statements
Some thoughts on my painting
My process usually starts with another two dimensional source, often a photograph that I've made or a small drawing directed or prompted by a photograph.
When I paint I prefer to have the canvas flat on my high standing table or on the floor. I like to be over the motion and journey of my hand and brush. This is perhaps akin or closer to drawing or even writing than it is to a painterly process. I frequently work on the canvas turned upside-down or on its side.
The marks in my work are perhaps a kind of poetry or prose.
My marks need to be precise, my best “handwriting” and not slapdash. As I am dyslexic these marks, more than English, feel like my first language. I’m literate in this tongue.
I mark the surface so that it speaks, hums, sings, resonates with texture and colour.
My marks are simple translations or rephrasing or decoding or rendering or transliteration or adaption or elucidation of what I see or what I think I see or what I want to see or what I think might be hidden under the surface or behind of what I see.
My marks and gestures attempt to be independent and self referential, but they are also shepherded by my minds tendency to scan and order into some form of representation.
I spend a lot of time working on a part of the picture and when it's finished, I begin another area. Every now and again, I will place the picture on the wall and stand back for a moment. This “standing back” unnerves me as I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking at or for. I prefer to be over and in the picture, amongst my gestures.
When starting I like to find and mark the centre of the picture’s plane, a point to tether myself, like a handhold or mindhold. I like to line-up the horizon line to form a balance; I like to have balance. Everything springs or hangs from the central point. With it, I know where I am. It stops things floating and charges the spacial plane with the pull of gravity.
I like listening to music. I almost never work in silence. After I switch the lights on, I turn the radio on; it’s always tuned to BBC Radio 3. As a child i grew up with the radio always on playing pop music; there was never silence. As well as the radio in the studio, I might listen to CDs or podcasts and sometimes I might watch tv or a film. Sometimes I may listen to birds outside my studio. I like my mind to be occupied and elsewhere whilst I work, allowing the gestures of my hand, with help from my gut, to hold the space of the picture independently.
I work very directly, quickly. Before I begin a larger work I've already begun to consider the colours by making smaller drawings, but there are always opportunities that arise to interpret something again or in a different way; an area that might have been millimetres in size in a small work, suddenly becomes something the size of my hand and as it opens itself up, demands a different kind of attention.
I like washy coloured areas, made by a scrubbing motion with my brush. I like the sound the surface makes when I scrub. On to these somewhat ephemeral spaces I like to confront them with a deliciously thick painted series of marks. The shapes and the marks push and pull one another, creating an energy or friction. I see the painterly marks like leaves floating on water, hovering above the scrubby fields of muted and matt colour.
In the Landscape
The landscape and nature is grounding.
The landscape invites me to physically navigate it, drawing me away from being too confined within my own head.
The landscape allows me to be aware of the elements external to myself and my thoughts.
The landscape acts as a mirror, reflecting patterns in myself, inviting and allowing me to make intimate physical and emotional connections.
The landscape connects me to my own history, the person I was and my ancestry.
The landscape allows me to shift my perspective and to feel present in my own body.
Other Artists
More and more I am aware that all the artists I’ve ever looked-to are with me in the studio. I continue to actively welcome them, my door is always open. As a young artist perhaps I pushed away any signs or mentions of the work of other artists; the entanglement of ego. Now, with age and wisdom, I acknowledge and warm to their enriching company.
June 2022
Returning to Landscape
I spent my childhood in and with the landscape of Somerset, at the edge of south Bristol. My early sculptural work, whilst still in Bristol, dealt with its landscape and used its materials. As I journeyed, I left this landscape and went into the city, where my work took on political themes that dealt with the processing of both outer and inner battles and conflict.
I fought many battles and was confronted with a toll to pay.
The UK’s decision to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s election had left me completely stranded in an internal turbulent space; I was washed-up.
At this time I made a large body of work, the ‘Post Truth’ series, in Pembrokeshire, both on the land and at the sea’s edge. I felt a seismic shift in myself and the work I made.
I have again returned to the landscape.
To be in nature is grounding.
