Spinney winney
Swimming, strimming through the water or air
It doesn’t matter
This strange creature defies existence, refuses structure
It lives its life through imagination and sheer determination
Poof, woof, whirrrrrl
It’s as if it discovers new parts as its shimmies along
A myriad of movements and alternative accoutrements
Blobbity blob, bob, flob.
It does have its bad points
A bulbous body, half worm, half slug, with devilish eyes and a laconic view
Flutter, flutter, putt, putt
Ting ting weeeeeee!
But there are always other ways and modes of passage
It occupies a space which is mutable and free
Slipping away at a hint of definition
Teleporting effortlessly through space, time and meaning
I have been suffering from a badly torn meniscus in my knee and whilst I have been able to hobble about ok, it has been very painful. Consequently this has necessitated a fair bit of rest and thankfully the weather has been so lovely that I have been enjoying sitting outside in the garden more than I would normally.
It is all looking pretty overgrown out there, and to be honest, this is what I prefer. There is plenty of foliage and therefore the little birds feel safe and dart from tree to tree. The longer one sits, the more one notices and it is the most ordinary of things that bewitch me.
As a result of this I created a series of art works that revolve around the garden and the small pleasures it provides. These are digitally edited photographs combined with oil painting that aim to evoke a particular moment that I have observed and enjoyed, such as the sun and dappled shade on a garden seat surrounded by overhanging roses, or the way the light falls on the neighbour’s fence framed by shrubbery, or the exotic shape of a plant and the way that it suspends in the air, or a mysterious but romantic looking dark patch of ivy, bluebells and dandelions suggestive of a home for something magical and not of this world.
That moment in the evening
Coming back from nowhere in particular
Thinking about nothing at all
The cars line the streets
And the street stretches ahead
The lights are not yet on
Yet there is an eerie glow
Spreading slowly across the sky
Turning in discomfort
Enormous in its reach
It does not feel natural
But yes, it’s kind of beautiful
And I soak up its aura
Then and now
each slice of life slashes experience like a knife
Streaming past, fast,
elusive, ephemeral,
unable to grasp
Data, images, history, time,
moulded experience, subjective – mine
Yet patterns emerge,
like a haunting musical refrain,
gnawing at the edges of your being,
a dull and piercing pain
Powerlessness and collective guilt,
rumbling, grumbling, tumbling waves on the shore
converge, subvert and obliterate what went before
And what is left, the dust and residue
hangs in the air, an incomprehensible cloud
hiding behind the here and now
We breathe it in and blow it out
It’s the start of a new year and the start of new art work. Currently I am visiting my repository of photographs and cropping these in different ways – fragments of fragments in a sense and seeing how I alternatively view and present these. I am trying to apply an emotional neutrality, as if my take on things is simply a fleeting, temporal glimpse much like a photo on the move, before my attention focuses on to something else.
At the moment I am printing these off on Japanese paper which is meant to be suitable for an inkjet printer, although so far, the printing is not entirely successful. I’ll need to think about what to do about this. I will be collaging and painting within these – applying iterative processes but with different outcomes.
There are various other things I want to think about. One of these is how to use recycled material to print and paint upon, use as a base or frame within, whether this be old cardboard, scraps of wood, or alternative materials such metal scraps. Any suggestions welcome! Also I want to introduce new mark making mediums to my exploration and continue to play with and develop my art writing.
