The grey surfaces. I have been painting them. I have been trying to think about ‘theory’. I don’t have one/any. I just do it. It keeps bothering me that I just do it and cannot justify it. I keep wittering on about this kind of thing, but I just have to continue until I work it out of my system. Maybe it is a necessary anxiety that drives a search. I could just write it to myself and then burn it, but the idea that it is released into virtual space and just hangs around actually generates a perverse kind of pleasure. There are two elements to the thinking about it and the making of it. One concerns the formal attributes of the painting. The second is the subject-matter. A related possibility is that the form is the subject. I like doing it. I spent a large part of yesterday painting narrow lines on grey surfaces. They look like they ought to mean something. But then again perhaps it is just a matter of enjoying the experience. At times I quite envy artists who have a project. There may be security in the knowledge that a project is in progress. Perhaps my surfaces could be anchored to reality with one big meaningful word? Having no project and still painting may necessarily result in a lowest common denominator of painting like grey surfaces or nice still life work. I have no desire to make nice still life work, or to paint landscapes. It might even be arguable that almost having no project is the essential foundation of what I do. Grey surfaces are a comfortable way to sidestep the construction and research involved in having a project. I don’t mind my work being profoundly uncertain, that would achieve something. I don’t want it to be a monumental misunderstanding. (Although at least a lifelong misunderstanding would never reveal itself.)
I read an obituary of Charles Harrison recently and was inspired to buy Art in Theory 1900 – 2000 which he edited with Paul Wood. I expect that younger artists are familiar with it through their art education. It’s full of interesting ideas. Some of them might help. And yesterday Arsenal threw away a two-goal lead at West Ham.