As I physically navigate the landscape I am drawn away from being too confined within my head. I am aware of the elements external to myself and my thoughts. The landscape acts as a mirror, reflecting patterns in myself, inviting and allowing me to make intimate physical and emotional connections. The landscape connects me to my own history, the person I was and my ancestry. The landscape allows me to shift my perspective and to feel present in my own body.
Every day I make photographs; my small camera is never far from my reach. A predominant horizon or central line defines the balance in my photographs, it’s a way of organising the world before me. These compositions calm and centre me. Some of my photographs stand as works in themselves and others act like sketches, a way of gleaning information. From these photographs I make other work.
I’m fundamentally a mark-maker and translate my seen and felt world into a series of tics, twitches, dots, nods and shakes. This I see as coding, language, dialogue in and with itself. These marks have an erratic energy, they hum in response and in unison to one another, working within the safe confines of the planes perimeter. The recent global pandemic and its lockdowns gifted me with time and space to reflect on my position, stance and how I want to live and think. My studio has been a safe place and companion during this time. A kind of refuge or place of retreat, a thin or liminal space.
May 2021
moody blues
"His drawings have a devotional quality. Drawing on the humble, mundane materials and images that dominate our everyday experience (and I deliberately use the expression "drawing on" in both its literal and metaphorical sense), they worry away at them, pull them back and forth, reflect on them repeatedly, compulsively, until their physicality and their meaning is trans- formed. Like rosary beads worn down by a lifetime of prayer, or a totem constantly made and remade, through the very act of repetition their quotidian ordinariness is transcended"
The above quote is by my friend, the artist and writer Derek Horton. It is part of a piece he wrote in response to my paint chart drawing in 2014 entitled 'Walnut Shadow Hoar Frost Satin Heart Retreat Gloss Room Room - The Drawings of Phill Hopkins'. I use it here, in relation to my 'Moody Blues' as I think it offers assistance when considering them. I like painting over things. I like painting a grubby wall with white emulsion paint. It occurs to me that when I paint on an existing images (in this case my pho- tographs of houses taken where I live and the 'questioners' from the 'House of Questions') it's akin to an archaeological digging away. I'm not necessarily getting rid of something or scraping-away, but isolating an image in order to focus on it, to discover what it is. Derek suggests that my work has a "devotional" aspect and I think this is very true. I often make series and the 'Moody Blues' are part of this working pattern. I sometimes work kneeling on the studio floor or standing at my high worktable. Many a time I think of this as a kind of physical or body prayer, a meditative contemplative activity.
September 2020
walking ahead
I have been making the 'Walking Ahead' photographs for a long time, it's a large series. During 'lockdown' I continued to make these works of a solitary figure. Often when walking with others I will fall behind or run ahead to capture moments. There might be two things at play here. There is the character of the walker, that we see up ahead. We can imagine what thoughts they might have or perhaps where their journey might be taking them. Then, there is the character of the photographer, or you as the viewer, watching from a distance, or maybe, keeping your distance. There might be a sense of lag, or that of being let behind. Or is it simply solitude?
On each of the photographs there are touches of blue. I had wanted to connect with these images, to break their surfaces. I had realised this when I was handling other photographs whilst I had wet paint on my fingers. I then decided to recreate this once careless accident. Is the holding of the photograph similar to that of holding a camera?
September 2020
blue & pink
When I think of blue, I see a light blue.
I remember the big sky above Hartcliffe whilst playing as a boy.
I remember small jet airliners passing across it, leaving a trail of vapour. I always thought the aeroplanes to be leaving Lulsgate; they were never returning.
I dream often of flying, of being able to take-off from the ground. Sometimes I’m being chased and I fly to get away. At other times I’m gently flying and looking down on a city.
There is a photograph of me as a boy wearing a light blue shirt.
My first recollection of using light blue is for my degree show at Goldsmiths’. I painted the walls of the space I used with it. A large tin of paint, that I had had mixed for it accompanied me to Leeds and I started using it when drawing.
I’ve used this colour for thirty-five years.
