Falling
This painting started with a photograph of a building in the middle of being renovated, a very large tarpaulin covering it. I wonder where on earth one could find such a huge swathe of material? It covers like a shroud. What is it about this I find so sad, I wonder? The idea of covering up, like a dead body being enshrined within folds of material, the obvious religious connotations. I can’t help but think of teardrops, melancholy, the feeling of falling
One wonders what is underneath, a skeleton of a building, hidden rooms, doorways and windows maybe. Is it derelict, or is it something being reborn?
I took various photographs of other buildings similarly covered up. I wanted to convey an idea of a conglomerate of falling shrouds. I set them amongst a tangle of trees – simply because the branches looked messy and complicated, representing the complexity and all-embracing structure of human life.
Within the folds of material I have included a few obscured doors and windows and created a sense of movement amongst the wafts of material. It reminded me of a world amongst the trees – an Eco warrior city. My painting within the image was subtle, to highlight and deepen and to add an extra veil that glides over the top in parts.
I think of Franz Ackermann’s work, his extremely large and colourful paintings, suggestive of vibrant and sprawling urban and city environments. My work is much quieter, subdued in colour and size, more closeted in its depictions.
Drapes, folds, covers, shrouds, layers upon layers where we can only glimpse what may lie behind. Responsibility, social expectation, habit, shyness, self-consciousness, humility, necessity, mask our own faces. It is often hard to see the sadness that dwells within people – we can only glimpse it through the cracks or under the covers.
