Completed Suite of Paintings: '[dc]circuit_'

 

This & Following Three Images: '[dc]circuit Suite, Mock-Up A'.
1:10 Scale Model, MDF, Card & Paper, 2026

This marks the culmination of my ‘[dc]circuit’ suite of paintings, as featured in a series of recent posts. As I have already mentioned several times, it was always my intention to produce these five closely-related panels as a composite whole, to be hung together, should the situation ever arise. Although they were all completed some months ago, the problem of exactly what that configuration should be remained, not least because the varying formats and dimensions suggested something other than a simple straight-line arrangement. Without a convenient wall of sufficient scale to physically experiment (even were one to commit to the process of repeatedly fixing/making good), a scale model was the obvious tool to employ - the results of which you can see here.

 

As is so often the case (for me, at least), this turned into a slightly over-engineered mini-project in its own right. However, the process proved fruitful, providing more than one possible configuration for potential use in the future. Mocking it all up at 1:10 scale gave just enough space for a camera to effectively share the potential viewer’s point of view, and to give the impression of occupying the same physical space as the paintings themselves. This often feels like the hardest thing to envisage when approaching any display or exhibition situation (physical ‘presence’ feels increasingly fundamental, in my view), and anything one can do to answer the attendant spatial conundrums feels like time and effort well spent. That’s not to say that further fine-tuning would never occur on any given hang, but starting out with a reasonably confident plan to work out from will usually save a lot of floundering around, particularly where practicalities deviate from the ideal (as is usual).

At the moment, I feel like my second attempt ('Mock-Up B') is my favoured solution here, although any of these configurations would probably work pretty well. I’m sure I could play around a lot more (and I probably will, in idle moments), but for now, it’s pleasing to know that the five panels should work well enough together with some degree of flexibility, and that all the hours that went into their production weren’t totally wasted. Let’s face it, getting one painting to function is hard enough - juggling multiples is something else again. Do I think everything is 100% successful? - well, nothing really ever is, obviously. Do I feel sufficiently content to stand by them, both as individual elements, and as a composite group? - yes, I think I do.

This & Following Five Images, '[dc]circuit Suite, Mock-Up B', 1:10 Scale Model,
MDF, Foamboard, Card & Paper, 2026

So, it just remains to give a final overview of the supposedly alchemical chromatic scheme that functions across the five panels. As discussed before, the idea of a clumsy search for auto-didactical enlightenment is signalled by both the references to specific authors/philosophers and the depiction of lighting circuits included in each of the panels. This led, tangentially, via some coincidental reading [1.], to an association with the whole idea of alchemical tradition, being both a (misguided) experimental attempt to transfer base metals into more precious alternatives, and a parallel (possibly equally misguided?) search for knowledge, wisdom, or even spiritual elevation, through a corresponding series of defined stages. Depending on which sources/traditions one refers to, the number and exact significance of such stages may vary widely. However, it is generally the case that any particular stage in a move towards ‘enlightenment’ can be mapped onto a possible chemical reaction/process, and by extension - an identifying colour (be it symbolic or physical). This felt like an appropriate serendipitous scheme to hang my suite of paintings on - a handy, ready-made solution, if you like. The rational for it is as follows…

This & Following Four Images: '[dc]circuit Suite: Mock-Up C', 1:10 scale Model,
MDF, Foamboard, Card & Paper, 2026

‘[dc]circuit 01/Sartre’:

Black [‘Nigrido’]: Black seems a fitting enough identifier for Jean-Paul Sartre, the most famous of the Twentieth Century Existential philosophers - and one which might signify both the despair often attributed to his world view, and the void that he and others of an existential bent are assumed to be routinely staring into. In alchemical terms, black (carbonisation) represents both the breaking down of source materials through combustion, and the dissolution of the self/ego complex through psychosis, prior to a more enlightened process of reconstruction. In ‘Nausea’ [2.], Sartre describes his protagonist’s traumatised acceptance of the meaningless of existence, and subsequent embrace of a creative path of self-actualisation (as a fiction-writer) as the only possible way forward. 