I think of light blue as hopeful, positive, it can take me somewhere.
When I think of pink, I see a dusty kind and nearer to blue.
I know this pink from Guston. I first saw it at the Whitechapel in 1982, my first term at Goldsmiths’, upstairs from a Bruce McLean show which I mistakenly preferred at the time. I remember quickly walking through the Guston show and not responding to it at all. I continue to regret this.
At Goldsmiths’ I made a sculpture of a mirror on a stand, made from steel and painted it pink. When my daughter Alice was six or seven, she wanted her room painted pink, all of it. I painted the whole room pink, the walls, ceiling and floor. She had pink accessories. Around fifteen years ago, after the pink had been hidden under consecutive layers of white matt emulsion, I removed a small piece of wood from the wall and under it was the pink. Later I bought a tin of ‘Sugar Sweet’ paint from Wilkinsons, it was the closest to the memory of the small patch of pink. I have used this pink since then.
When I think of pink or use this ‘Sugar Sweet’ pink, it evokes being a parent, a father alone with his children. It dredges up painful memories of divorce, loss and sadness. Although I see it as a celebration of my daughter, I also recognise it as belonging to a painful past.
July 2020
considering 10x8
I like the feel of the 10x8 size. I like the scale. When I take photographs I had been thinking about a smaller area through my viewfinder (don't start thinking I think a lot, most of the time I'm just quietly looking and recording) and then cropping down. I've been considering leaving images in a much more raw state, standing back from cropping down to 10x8. Through my viewfinder I'm noticing what's on the periphery more and wanting to be more inclusive rather than to exclude. Perhaps more subtle and real. See Instagram feed HERE
May 2020
lamentations
I'm starting to see my current work, 'Walks during lockdown' series, 'Nolan country' series and even before in the 'Post truth series' of 2016, as forms of lamentation.
"Lamentation names what is wrong, what is out of order in God’s world, what keeps human beings from
thriving in all their creative potential. Simple acts of lament expose these conditions, name them, open
them to grief and anger, and make them visible for remedy. In its complaint, anger and grief,
lamentation protests conditions that prevent human thriving and this resistance may finally prepare the
way for healing" Kathleen O’Connor
May 2020
on using gloss paint
Nobody ever taught me how to paint with oils or acrylic. If I try to use them, I feel completely untrained. A fraud. An amateur.
At school I chose the subject ‘Building and Home Maintenance’. I was shown the basics of skills such as bricklaying, wallpapering, plumbing, electrics, sign-writing and I was taught how to paint with gloss paint; a door, a skirting board. So when I now make work using household paints I feel that I am trained. I know what this paint is. I am familiar with how the brush feels when loaded with gloss paint. It feels comfortable and I know what I am doing.
April 2020.
I Pray For An Art - A Manifesto
I pray for an art...
I pray for an art that is inclusive of beer
I pray for an art that is both funny peculiar and funny haha
I pray for an art that is just
I pray for an art that is unexpected
I pray for an art that is undeserving
I pray for an art that is full of mistakes
I pray for an art that is unwelcome
I pray for an art that is uncorrected
I pray for an art that is undoing
I pray for an art that unmasks
I pray for an art that is both and/or
I pray for an art that is a shadow boxer
I pray for an art that is emotional
I pray for an art that is sensitive
I pray for an art that is low on ego
I pray for an art that is free at the point of entry
I pray for an art that is honest
I pray for an art that is fair
I pray for an art that can be economic
I pray for an art that can occasionally be extravagant
I pray for an art that is not stewed
I pray for an art that does not piss about
I pray for an art that doesn’t need a run up
I pray for an art that is human
I pray for an art that does not give itself away
I pray for an art that is frail
I pray for an art that is graceful
I pray for an art that is laid out like a buffet
I pray for an art that is sparse
I pray for an art that is hidden
I pray for an art that is lonely
I pray for an art that can be animal, vegetable or mineral
I pray for an art that is both imperial and metric
I pray for an art that is early to rise and early to bed
I pray for an art that occasionally stays up late
I pray for an art that is sometimes beyond explanation
I pray for an art that is a unique song
I pray for an art that does not lead a life of quiet desperation
I pray for an art that sometimes gives a shit and sometimes doesn’t
I pray for an art that is disobedient
I pray for an art that is aware its fucked-up
I pray for an art that is unsure of itself
I pray for an art that is anxious
I pray for an art that is partly bought at Asda
I pray for an art that knows where it stands
I pray for an art that is free from overthinking
I pray for an art that is susceptible to failure
I pray for an art that is unsuccessful
I pray for an art that is a slow learner
I pray for an art that can sometimes overwhelm
I pray for an art that can become angry
I pray for an art that welcomes
I pray for an art that is hesitant
I pray for an art...
