Richard:
These images were taken last Friday evening in the studio, no one was there but me and the mood sort of took me. I had decided that the sticks I have been painting needed to be a little more representative of the actual task of handling them and applying pencil / paint to them – a lot of the work is process led here, much like the work of Ross too. A mark repeated again and again to build up a pattern on a surface – these particular surfaces are thin and long, there is more trajectory than on a wider squarer page.
In fact, here is a good point to say a few words about the resourcing of materials chosen for the show – much of it is acquired from the streets or from renovated kitchens, left over bits of wood or old dusty forgotten coffee tables. The application of pattern to these objects is concurrently derivative of the small pencil drawings and their depicted interiors as well as representative of a way of working I left behind for some reason a few years ago – that being mark after mark after measured mark.
It is this other way of working I think that first brought me and Ross together – it marked, if you will, the beginnings of this project. I remember we sat together at the CCA and just asked each other about one another’s work, and it soon became evident that Ross applies similar methods in his work to the methods I used to use to fill a page. Now, thanks to Ross I have got back to this root in my work and found that a similar process can be used to alter ready made or found objects, re-contextualising them / making them in to props / suggesting their painterly consequences…
It is also interesting to comment here on how much these images are muted and edited. The original shot show the whole of my studio space that houses at the moment a lot of other work that is planned for the exhibition: this work I have chosen not to show here! It is not a reluctance I do not think, more of a careful choice. The black and white helps in this stripping down of context – its more about the document or the evidence. The greyscale edge also makes another link back to the drawings themselves.
The reluctance to share information or images of late is perhaps telling of the stage Richard and I inhabit just now. From Richard’s naritive a few posts back I see him dealing with the practicalities of an exhibition. Transporatation and arrangement are key features of the text. The work is beginning to come together and we will no doubt start to become nervous about the upcoming event as it begins to loom and we find ourselves coming together to actually present something. I have plans to travel to Edinburgh next week so I can spend some time with Richard’s work (I have only seen what is posted here). This should give me some insight as to how our show will turn out.
I’ll let you know what happens.
The last week or so has seen me move back to the west coast and with that comes a greater focus on the finished work for our show.
We have a name and a deadline for our work to be completed. It is becoming more and more of a reality.
I’m reluctent to put our chosen name for the show up here just yet, which coincideds with a reluctance to put my recent images up here as well.
With around six weeks until the opening Richard and I should be keeping some things back so as not to reveal to much ahead of our show.
In saying that I have a number of photos to show you. The abandoned house project is done and along with it one arm of our project.
Now for the show.
Richard:
Suggested title: New Works by Ross Hamilton Frew and Richard Taylor
Storage vs production
It has been over a week since we last touched this blog – in place of bad weather and what’s worse to come hurricane wise… I thought a little narrative would be fitting. I seem to plug in bits of narrative with much of what I do – in fact there are some current projects that have begun entirely narratively, almost in character – but I feel this particular project is more about form, and the translation of ideas in to storage containers (or photographs), these containers will hopefully result in successful delivery and production. But thanks to this shit weather the last thing I want to do is go to the studio, so in place of that, I will do what I usually do – which is to write a brief narrative:
“Oh, when is the show?
If it is late October harvest will be over and I can use the Landrover to get your gear from A to B – no problem”: the clock chimed, it was 11pm and my bus was at quarter past, I needed to get back up the hill past the castle to get some much needed sleep – I had work all day the next day. “Well, I have a coffee table that needs moving, as well as some shelves and most of my plates and picture frames – the rest I think I will leave at A when the time comes… but we have time enough until then. I keep saying that, ‘we have time enough’… but there is less time every time I do say it. I have to run, got to get the bus.”
It was darker on the pavement now,
the Sun had sank passed the hill and the street lamp next to the bus stop flickered with intermittent sulphur tungsten. I think of the underside of each object I had planned to transport, one flick the underbelly and construction of a fold-in coffee table incised by yellow angular blemish – a shape cut by glass accordance and the bus stop standing there next to me, a shape Ross would be proud of. One other flick a glass panel, used to paint an effigy of this light, left on the floor beneath the table – it gives the right sort of reflection to see the table’s affected hidden language. One more flick and the shelf I have next to the table holds a small metal plate that is tilted on its edge and leant against the wall – this is a sketch for my objects and their planned installation.
Ross, the measurement of the table in diameter is approximately one metre – the plate is of ratio 1:10 of this, a diameter of around ten centimetres. The shelf is one part the tangent taken across one side of the table before it is folded, the shelf is adorned with burnt umber.
The sticks – they act as roller trajectories for your brilliant bronze cast balls. They also act as notions for displacing the mire – this mire we talk of – a way of transporting goods from one side to the other.
SOME MORE IMAGES HERE TOO, OF WORK PINNED TO THE WALL BY OTHER WORK.
— WATCH OUT FOR THE painted sticks… you won’t find too many of them in Aberdeenshire… I don’t think. (need to visit first and find out).