‘[dc]circuit 02/Borges’:

White-Grey [‘Abledo’]/Blue-Green [‘Prismatic’]: The dedicatee here is Jorge Luis Borges -  surely a prime figure in Twentieth Century philosophical fiction writing. I now wonder if I missed an opportunity to include a little silver here, given Borge’s Argentinian heritage, although this one really comes too early in the alchemical process to actually produce any precious metals. Alchemically, the white phase can be seen as signifying purification or absolution, as the physical/spiritual residue of the primary stage are washed away. My panel turned out more grey than white, but this feels acceptable enough, as accents of white gradually emerge - as if from a mess of ashes. For many alchemists, a fleeting but ultimately deceptive prismatic blue-green phase - often called ‘The Peacock’s Tail’, may also manifest at this stage (as in my circuit). This signifies a seductive, false impression of success, with ‘chasing the peacock’s tail’ meaning essentially to mistake the map for the terrain. The labyrinths in which one might thus become lost are a prime Borgesian motif, and the direct overlaying of an actual-sized map onto the actual landscape forms one of his most astounding images in ‘On Exactitude in Science’ [3.].

‘[dc]circuit 03/Proust’: 

Yellow [‘Citrinitas’]: For a spiritual/philosophical alchemist, the yellow (sulphurous) phase may represent a movement, from a lunar/silver/reflective consciousness, towards a solar/golden/affective mode. It can be seen as a first step preceding true self-actualisation. Accordingly, we can see Marcel Proust’s multi-volume opus, ‘A la Recherche du Temps Perdu’ [4.], as one man’s attempt to reclaim too many early years wasted in vain pursuit of society’s superficialities, via an extensive creative act of memory-based psychic reprocessing. As with Sartre, fiction-writing is the chosen method employed. Certainly, he claimed to have succeeded in reframing his life to his own satisfaction as a result. When I close my eyes, I often see Proust’s sensuously remembered world as bathed in yellow light. It’s probably just a fond imagining of all those lost, shimmering French summers, or perhaps an impression of the beach at Balbec. 

‘[dc]circuit 04/Deleuze’:

Red-Purple [‘Rubredo’]: As it is dedicated to Gilles Deleuze - the philosophical figure presiding most powerfully over all of this work, it seems only fitting that the fourth panel should reflect the colours of the alchemists' fabled ‘Philosopher’s Stone’. For the more financially-driven practitioner, this fugitive, magical substance is the catalyst necessary for the final production of material gold. For those dedicated to a less worldly path, it may actually be the more valuable substance - being magically able to unlock whole new dimensions of philosophical understanding or spiritual enlightenment, beyond mere riches. Key to this is the idea of a cyclical process of ever-becoming, with enlightenment being essentially ineffable - even as it is perpetually unfolding. Clearly, that all sounds pretty ‘woo-woo’, until one remembers that Deleuze, and his collaborator, Félix Guattari, regarded the philosophical framework they laid-out in ‘Anti-Oedipus’ [5.] and ‘A Thousand Plateaus’ [6.] as being, above all, rooted in practical action in the material world. For them, a state of perpetual becoming was key to the potential avoidance of ossified or destructive influences in the world, and a state of being to be most fervently wished for (not least for anyone engaged in self-identifying creative endeavour, or in opposition to any perceived descent towards the Fascist imperative).

‘[dc]circuit 05/Kafka’:

Gold: In alchemical terms, gold is, of course, the impossible goal [7.], and as such - the single most potent signifier of venality, hubris and pre-scientific misunderstanding - all rolled into one lump of shiny shit (now, who does that make us think of on the present-day world stage, I wonder?) As mentioned in my previous post, it also suggests my own personal literary ‘gold-standard’ - namely, Franz Kafka. Kafka is, of course, the pre-eminent author of absurd futility, repeatedly outlining a terrifying world seemingly dedicated to the frustration of any attempt at human happiness or coherent understanding. Does this ultimately refute the whole idea of an over-arching yearning for enlightenment? Well, yes - I guess, until one remembers Sartre’s insistence that all we can do is construct our own personal narratives of ‘meaning’ - not in order to ultimately explain or understand existence, but simply so that we might endure its fundamental indifference. Perhaps that’s where the only true wisdom lies: it certainly feels like what most artists are attempting.

[1.]:  Peter Demetz, ‘Prague in Black and Gold’, London/NYC, Penguin, 1997

[2.]:  Jean-Paul Sartre, 'Nausea', (Trans. Robert Baldick), London/NYC, Penguin, 1963 (1938).

[3.]:  Jorge Luis Borges, 'On Exactitude in Science', in 'The Aleph' (Trans. Andrew Hurley, London/NYC, Penguin, 2000

[4.]:  Marcel Proust, 'In Search of Lost Time' (In Seven Volumes), London/NYC, Penguin, 1913-27/2003

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

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

[7.]:  Amazingly, even as I was working on the ‘[dc]circuit’ suite, reports emerged from the Large Hadron Collider facility at CERN of the apparent, creation of infinitesimally small and fleeting traces of various elemental metal particals, including gold - as a by-product of certain particle-colliding experiments. Could it be that the old alchemists intuited something 'real' after all - and that they were simply waiting for the science and technological infrastructure to catch up?