Published on the occasion of the exhibition 'A House Within A Home' at BasementArtsProject Leeds, UK. Part of On The Corner / Index Festival / Yorkshire Sculpture International Festival. 10 August 2019
In short
I find it hard to remember a time when the work I made wasn’t influenced by current news stories and world events around me. I have been aware for some time now that the work I make is filled with a similar energy as the work I made as a teenager, for example, when I was stirred-up by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
I am interested in the unraveling and processing of news stories, often depicting conflict, in my domestic setting and the attempt to somehow make sense of the encounter, question myself and then to make a response of some kind.
The surfaces that I make work on and the materials that I choose are as important as the subject matter. I am interested in materials that come from the time that I am living in now. I use very ordinary things; my supplies come from hardware shops, things that I find as I'm going about or items that have been put aside and then passed onto me. Pieces of melamine discarded from old kitchens, offcuts of plywood with the penciled workings-out of a joiner, household paints and varnish, water-based gloss conflicting with part-used tubes of oil paint...these materials resonate with me, I know and recognise this stuff. I understand it as a kind of archaeology of the present. However ordinary these materials are I feel passionate about them.
Thoughts about my work
I find it hard to remember a time when the work I made wasn’t influenced by current news stories and world events around me. I have been aware for some time now that the work I make is filled with a similar energy as the work I made as a teenager, for example, when I was stirred-up by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
I am interested in the unraveling and processing of news stories, often depicting conflict, in my domestic setting and the attempt to somehow make sense of the encounter, question myself and then to make a response of some kind.
I have made a great deal of work about the ongoing conflict in Syria. I made reference to the devastating destruction and the fleeing of people from their homeland. My response as always was one of utter unbelievable horror, destruction completely beyond my understanding. With the flow of news I turned my attention towards people in refugee camps. This wasn’t an overtly conscious decision, but a case of my continued following of the narrative provided by the media.
I was in despair after the UK voted to leave the European Community, dramatically increased on hearing the result of the American presidential election . Consequently my current work has undergone a major shift.
After the turmoil of the Brexit vote, during the build-up to the American election and in the mist of a family struggle, in October 2016 I spent some time on the coast in Pembrokeshire, Wales. I took hundreds of photographs of the empty sea. In an attempt to straighten my mind I edited these down to 65 black and white images. Returning to my studio I started to make paintings based on the photographs. The images and my application of paint became more and more turbulent, increasingly so after the presidential election result.
These new paintings are called the ‘Post Truth’ series, currently numbering over 35 works. They are made on thick Fabriano paper that I was given, using household paints and varnishes, spray paint and what comes to hand. The surfaces that I make work on and the materials that I choose are as important as the subject matter. I am interested in materials that come from the time that I am living in now. I use very ordinary things; my supplies come from hardware shops, things that I find as I'm going about or items that have been put aside and then passed onto me. Pieces of melamine discarded from old kitchens, offcuts of plywood with the penciled workings-out of a joiner, household paints and varnish, water-based gloss conflicting with part-used tubes of oil paint…these materials resonate with me, I know and recognise this stuff. I understand it as a kind of archaeology of the present. However ordinary these materials are I feel passionate about them.
In tandem with the new paintings, I am using prints of the original 65 black and white photographs, placing them underneath the wet paintings, catching drips and other studio debris. The paintings and photographs are intrinsically bound together.
