Having a studio away from my home has meant that amidst the chaos in our house (due to moving) I have been able to make new work without distraction.
I’ve been painting in my studio, a few new series. It was difficult to get back into the swing of it again, but through perseverence some new directions have been discovered.
The first new development has been to use a squeegee to pull the paint over a sheet of aluminium, layers of paint create great depth. I think there is some mileage in this and plan to make more.
The second is a little out of my comfort zone, but I’m a firm believer that to make powerful work one must avoid ‘safe’ work… I’ve been using painterly marks over my usual texture of lines – the contrast between the neat lines and seemingly chaotic marks over the top are surprisingly successful. Is this the direction I wish to follow? I was very conscious not to slip back in to a recognisable landscape with a horizon line and to be honest it was difficult to retain the marks that don’t refer to the landscape, that exist as marks in themselves, which refer only to the paint surface.
This development has encouraged me to think again about abstraction. I have just finished reading about painters from the RCA prior to the ’90s… All the Professors of Painting from the ’50s to the ’90s encouraged figurative work; abstract painters did exist during this period, but one writer explained “…in England, figurative art has never been allowed off stage for more than five minutes. It is our national, established taste”. So, from this point of view, my work flows against the tide. My abstraction has evolved (subconsciously and consciously) out of making the work, in a similar way to Turner, gradually became devoid of figurative elements and emphasising process, mark-making and materials.
I went to an opening of an exhibition by a friend the other day. His work is abstract, but has links to landscape, as does mine. The profoundly strong impression I had at the exhibition was that he had given a lot of himself to the work, they were deeply personal and not just about the application of paint to a surface. The intensity of the paintings reveal that they were not easy images to make (or view). They demand more than a quick glance from someone passing by… So what struck me at the opening was overhearing someone explaining she liked the colours and thought the forms were evocative – this may be viewed as a complement by many artists, but for me I’d feel that the work had become diluted by the inability of the spectator to enter in to some sort of communion with the work. (In any case, how could that be possible within the context of an opening in a gallery?)
This issue plays on my mind a lot, it makes me ask: “What is the point in showing the work if the power and raw experience encountered when painting is removed by the spectator?”. I don’t think it’s a reason to stop making, more it’s a reason to limit the life of the work to its creation, not to let it out of the studio. How many people these days really ‘get’ the work as intended by the artist? I know that once it is made and released to the world it adopts a life of its own; but, if it is appreciated at the most shallow of levels, because it matches someone’s decor for example, then that’s the beginning of the end.
This is strongly linked to the subject-matter of abstraction; a figurative painting can be judged on other levels beyond colour, form and line (meaning that the narrative/story can be appreciated and interpreted), but, for an abstract painting those elements can, and should, lead to something more (perhaps the sublime, the numinous, the Wholly Other) – I’m such an old Romantic! I’d prefer to bypass the language of figurative narrative and cut directly to the essence of the painting which could act as a mediator.
Having said all that, there still needs to be an audience and market for the work…