[Composed using only organic intelligence.]

Completed Painting: [dc]circuit 05/Kafka

'[dc]circuit 05/Kafka', Acrylic, Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
400 mm x 400 mm, 2026

Finally, we reach the fifth and final panel in my suite of ‘[dc]circuit’ paintings - namely, ‘[dc]circuit 05/Kafka’. Given the alchemical sequence implied in this group (as discussed in my last post), it’s only fitting that this one should be gold(ish) in its overall palette, and a variety of metallics do catch the light when it’s viewed from certain angles. It also seems appropriate that this one should be dedicated to Franz Kafka - my own personal gold standard when it comes to influential/inspirational literature. Given all my other tastes, it’s perhaps too predictable that I should also be a Kafka fan-boy, but there it is - he’s as good as it gets for me, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

This is the smallest of the set of five - being 400 mm square. When I first began to envisage these panels I decided to break my usual habit of painting related works or series of works at the same scale and format, and to inject a little more irregularity into proceedings. Therefore, whilst the three rectangular elements share a 600 mm x 400 mm portrait format, this one and ’02’ are square, albeit radically different in scale (’02’ being 600 mm x 600 mm). It felt important that the gold panel should be the smallest, suggesting a degree of value/scarcity, or perhaps that the best things often come in small packages. As is well known, Kafka’s novelistic oeuvre is also pretty small, and regarding ‘finished’ ones - even smaller. Admittedly, he somewhat made up for that with his copious output of short stories, but it was the novels I had particularly in mind here - specifically, ‘The Castle’ [1.].

Although it is never directly referenced in the text, it seems clear to me that Franz’s castle is, to all intents and purposes, the Pražký Hrad of his own home town, Prague. Anyone familiar with that destination knows how that massive edifice presides over the rest of the city, whilst somehow managing to remain strangely aloof. Just like Kafka’s castle, it is physically difficult to access frontally, involving a trek across the wide river on a congested bridge, before climbing steep streets and a formidable flight of stone stairs. The nominally ‘easier’ far entrance still involves a tram journey to a stop that many out-of-town visitors will fail to recognise, thus requiring a significant back-tracking exercise on foot. 

Of course, Kafka’s own castle is as much of a state of mind as a physical entity, with his hapless and reluctant Land Agent, K, repeatedly failing to gain acceptance by its ruling bureaucracy, and by extension - the infuriatingly obstructive denizens of the lower settlement, just as he fails to locate the correct route to a building he can clearly see. That neither his duties or any estate under his purview are ever defined, and that all roads repeatedly deny him access, seem to speak both to the Deleuzian idea of de/territorialisation mentioned in my previous post, and to the constant processes of random cartographic atomisation that characterise my work. As the novel unfolds, it becomes evident that gaining grudging favour from above is also difficult for the characters K encounters, and very easily lost also - for reasons none can fully explain. Worse still, he appears to become increasingly complicit in the worsening condition of any with whom he might have formed a relationship. As an outsider lacking any previous knowledge of the Castle and the impenetrable social hierarchies it dictates, he really never stood a chance. Kafka abandons his novel mid-thought (just as death interrupts a life, perhaps - allegory fans), suggesting he has become just as exhausted as is his protagonist, by the impenetrable world he has depicted.

Anyone lucky enough to visit Prague’s Hrad for ‘real’ will know that it is to encounter an enclosed, self-rposessed world of interlocking courtyards, internalised worship, arcane libraries, barred towers, and even a ‘hidden’ lane set aside for its incorporated subordinates. It is built on such a scale as to constitute a separate city within a city, and one has little sense of the streets below, once one is absorbed within its walls. For all it’s status as a prime tourist spectacle, complete with occasional outbursts of picturesque pageantry, it mostly exudes an air of eerie implacability and hidden intelligences - a fitting seat perhaps for the truly incestuous Hapsburg elite for whom it became at least a partial H.Q. The aforementioned and quaintly claustrophobic ‘Golden Lane’, enclosed towards the rear of the castle complex, was originally built for the royal goldsmiths, and it transpires that one of Kafka’s sisters later rented one of the small dwellings there for a while. Franz would occasionally visit, to write in relative seclusion.

My own little panel scrambles maps of the surrounding Hradčany district, along with a (partial) ground plan of the edifice itself in eroded form. The addition of a ghostly ‘K’ should be fairly obvious - it being the single most significant Kafkaesque ‘character’, if one refers to the protagonists of his three novels. My translation of ‘The Castle’ to ‘Das Schloss’ reflects the fact that, as a member of the minority Jewish population of Prague, Franz was expected to speak and write in German rather than the dominant Czech tongue. In effect, he was himself culturally marginalised twice over.