January 2017
My process usually starts with another two dimensional source, often a photograph that I've made or a small drawing directed or prompted by a photograph.
When I paint I prefer to have the canvas flat on my high standing table or on the floor. I like to be over the motion and journey of my hand and brush. This is perhaps akin or closer to drawing or even writing than it is to a painterly process. I frequently work on the canvas turned upside-down or on its side.
The marks in my work are perhaps a kind of poetry or prose.
My marks need to be precise, my best “handwriting” and not slapdash. As I am dyslexic these marks, more than English, feel like my first language. I’m literate in this tongue.
I mark the surface so that it speaks, hums, sings, resonates with texture and colour.
My marks are simple translations or rephrasing or decoding or rendering or transliteration or adaption or elucidation of what I see or what I think I see or what I want to see or what I think might be hidden under the surface or behind of what I see.
My marks and gestures attempt to be independent and self referential, but they are also shepherded by my minds tendency to scan and order into some form of representation.
I spend a lot of time working on a part of the picture and when it's finished, I begin another area. Every now and again, I will place the picture on the wall and stand back for a moment. This “standing back” unnerves me as I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking at or for. I prefer to be over and in the picture, amongst my gestures.
When starting I like to find and mark the centre of the picture’s plane, a point to tether myself, like a handhold or mindhold. I like to line-up the horizon line to form a balance; I like to have balance. Everything springs or hangs from the central point. With it, I know where I am. It stops things floating and charges the spacial plane with the pull of gravity.
I like listening to music. I almost never work in silence. After I switch the lights on, I turn the radio on; it’s always tuned to BBC Radio 3. As a child i grew up with the radio always on playing pop music; there was never silence. As well as the radio in the studio, I might listen to CDs or podcasts and sometimes I might watch tv or a film. Sometimes I may listen to birds outside my studio. I like my mind to be occupied and elsewhere whilst I work, allowing the gestures of my hand, with help from my gut, to hold the space of the picture independently.
I work very directly, quickly. Before I begin a larger work I've already begun to consider the colours by making smaller drawings, but there are always opportunities that arise to interpret something again or in a different way; an area that might have been millimetres in size in a small work, suddenly becomes something the size of my hand and as it opens itself up, demands a different kind of attention.
I like washy coloured areas, made by a scrubbing motion with my brush. I like the sound the surface makes when I scrub. On to these somewhat ephemeral spaces I like to confront them with a deliciously thick painted series of marks. The shapes and the marks push and pull one another, creating an energy or friction. I see the painterly marks like leaves floating on water, hovering above the scrubby fields of muted and matt colour.
In the Landscape
The landscape and nature is grounding.
The landscape invites me to physically navigate it, drawing me away from being too confined within my own head.
The landscape allows me to be aware of the elements external to myself and my thoughts.
The landscape acts as a mirror, reflecting patterns in myself, inviting and allowing me to make intimate physical and emotional connections.
The landscape connects me to my own history, the person I was and my ancestry.
The landscape allows me to shift my perspective and to feel present in my own body.
Other Artists
More and more I am aware that all the artists I’ve ever looked-to are with me in the studio. I continue to actively welcome them, my door is always open. As a young artist perhaps I pushed away any signs or mentions of the work of other artists; the entanglement of ego. Now, with age and wisdom, I acknowledge and warm to their enriching company.
June 2022
Returning to Landscape
I spent my childhood in and with the landscape of Somerset, at the edge of south Bristol. My early sculptural work, whilst still in Bristol, dealt with its landscape and used its materials. As I journeyed, I left this landscape and went into the city, where my work took on political themes that dealt with the processing of both outer and inner battles and conflict.
I fought many battles and was confronted with a toll to pay.
The UK’s decision to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s election had left me completely stranded in an internal turbulent space; I was washed-up.
At this time I made a large body of work, the ‘Post Truth’ series, in Pembrokeshire, both on the land and at the sea’s edge. I felt a seismic shift in myself and the work I made.
I have again returned to the landscape.
To be in nature is grounding.
