macro & micro

I feel a new level of recognition has started in my artistic career – I received some hate mail yesterday.

It came through the post – a page from a catalogue of an exhibition I’m showing in – it really did make me laugh, not only has the perpetrator scrawled all over the images, but gone to the effort to place a sticker over my works so the the word ‘Merde’ can be seen clearly – you couldn’t make it up… ‘and even more shit’ on the video still.

The curators know it’s someone they rejected during the exhibition selection process. Well, I know my work’s not easy, but I’ve taken it as a compliment that they’ve gone to all that effort.

On a more positive note, I’ve had some great feedback on the ‘Book / Art’ show curated by Silvie Turner that finishes today; lots of people have really liked my book and would have bought a copy had it been available to buy. And, tomorrow, the ‘Time Out of Mind’ exhibition starts in Camberwell – the PV is on Friday and I’m looking forward to going.

I also submitted a video for ‘One Minute Vol. 5’ organised by Kerry Baldry. I was selected last year for this touring show and thought they’d be a slim chance two years in a row, but last week heard that she wants to include my work again. The showreel travels to some fantastic venues and festivals all over the world, so I’m keen to see what’s in store this year.

All these good things going on further afield, but I’m also a firm believer in being known where you live, that’s why I think it’s a good idea to show my ‘shit’ in the local event. I received this email from one of the curators about the hate mail:

“we think it is *****.
(she is mad)
keep smiling…”

Again, I laughed, but sadly that may be true – I’m keen to write back to her though to tell her that I, on the other hand, really like her work: quirky, naively-drawn characters inhabiting a make-believe world of glowing flowers and psychedelic colours. Maybe it is good to air your views rather than bottling them up inside – the anonymity of the note suggests she is just a little bitter though.

Yesterday was a momentous occasion – all the paintings I have been working on for the past few months are now ready for exhibiting. I can relax a little now.

It feels like the end of a chapter – I suppose I view a short burst of creativity, where all the paintings are closely linked, to recording an album.

Also, in a sense, they belong in my studio, remnants of the frantic activity that has recently gone on and will be taken out of context when they are shown in galleries. The paintings represent what I’m interested in at this particular time and now I can move on to something else. The exciting thing is, I don’t know what is to come in the coming months.

I photographed everything and was really pleased to see them on the computer screen, somehow you view them differently reproduced and it helps assess them. One in particular stood out to me… my studio looks a tip, the painting is one I’ve not given much attention to since it was finished, but the painting photographed grabbed my attention.

It was good to receive a flyer this morning from Silvie Turner advertising her upcoming artists’ book show – which includes ‘Path’ by me. I’ve been so bogged down by preparing paintings for exhibiting during the past few weeks – tidying up edges, screwing in hooks, touching up – that I’ve almost forgotten about the end result, the shows.

I sent ‘Path’ to her a few weeks ago, the end book worked out well – I just need to find the time to promote it now and to create a ‘Path’ website. I also sent the British Library a copy and am waiting to hear if they need additional copies for the other copy libraries.

Back to painting for now though…

Panic is a great motivator. I’ve got three solo shows and a group show coming up during June and July. Will I have enough work? As it is, no. I have been frantically creating and recreating.

I took the drastic decision to change some paintings I made last year which neither have the ‘wow’ nor the ‘subtlely-interesting’ factor. They are a striking cadmium red, which I’ve now decided should be just an occasional accent – there’s no point holding on to them as they are.

I’m also still working on the series of 120 x 120 canvases, meant to be random forms, vaguely clumps of grass on a chalk bank. They’re at the stage that I can leave them and live with them for a few days. They may be finished, but they look very different to the others, maybe that’s a good thing though.

When I’ve not been painting I’ve been re-reading ‘Art and Psychoanalysis’ by Peter Fuller. One of his comments in the chapter ‘Abstraction and The Potential Space’ struck me: ‘the least interesting subject for a painting is painting itself’ (paraphrased). Well, that is one of my concerns, rather, obsessions. The final work though always takes on other layers of meaning, references to the history of landscape painting, glimpses of forgotten memories of nature, hints of the sublime, references to spiritual and religious art. If the work lacks these things, then I suppose it is vacuous, devoid of depth and would be just about paint (as interesting as I find that).

Andrew Bryant has asked me to reflect on my practice living outside the UK… and that has reminded me of a comment made by my MA tutor: “You will never be in such a privileged position as you are as a student being able to work in the studio all the time”. Living here in the Pyrenees allows me to do just that – we’re pretty self-contained and have incomes from various sources, not only from my paintings – a situation that would not be possible in the UK. Thankfully I don’t have to teach and tutor anymore, it was inspirational, but draining, leaving very little energy to paint.

Some people may think that it is self-indulgent for my greatest concern during the week to be that a glaze has dried too quickly, but that’s the life I’ve chosen. A major issue is that what I do is in isolation, I miss regular interaction with kindred spirits – but then there are the contacts I’ve made through AN and collaborations with local and UK artists and musicians. And if I can’t easily visit them, I’ll invite them here to work with me in my studio.

I’m pleased that this summer I have a mix of French and UK exhibitions. The group show in June came about though someone seeing my work on a UK based website – the show will be in Camberwell and of abstract painting; opportunities like this have been pretty rare over the last two years, I suppose due to the financial climate. I’d like to be showing my paintings as much as I do my videos, maybe things are picking up.

It’s funny how you have to enter a particular frame of mind to be able to paint… for me, the process starts with detailed drawings based on zooms of nature; doing nothing also figures quite highly too, well, physically doing nothing and thinking and reflecting on what I intend to do with the paint. This building-up stage can take weeks, it could be viewed as procrastination, but for me it’s all part of the process. It’s definitely not waiting for inspiration, more a ritual.

Last week I started the drawings, a series based on clumps of grass growing on a red-earth hill. Then I projected them onto canvases 120 x 120cm, four of them. I dedicated a lot of time to creating the images even though I know that these initial stages may be totally eradicated by the process of painting, but that doesn’t matter to me; these initial drawing phases are important to prepare me mentally for what is to follow.

This week I’ve been creating textures with PVA and gesso primer on the canvases with what started life as a paint brush but now resembles a stick. This painstaking process may also be obliterated when the real creativity with paint starts. When these textures are dry I’ll start rubbing and dripping paint – if it works, great, but usually the painting has something else in mind and the painting’s direction will have to change. I do have an end image in mind, but the exciting thing is that I don’t really know what will happen.

If I just started throwing paint around, the lack of direction and mental focus would be missing and the end result may reflect that. Sometimes though I do paint with no intention or idea of what I want to happen… making those images work is a nightmare. Maybe making these paintings work will also be a nightmare, losing sight of that initial idea may actually help though.

Making videos is linked to this process – but obviously is not as messy. I’m having a little break from starting any new ones, but not from screenings. My new video ‘St Louis. Path 1’ was screened at Better Bankside in London last Friday by Ottica TV and this Friday that video plus another at Grimsby Minster organised by Grimsby Institute entitled: Lightworks.