Whilst engaged in the production of these ‘[dc]circuit’ panels, I also happened to read a popular history of Prague, ‘Prague in Black and Gold’, by Peter Demetz [2.]. Of particular interest was the chapter outlining the reign of Rudolf II (the Bohemian lands being just one component of his territorial possessions as Holy Roman Emperor). Rudolf stands as a singularly picturesque but somewhat reclusive member of the Hapsburgs - a dynasty not exactly short on eccentric  characters. He ruled as HRE between 1576 and 1612, and is often seen as having partially  facilitating the catastrophic Thirty Years War that would convulse Europe, through his ineffectual  or misguided statecraft. Of more relevance to my own project is his status as one of the most voraciously acquisitive Renaissance collectors of art, jewels, weaponry, specimens of natural history, proto-scientific equipment, and exotica of all kinds. Alongside his famed ‘cabinet of curiosities’, he compiled an extensive and fantastic library to reflect his many interests and enthusiasms - not least of which was Alchemy. During Rudolph's reign, the numerous artists, scholars, philosophers, astronomers, astrologers, antiquarian dealers and cultural envoys invited to his court, were accompanied by a small army of alchemists - many of whom were patronised in their researches by the Emperor. Notable amongst these were the infamous John Dee and his distinctly shadier associate, Edward Kelley.

Thus it was that, for a period, Prague became famed as an alchemical hot-spot throughout Europe. Numerous medieval cellars throughout the ‘Golden City’, some still buried beneath the grand Baroque architecture that tourists now flock to admire, would become choked with fumes and encrusted with residues from experiments of varying degrees of toxicity and/or fatality. One might even argue that, at certain subterranean locations, the very fabric of the Prague became chemically altered - just as it was perhaps psychically transformed by the alchemists’ quest. I’ve long been fascinated by the ideas behind what became known as Psychogeography, but can’t help wondering if Psycho-chemistry isn’t also a label we might usefully employ. After all, any city is a kind of reactive crucible, whose multiple narratives might be recounted through the resulting accretions of grime, patination and chemical residues found on every surface.

Anyhow, his concludes my posts relating to each of the individual ‘[dc]circuit’ panels. However, the actual intention was always to compose an assemblage of five components that might be viewed as a whole, and I’ve yet to decide exactly how successful (or otherwise) I may have been in this. Lacking any easily accessible wall large enough to hang the group, I really need now to mock them up in miniature to assess how well they work together, and in which configuration(s) they might best be viewed. Certainly, their deliberately varying shapes and sizes dictate that a little creative experimentation is required there. Therefore, I hope to devote one more post to the group as a whole - and perhaps also to detail the overall alchemical sequence as it is finally revealed. 

Sometimes it feels like documenting all this stuff is almost more work than making the blinkin’ things in the first place!

[1.]:  Franz Kafka, ‘The Castle’ [Trans. J. A. Underwood], London/NYC, Penguin, 1926/1997

[2.]:  Peter Demetz, ‘Prague in Black and Gold’, London/NYC, Penguin, 1997

[Komponiert ohne künstliche intelligenz]

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.

Completed Painting: '[dc]circuit 03/Proust'

 

'[dc]circuit 03/Proust', Acrylics, Paper Collage & Mixed Media on Panel,
600 mm x 400 mm, 2026

Here is the third panel in my set of five '[dc]circuit' panels, the full title being, '[dc]circuit 03/Proust'. In this case the literary reference is to Marcel Proust's magnum opus, 'À la Recherche Du Temps Perdu' - in particular, the second volume (of seven), 'A l'Ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleure' [1.]. Continuing in the same stylistic mode as '[dc]circuit 01' and '[dc]circuit 02', the rhizomorphically reconfigured cartography here relates to Paris and Proust's fictional resort of Balbec (in reality, Cabourg in Normandy), as well as to my own immediate environment in Leicester. A key element of Proust's novel is his (unreliable) memories of youthful seaside holidays, of illusions inspired by travel in general, and of the emotional impact of rail travel, in particular. It is therefore no coincidence that cartographical references to Parisian railway terminals, the Grand Hotel and Casino in Cabourg, and Leicester's long-since repurposed Great Central Railway Station are all visible in this piece.