As I physically navigate the landscape I am drawn away from being too confined within my head. I am aware of the elements external to myself and my thoughts. The landscape acts as a mirror, reflecting patterns in myself, inviting and allowing me to make intimate physical and emotional connections. The landscape connects me to my own history, the person I was and my ancestry. The landscape allows me to shift my perspective and to feel present in my own body.
Every day I make photographs; my small camera is never far from my reach. A predominant horizon or central line defines the balance in my photographs, it’s a way of organising the world before me. These compositions calm and centre me. Some of my photographs stand as works in themselves and others act like sketches, a way of gleaning information. From these photographs I make other work.
I’m fundamentally a mark-maker and translate my seen and felt world into a series of tics, twitches, dots, nods and shakes. This I see as coding, language, dialogue in and with itself. These marks have an erratic energy, they hum in response and in unison to one another, working within the safe confines of the planes perimeter. The recent global pandemic and its lockdowns gifted me with time and space to reflect on my position, stance and how I want to live and think. My studio has been a safe place and companion during this time. A kind of refuge or place of retreat, a thin or liminal space.
May 2021
moody blues
"His drawings have a devotional quality. Drawing on the humble, mundane materials and images that dominate our everyday experience (and I deliberately use the expression "drawing on" in both its literal and metaphorical sense), they worry away at them, pull them back and forth, reflect on them repeatedly, compulsively, until their physicality and their meaning is trans- formed. Like rosary beads worn down by a lifetime of prayer, or a totem constantly made and remade, through the very act of repetition their quotidian ordinariness is transcended"
The above quote is by my friend, the artist and writer Derek Horton. It is part of a piece he wrote in response to my paint chart drawing in 2014 entitled 'Walnut Shadow Hoar Frost Satin Heart Retreat Gloss Room Room - The Drawings of Phill Hopkins'. I use it here, in relation to my 'Moody Blues' as I think it offers assistance when considering them. I like painting over things. I like painting a grubby wall with white emulsion paint. It occurs to me that when I paint on an existing images (in this case my pho- tographs of houses taken where I live and the 'questioners' from the 'House of Questions') it's akin to an archaeological digging away. I'm not necessarily getting rid of something or scraping-away, but isolating an image in order to focus on it, to discover what it is. Derek suggests that my work has a "devotional" aspect and I think this is very true. I often make series and the 'Moody Blues' are part of this working pattern. I sometimes work kneeling on the studio floor or standing at my high worktable. Many a time I think of this as a kind of physical or body prayer, a meditative contemplative activity.
September 2020
walking ahead
I have been making the 'Walking Ahead' photographs for a long time, it's a large series. During 'lockdown' I continued to make these works of a solitary figure. Often when walking with others I will fall behind or run ahead to capture moments. There might be two things at play here. There is the character of the walker, that we see up ahead. We can imagine what thoughts they might have or perhaps where their journey might be taking them. Then, there is the character of the photographer, or you as the viewer, watching from a distance, or maybe, keeping your distance. There might be a sense of lag, or that of being let behind. Or is it simply solitude?
On each of the photographs there are touches of blue. I had wanted to connect with these images, to break their surfaces. I had realised this when I was handling other photographs whilst I had wet paint on my fingers. I then decided to recreate this once careless accident. Is the holding of the photograph similar to that of holding a camera?
September 2020
blue & pink
When I think of blue, I see a light blue.
I remember the big sky above Hartcliffe whilst playing as a boy.
I remember small jet airliners passing across it, leaving a trail of vapour. I always thought the aeroplanes to be leaving Lulsgate; they were never returning.
I dream often of flying, of being able to take-off from the ground. Sometimes I’m being chased and I fly to get away. At other times I’m gently flying and looking down on a city.
There is a photograph of me as a boy wearing a light blue shirt.
My first recollection of using light blue is for my degree show at Goldsmiths’. I painted the walls of the space I used with it. A large tin of paint, that I had had mixed for it accompanied me to Leeds and I started using it when drawing.
I’ve used this colour for thirty-five years.
I think of light blue as hopeful, positive, it can take me somewhere.
