Underneath where that almost terracotta red square is lies a cartoon style picture of an ejaculating penis. I know this because I see it every day. There’s something really interesting about the reality of painting over, it’s about editing, erasing, cover-up, anti-propaganda, hatred of anti-social behaviour or just change of direction. Some things are painted over badly and this terracotta square will always remind me of an ejaculating penis.
I have been exploring the idea of cover-ups or painting over in my painting recently, a lot of my paintings have a painting underneath. Painting over almost immortalises the underneath, but only for the people who knew it was there.
I once had a digital camera that decided to start saving images over existing images, covering up the old images. It just so happened that the photos that went, were the ones I wanted most, but since I no longer have them, the images are lodged in my memory better than any other. There’s something about the process of covering or painting over that makes a martyr out of an image.