The elusive philosophical relationship between space and time are key concerns in all of this 'Deleuzian Cartography' work of mine, just as they are in Proust's writing. It's also fair to say that this panel is just as powerfully influenced by the philosophical modelling of time outlined by  Proust's contemporary, Henri Bergson, as it is by the complex ideas of Gilles Deleuze himself. Bergson's ideas prefigure Deleuze in several respects, and he also offered a subjective/metaphysical account of time as an alternative to the strict Relativity of Einstein's since-dominant model. My own humble intention is not to necessarily take sides with any of these super-brains (or even to claim full understanding of their ideas) but rather, to take delight in the push and pull of their various interpretations/explanations of 'Existence', as they play out in the overlapping arenas of Art, Science and Philosophy. If, as the LED circuit motifs recurring throughout these paintings suggest, a modicum of enlightenment is available, it is still hard-won. Nevertheless, the questions are always far more interesting than the answers, so why not start with the 'easy' ones? 

Of course, it's impossible to think about Proust (or Bergson), without reference to the nature of memory, and how we continually use it to reprocess our experiences within our perceptions in the present. The subjectivity and corruption of our memories have long been noted by numerous writers, thinkers and brain-scientists, and seem, if anything, even more pertinent in an age when increasing amounts of our thinking and remembering are contracted-out to machines. The visual hint toward corrupted pixellation, and gigabyte labelling in this piece are included as nods to this.

As already mentioned, there's yet another strand of possible meaning layered into the colours used in this '[dc]circuit' suite. Superficially, the yellow chosen here seemed a perfect accompaniment to the summery vibes of Proust's reflections en vacances, but is also emblematic of the third reactive stage identified by many of the historical practitioners of Alchemy, in their attempts to manufacture physical gold and/or spiritual enlightenment. This is also true of the black and (nominal) white of the two previous panels. You may be already despairing at my eagerness to overload these paintings with yet more pretentious thematic freight, and the tradition of Alchemy is certainly a complex subject to be casually tossing-in (and one with numerous potential interpretations of its own). However, the relationship between hard science and subjective philosophy do appear to be of clear relevance again here. It's also worth noting that all of my current work seems to come about as much as a result of the books I happen to read during my regular coffee-fuelled local perambulations, as from the spaces I physically inhabit whilst on them. During the gestation of these pieces, this included a history of Prague (an alchemical hot-spot) amongst all the other posh literature and baffling French philosophy. This organic, often random or impulsive, drip-feed of information, and the tangle of mental correspondences it inspires, seems very much in the Deleuzian spirit of energy flows, lines of flight and immanent production - to me, at least. Anyway, I'll try to offer a few more clues about this alchemy business in my next related post...

[1.]: Marcel Proust, 'In Search of Lost Time', Vol 1 'In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower' (Trans. James Grieve), London/NYC, Penguin, 1919/2003

[Sans A.I.]

Completed Painting: '[dc]circuit 02/Borges'

'[dc]circuit 02/Borges', Acrylics, Mixed Media & Paper Collage on Panel,
600 mm x 600 mm, 2026

Here's the second in my set of five '[dc]circuit' panels. This one is '[dc]circuit 02/Borges' - offering, as it does, some kind of tribute to the literature of Argentinian author, Jorge Luis Borges. Here the circuit diagram motif, which overlays all five of the '[dc]circuits', becomes entangled with elements of maze-like geometry, which itself emerges from the underlying reconstructed cartography that anchors the set.  Further overarching insights can be gleaned from my post about '[dc]circuit 01'.

Labyrinths are, of course, a recurring motif in the short stories of Borges - not least in 'The  Garden of Forking Paths' [1.], as referenced in thematically consistent Chinese characters here. Indeed, mazes seem to characterise the intellectual convolutions of his fiction perfectly, with its tendency to fold back into itself in preference to supplying any straightforward narrative conclusions. More directly, they are also analogous to the self-contained (and possibly confounding) complexity of the urban environment. Here, along with references to my own familiar terrain in Leicester, the underlying cartography also relates to Buenes Aires and Geneva - the two cities most closely tied to the author's life.

Clearly, the square format used for this panel differs from the rectangular proportions of its predecessor.  Whilst dimensions often correspond across the set, it was never my intention to blindly repeat the same panel format - or even to envisage each piece simply hanging in a level row. In fact, the final arrangement of the set, were they to be exhibited, is one major issue that remains to be settled. In the absence of a convenient empty wall of sufficient size readily to hand, I imagine I'll need to shuffle around some photographic versions - printed at scale, to decide on that. It's quite possible that various alternative arrangements might suggest themselves, rather than a single definitive hang, but there's only one way to find out...

[1.]: Jorge Luis Borges, 'The Garden of Forking Paths', in 'Fictions' (Trans. Andrew Hurley), London/NYC, Penguin, 1941/2000

[Compuesto sin A.I.]