looking in through my eyes!

Paradoxically I stood there staring at it and found that It felt as though I was looking inside my head,heart...consciousness. I had this tremble in my soul first when I was in my early 20s,long ago and at the same time I remember it all clearly. The painting then was by De Kooning, it was his retrospective at the Tate(even before the Tate Modern existed). Each room dedicated to different decades, the paintings of the late 70s were my culprits. I think they were painted from a visual source,a view perhaps then abstracted as the paint seemed to embody an energy of a moment.

So back to it then, if you find yourself in Edinburgh for this August go to the Talbot Rice Gallery. There are some beautiful paintings by the late Craigie Aitchison that slow the world down to arrangements of colours delicately painted yet possessing a force that cannot be ignored. There is a painting entitled 'holy island', If you want to feel what colour can do then please stand in front of this painting and just breathe.

Island get away

I have just returned from a visit to the Isle of Lewis which proved most relaxing-escaping from city living but also most inspiring as I tried to make sense of the changing light and those allusive clouds. During one of our drives round the island we happened across a gallery and painter, that of Willie Fulton. A Glasgow born artist who has resided in Harris for 30 years with his wife and painter Moira. After a tour of his studio and discussing practices we agreed on a painting swap, so now a lovely piece of the Isles hang upon my wall.

Following my stint on the islands I popped into Edinburgh's Modern Art Gallery and low and behold some fantastic little paintings by S J Peploe of the islands, if you are in the capital please go see they are little gems.

A treasure

On a recent pilgrimage to the holiest of all places-The National Gallery in London I found a fantastic painting that I had not seen before by Monet. Unlike his large water lilly paintings this is a small more personal experience. Standing before it one realises that questions of surface and illusion are being explored as the viewer goes between realities. Does one focus on the floating lilly's or the sky in the illusionary distance?

As you can see my photograph was taken in secret so apologies for the quality. It's one of my habits, stressing out security by standing too close to paintings. I usually get followed around by them, especially in Berlin where however I still managed to take some photos.

Tension

My latest interest is with a painter called Carol Rhodes. For me Rhodes' paintings have that fantastic tension between surface and illusion, where a painting can be seen for its composition, brushmarks, colour and at the same time for its illusionary description. Her paintings are incredibly economical with colour and marks, so much so that one feels as tho the paintings actually exist in a no mans land between knowing and remembering.

Taken hostage

Contrary to the apparent nature of this image, my model -Mandy was in fact free to move at any time (well every 45mins or so). It represents a conscious effort to try and free up my compulsive control while applying the paint.

The studies that i do such as these are an attempt to be aware of the marks I make which in turn feeds into images such as in the previous blog. Learning what kind of marks are out there, that are my own.

In search of the divine

My last 'chit chat' was about Katy Moran and her wonderfully ambiguous paintings. Well searching for the invisible that tantalises the senses, engaging paint and colour-that is what I am aiming for. I was first profoundly moved by painting when i visited the De Kooning retrospective in the early 1990s, I was seriously affected by his work (mostly 1970s work) and realised then that it was possible to affect the viewer in a sensory way that seemed to bypass the intellect. Since then with my training at the Slade and the want to keep my images visually connected to my subject, I have been side tracked from my core wish. The attached paintings are from yesterday and hopefully exhibit some sort of subject but yet allowing the work to be about the colour and marks used.

Gestures and Sensation

Leafing through my new art book-'New Elements in Abstract Painting' I found an artist that has shown a light on a path that interests me greatly. The images attached are wonderful, like forgetting and knowing/experiencing something in the same instant. I find Katy Moran succeeds in fulfilling her intentions on painting: reading of her inspirations, originating from Francis Bacon, Moran clearly states what I have been trying to formulate myself.

‘They’re finished when I can see a figurative element in them ... through the paint I’m searching for the thing it reminded me of, or suggested to me, and trying to get close to that thing.’ The exuberant spontaneity of the gesture is genuine rather than contrived, Moran comments, ‘When I’m making a painting, I get quite excited by how close to awful I can push it, while getting something quite lovely from it as well’.

As a reference for her conviction that ‘somehow unintentional paintmarks convey a more convincing reality,’ she cites painter Francis Bacon’s comment during an interview with art historian David Sylvester, ‘An illustrational form tells you through the intelligence immediately what the form is about, whereas non-illustrational form works first on sensation and then slowly leads back into the fact.’-"Starting with sensation..." - great stuff!