THERE HE GOES…
I have gone back to ‘There He Goes’. I always thought I wanted to but I needed some time away from it to think and identify what it was I wanted to change.
In the meantime the colour had become even more chalky. Originally I thought this was down to using turps substitute instead of white spirit but the surface of paint began to crack so I thought it might be something else.
It was actually the primer I had used which was not a proper gesso. The canvas wasn’t sealed properly so it became loose and oil seeped out through the back. You live and you learn.
To try and seal off what I had done already using a varnish, with the hope I could layer more paint on top normally.
The varnish brought some of the colour back but the cracks continue to show through the next layers of paint.
It will have to become a part of the painting but I think I’m unlikely to include it in my degree show exhibition now.
I also reworked the eyes. I completely blocked them out and made them more subtle.
Looking back I wish I had blocked them out in a dark colour rather than white so I could work from dark to light again.
I think this painting photographs strongly but the paint and the problems I have had with the canvas has put me off this painting for the time being. I’m not satisfied with the out come.
I might do another version of it in the future but right now it feels like that image is done and that chapter of my project finished.
Response to visiting Emmerdale butchery, Suffolk.
I created some responses based around colour and interaction with the materiality of my paint.
This is a video which records and documents how I saw this experiment transforming into congealed flesh and skin.
-Ink and oil paint on cardboard.
A few days ago I visited a butchery and took photographs of the meat hanging in there walk in fridge.
I did this to gather images to use as reference for colour palate.
Meat and flesh is a relationship I wanted to explore since the beginning of this project as it is a theme that reoccurred in my dissertation and has done through out art history.
– Soutine and Rembrandt, ‘Carcass of Beef’.
I had thoughts while I was there about flesh in an in between state – something Jenny Saville has identified in her work.
It was in-between being an animal and being meat. Bacon once said that the colour of meat made it alive. How could it be dead with that richness of colour.
The camera / setting I used did not capture fully the reality of colour and there is no way to capture the physicality of the room.
It smelt. There was dripping blood. I was dodging around the meat as I moved through out the room taking pictures.
Some strips of flesh had nipples on it. It was sad to see that. It reminded me this was a creature.
I have reworked and developed Trapped Flesh I and II.
I felt that Trapped Flesh I in particular needed strengthening and a few more hours work spent on it.
I experimented with bees wax to increase the texture of my paint.
This means there is now another level to this painting – another dimension – texture, consistency and layer.
I have had some trouble deciding what to do with the eyes in this painting as there is a dominance when they are prominent which feels to me to dictate the emotion of the painting.
This is a problem i predicted might happen in the beginning of my project.
By just giving an indication of the eye it allows the viewer more interpretation.
More like a conversation than a dialogue.
I still feel I need to find some where in between.
It has been a while since I last posted. In the mean time I have been getting stuck in to my painting for the run up to the degree show.
I have moved from my studio at uni to my studio at home. There is more room here and less distractions. In this period of time I have been very productive and I feel my project has developed in leaps and bounds.
My next few posts bring you up to date on what has been happening in my work since I last posted and to let you know the steps I will be taking in the last 2 weeks until assesment and degree show!