When I think of pink, I see a dusty kind and nearer to blue.
I know this pink from Guston. I first saw it at the Whitechapel in 1982, my first term at Goldsmiths’, upstairs from a Bruce McLean show which I mistakenly preferred at the time. I remember quickly walking through the Guston show and not responding to it at all. I continue to regret this.
At Goldsmiths’ I made a sculpture of a mirror on a stand, made from steel and painted it pink. When my daughter Alice was six or seven, she wanted her room painted pink, all of it. I painted the whole room pink, the walls, ceiling and floor. She had pink accessories. Around fifteen years ago, after the pink had been hidden under consecutive layers of white matt emulsion, I removed a small piece of wood from the wall and under it was the pink. Later I bought a tin of ‘Sugar Sweet’ paint from Wilkinsons, it was the closest to the memory of the small patch of pink. I have used this pink since then.
When I think of pink or use this ‘Sugar Sweet’ pink, it evokes being a parent, a father alone with his children. It dredges up painful memories of divorce, loss and sadness. Although I see it as a celebration of my daughter, I also recognise it as belonging to a painful past.
July 2020
considering 10x8
I like the feel of the 10x8 size. I like the scale. When I take photographs I had been thinking about a smaller area through my viewfinder (don't start thinking I think a lot, most of the time I'm just quietly looking and recording) and then cropping down. I've been considering leaving images in a much more raw state, standing back from cropping down to 10x8. Through my viewfinder I'm noticing what's on the periphery more and wanting to be more inclusive rather than to exclude. Perhaps more subtle and real. See Instagram feed HERE
May 2020
lamentations
I'm starting to see my current work, 'Walks during lockdown' series, 'Nolan country' series and even before in the 'Post truth series' of 2016, as forms of lamentation.
"Lamentation names what is wrong, what is out of order in God’s world, what keeps human beings from
thriving in all their creative potential. Simple acts of lament expose these conditions, name them, open
them to grief and anger, and make them visible for remedy. In its complaint, anger and grief,
lamentation protests conditions that prevent human thriving and this resistance may finally prepare the
way for healing" Kathleen O’Connor
May 2020
on using gloss paint
Nobody ever taught me how to paint with oils or acrylic. If I try to use them, I feel completely untrained. A fraud. An amateur.
At school I chose the subject ‘Building and Home Maintenance’. I was shown the basics of skills such as bricklaying, wallpapering, plumbing, electrics, sign-writing and I was taught how to paint with gloss paint; a door, a skirting board. So when I now make work using household paints I feel that I am trained. I know what this paint is. I am familiar with how the brush feels when loaded with gloss paint. It feels comfortable and I know what I am doing.
April 2020.
I Pray For An Art - A Manifesto
I pray for an art...
I pray for an art that is inclusive of beer
I pray for an art that is both funny peculiar and funny haha
I pray for an art that is just
I pray for an art that is unexpected
I pray for an art that is undeserving
I pray for an art that is full of mistakes
I pray for an art that is unwelcome
I pray for an art that is uncorrected
I pray for an art that is undoing
I pray for an art that unmasks
I pray for an art that is both and/or
I pray for an art that is a shadow boxer
I pray for an art that is emotional
I pray for an art that is sensitive
I pray for an art that is low on ego
I pray for an art that is free at the point of entry
I pray for an art that is honest
I pray for an art that is fair
I pray for an art that can be economic
I pray for an art that can occasionally be extravagant
I pray for an art that is not stewed
I pray for an art that does not piss about
I pray for an art that doesn’t need a run up
I pray for an art that is human
I pray for an art that does not give itself away
I pray for an art that is frail
I pray for an art that is graceful
I pray for an art that is laid out like a buffet
I pray for an art that is sparse
I pray for an art that is hidden
I pray for an art that is lonely
I pray for an art that can be animal, vegetable or mineral
I pray for an art that is both imperial and metric
I pray for an art that is early to rise and early to bed
I pray for an art that occasionally stays up late
I pray for an art that is sometimes beyond explanation
I pray for an art that is a unique song
I pray for an art that does not lead a life of quiet desperation
I pray for an art that sometimes gives a shit and sometimes doesn’t
I pray for an art that is disobedient
I pray for an art that is aware its fucked-up
I pray for an art that is unsure of itself
I pray for an art that is anxious
I pray for an art that is partly bought at Asda
I pray for an art that knows where it stands
I pray for an art that is free from overthinking
I pray for an art that is susceptible to failure
I pray for an art that is unsuccessful
I pray for an art that is a slow learner
I pray for an art that can sometimes overwhelm
I pray for an art that can become angry
I pray for an art that welcomes
I pray for an art that is hesitant
I pray for an art...
