I’ve been gorging on grey today, or at least trying to. Some days you think you know what to do, other days all you can do is guess, and maybe the second is only the first without confidence. I’m pushing on with my grey surfaces. The technical term might be ‘working in series’. A kind of serial guessing that generates a life of its own. You have to be fit to gorge properly. The big painting, not one of today’s, is another of those vaguely nice backgrounds waiting for a nudge. The smaller one, just a magenta-ish line on grey I am quite pleased with. There is something about the way in which the line twists the grey space and creates tension. Or is it all an illusion? Today’s greys are much juicier thus far.
I have tried three times to write a supporting statement for an application to a well –known artists’ site. Writing such a statement is extremely difficult, as others have attested to. The site recommends the reading of some exemplar statements.
I admire the confident tone of some, although occasionally the work seems not to live up to the grandeur of its introduction. Some of it I cannot believe.
There are some who seem also to have difficulties, their writing seemingly expressing discomfort in the process. And I recognise too my desire not to be rejected; I retreated from the writing of my Supporting statement.
But I have a difficulty and must either understand and go beyond it or recognise its validity and withdraw from the process, which is what the following is partly about. If I am to write about the work, I need to know what can be written.
I have been working on a series of paintings which move away from the figurative. The most recent is 6ft x 4ft and is essentially a series of 96 grey disc shapes in a grey field. As with previous work I find that visual and tactile sit close together. The longest dimension is greater than my height and wider than the span of my arms; being close to it is to be inside it. I work on it and over it, increasing and diminishing contrasts, bringing tones as close as leaves little difference, but sufficiently different that closeness never absorbs identity. There is something of the corny ‘therapeutic’ in their making. It is undeniably pleasant, soothing, simply applying the paint. In greyness there is something ‘English’, bordering on the romantic, worryingly sentimental? I need to have something perverse in my painting, something that presents a threat to its niceness, something ambiguous. I ask myself if a disconcerting blandness is sufficiently unsettling? The grey discs are something of a cliché. (I seem to remember a similar pattern on Formica!!) I have in mind problems of ‘style’. Thinking about the possibility of undermining stylistic seductions, I wondered if I could work ‘blind’. But the tactile element of applying paint seems prior to the visual. Seeing the paint surface is not quite simultaneous with its application; the expression is a muscular act before it is a visual consequence. The effect is anticipated by the whole body. There is no escaping myself. Is there a sense in which having a subject is a means of avoiding uncomfortable questions? A figurative form draws attention to itself and distracts me from recognising a truth about what I am doing. Having a painting ‘of’ something could be a distraction from the ‘why’ of the work; it could supress the fear of the answer to ‘why?’
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Painting the surfaces is ongoing. The visual object grows from tactile pleasure. The lines in the paintings seem to create a sinaesthetic tension.
Martin Creed’s Turner installation of the light going on and off drew attention to that point where there is neither one thing nor its opposite, where nothing exists but potential. Line has something of that quality. In the case of a dividing line, the line belongs to both sides and to neither. It both separates and binds. Equal division of surface leads both to balance and to a sense of something unresolved. In the triptych, the lines imply space in the grey texture; what is implied is felt and not directly seen.
Franny Swann’s concern for a coherent body of work (see Forums) has been floating around in my mind whilst painting. The surfaces might be the flower paintings without the flowers? Implicit in Franny’s question is the notion of choice, that we have a choice about what we do and are. Looking at people in general might suggest otherwise. We make ‘choices’ and ‘decisions’ but only in a general dispositional framework. Inconsistency can be as much a dispositional trait as its opposite. Coherence? I find that I am drawn to (disposed to make) a certain kind of line, and mark and to become lost in a certain kind of surface. (It might be called ‘style’?) Like the dividing line, the paintings are located between familiar comfort and my distrust of the comfortable. In the end coherence must be compatible with the unexpected.
I became aware of a painting, ‘God Nose’ by John Baldessari. It is in his exhibition at Tate Modern. I could not understand it. I looked at a reproduction trying to connect the nose with God. It is in the sky; there is a cloud close by. There was clearly a depth of meaning that I could not fathom. I went to the exhibition. As I stood in front of the painting, the penny dropped. I am disposed to experience this kind of puzzlement. It can be quite enjoyable. The last to arrive must be as welcome as the first.
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.
A little stocktaking. It is almost a year now since I began writing this blog. I just read all my posts with some relief that there is not too much repetition. I intend to wander on.
Some of what I have written has been a look at what I feared, projecting what I am afraid of onto what I am looking at. Surface as a concept is deeply puzzling, but surface as an object can seem unproblematic ‘easy’ and this in turn connects with posts recently regarding value judgements – good/bad. I have been thinking that I shall make some paintings that are surfaces, resisting the urge to ‘validate’ them with figurative references. I was looking at some work by Sean Scully and Jackson Pollock. The problem is there with much abstract work, that its great pretensions are vulnerable to mere decorative conclusions. But in reading my blogs, the thought occurs that I might ditch some ‘pretensions’ and have a good time.
Looking at my grey surfaces, brought to mind the late Fred Dibnah who when demolishing a chimney stack, took great pains to do it in a traditional manner by weakening the structure sufficiently for it to collapse when wooden supports placed in holes he had made in the structure burned away. It was time consuming, hard physical work. Fred argued that the effort required to construct the chimney should be paid due respect in its demolition. This is a statement of value. Implicit in Fred’s attitude was a concern for tradition and for something concerning standards. But a ton of explosive might have made him giggle?
One of my avoidance strategies is to go cycling. I went out on Friday.
Half a mile down the road I passed a young man on a mountain bike, earphones engaged, with tyres that would grace a tractor, and looking like he should be in school. I rode swiftly past him and on up the hill. Seconds later, agricultural tyres buzzing, the young man passed me. My heartrate monitor had palpitations and my lycra took immediate exception. It was being being overtaken by a pair of grey trousers and black walking shoes. It took off in pursuit and swept past him. I managed to smile and say “Is this a race?” “If you like.” he replied, smiling back. He was swiftly dispatched and was expected to resume attendance to his earphones. I cycled on. A mile later, another hill, another attack. The black shoes had not understood, and powered past me a second time. Too much for the lycra’s pride. It accepted the challenge. This time on passing him I indicated that lycra cannot tolerate humiliation. He must now have understood; I did not see him again. Sometimes the trivial is a delight. What it all means I have no idea, but I think I’m quite good at making things hard work.
