal element as well as a potential conceptual clue.

Junction Of Northgate St/Sanvey Gate/Soar Lane, West Leicester, January 2015

Opposite the corner where I salvaged the fallen advertising posters incorporated in this piece, is a building now housing a self-storage facility.  These enterprises have become a significant feature of contemporary cities, and represent a kind of re-materialised take on the idea of The Cloud, I suppose.  Clearly, the whole idea of small parcels of vacancy being a rentable commodity has a lot to say about our relationship with living space, the accumulation of physical possessions and the very nature of our economy.  It’s fair to say the compactness of the British Isles, and their increasing population, are ever-present issues here, along with the increasingly punitive cost of real estate, restricted scale of domestic spaces and paucity of coherent public housing policy.  Tangential to this are the obsessive British equation of land with wealth/status, and indeed, the matter of who actually owns, controls and makes money from tracts of both public and private space of all sorts [1.].

Junction Of Northgate St/Sanvey Gate/Soar Lane, West Leicester, January 2015

My fascination with the numerous primary yellow interventions scattered throughout our man-made environment is no secret, and my eye was inevitably drawn to that building’s garish yellow & violet livery.  If that is one obvious source of this painting’s chromatic scheme; another is the fact that I was able to collage a section of found violet and yellow UKIP poster material into it.  It felt good to be transmuting their pernicious rhetoric into something a little more constructive. [2.].

As already mentioned, my intention with these pieces is to include elements of text actually found at the source location.  Given all of the above, it was impossible to ignore the name of the self-storage company, (hopefully, without actually infringing any trademarks) [3.].  ‘Space’ and ‘Place’ are both, clearly, key concepts in much of what I do, and feel sufficiently open-ended as terms to allow for numerous potential interpretations.  On reflection, they do slightly fuel my current insecurities about habitually defaulting to the glaringly obvious.  Of late, my oft-stated ambition has been to find some middle ground between the visually/sensually derived stimulus and a modicum of conceptual rigour.  If this is to be taken seriously, I may need to consider slightly more oblique or sophisticated strategies, towards my textual elements at least, in future work.

Anyway, for now, I’m happy to call this one finished.  Actually, it’s one of those all too common pieces that I periodically look at and wonder, “What was I thinking?” then, a few hours later, find plenty of reasonably pleasing things in it.  Perhaps it’s all still just too fresh in my eye/mind to really judge.  I’ll confess to a tiny amount of re-fettling of the ‘Space/Place’ text since photographing the painting, but nothing significant enough to justify a re-shoot.  If anything, it just proved there was little to be achieved by further tinkering, and that it’s just time to get on with finishing the next one.

[1.]:  Although it’s way beyond the scope of this painting, it’s fair to say the whole issue of what exactly constitutes ‘Public Space’ is increasingly open to question these days.

[2.]:  The current depressing swing to the political Right is just another reason to feel baffled by the current state of British society.  I would in no way want to suggest that my own observations about available living space here share any common cause with their UKIP's essentially racist analysis of the situation.

While we’re on the soapbox, and in passing, - as a white, liberal atheist who regularly visits Birmingham, I can clearly state that the recent assessments of the city’s cultural profile by Fox News’ so-called Terrorism ‘Expert’ are some of the most inflammatory and ill-informed nonsense I’ve heard in a long time.  Such opinions deserve all the derision we can muster.

[3.]:  I should point out that I haven’t included the word ‘The’ and, beyond being inspired by a colour scheme common to many such enterprises, have deliberately avoided any serious attempt to co-opt their specific corporate identity.