Published on the occasion of the exhibition 'A House Within A Home' at BasementArtsProject Leeds, UK. Part of On The Corner / Index Festival / Yorkshire Sculpture International Festival. 10 August 2019
In short
I find it hard to remember a time when the work I made wasn’t influenced by current news stories and world events around me. I have been aware for some time now that the work I make is filled with a similar energy as the work I made as a teenager, for example, when I was stirred-up by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
I am interested in the unraveling and processing of news stories, often depicting conflict, in my domestic setting and the attempt to somehow make sense of the encounter, question myself and then to make a response of some kind.
The surfaces that I make work on and the materials that I choose are as important as the subject matter. I am interested in materials that come from the time that I am living in now. I use very ordinary things; my supplies come from hardware shops, things that I find as I'm going about or items that have been put aside and then passed onto me. Pieces of melamine discarded from old kitchens, offcuts of plywood with the penciled workings-out of a joiner, household paints and varnish, water-based gloss conflicting with part-used tubes of oil paint...these materials resonate with me, I know and recognise this stuff. I understand it as a kind of archaeology of the present. However ordinary these materials are I feel passionate about them.
Thoughts about my work
I find it hard to remember a time when the work I made wasn’t influenced by current news stories and world events around me. I have been aware for some time now that the work I make is filled with a similar energy as the work I made as a teenager, for example, when I was stirred-up by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
I am interested in the unraveling and processing of news stories, often depicting conflict, in my domestic setting and the attempt to somehow make sense of the encounter, question myself and then to make a response of some kind.
I have made a great deal of work about the ongoing conflict in Syria. I made reference to the devastating destruction and the fleeing of people from their homeland. My response as always was one of utter unbelievable horror, destruction completely beyond my understanding. With the flow of news I turned my attention towards people in refugee camps. This wasn’t an overtly conscious decision, but a case of my continued following of the narrative provided by the media.
I was in despair after the UK voted to leave the European Community, dramatically increased on hearing the result of the American presidential election . Consequently my current work has undergone a major shift.
After the turmoil of the Brexit vote, during the build-up to the American election and in the mist of a family struggle, in October 2016 I spent some time on the coast in Pembrokeshire, Wales. I took hundreds of photographs of the empty sea. In an attempt to straighten my mind I edited these down to 65 black and white images. Returning to my studio I started to make paintings based on the photographs. The images and my application of paint became more and more turbulent, increasingly so after the presidential election result.
These new paintings are called the ‘Post Truth’ series, currently numbering over 35 works. They are made on thick Fabriano paper that I was given, using household paints and varnishes, spray paint and what comes to hand. The surfaces that I make work on and the materials that I choose are as important as the subject matter. I am interested in materials that come from the time that I am living in now. I use very ordinary things; my supplies come from hardware shops, things that I find as I'm going about or items that have been put aside and then passed onto me. Pieces of melamine discarded from old kitchens, offcuts of plywood with the penciled workings-out of a joiner, household paints and varnish, water-based gloss conflicting with part-used tubes of oil paint…these materials resonate with me, I know and recognise this stuff. I understand it as a kind of archaeology of the present. However ordinary these materials are I feel passionate about them.
In tandem with the new paintings, I am using prints of the original 65 black and white photographs, placing them underneath the wet paintings, catching drips and other studio debris. The paintings and photographs are intrinsically bound together.
January 2017