Post 46 - New work
As well as focusing on the collages, I have been returning to older work and creating layers of paint over them. (Fig. 1-3)
fig 1
Waters edge 2024
oil on canvas 1650 x 1800mm
fig 2
reflector
oil on paper 550x450mm
fig 3
Lillies 2024
Oil on canvas
1650 x 1800 mm
The two main areas I will be focusing on next is the idea of collage and how this relates to my work, and the idea of membranism - the way in which we are affected by our surroundings in so far as we absorb the light, colour and forms as we move through environments. The main environments outside I inhabit are the urban pavement and the park. (fig.4)
fig 4.
pavement
I have been looking at the works of Ellsworth Kelly and noting how he talks of the “the freedom of colors in space.” For Kelly, the world was one giant readymade: “I realized I didn’t want to compose pictures … I wanted to find them.” 1
Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015), Cul-de-Sac, 1974. Collage on postcard, 11 × 15 cm.
In my final selection of postcard collages, I am focusing on exploring objects within the composition and the structures I create with line and blocks of colour or tone. I am reintroducing the grid as a helpful device for me to navigate and work around, even if I eventually discard it. By projecting small collages onto larger canvases and treating the canvas itself as a material to be cut up and re-collaged in large sections, I am exploring new dimensions and possibilities within my art. Using the postcards as zygotes for bigger ideas.
I have developed a series of compositions that will guide me in adhering to a pattern, the unfreedom idea I view as a challenge to push creative boundaries within a framework. Working on the floor, as I have done in the past, allows my marks to be expansive and uninhibited, creating a sense of freedom in my process. Additionally, I am preparing upsized brushes, mops, or brooms to further experiment with scale and texture in my work.
As an artist, I view the concept as the idea and the construct as the building block. Testing my constructs is key to stronger work. In my exploration of urban nature reserves and parks, I see nature as both a concept and a construct – something inherently natural but also shaped by human intervention.
This concept of testing constructs also extends to painting, where I explore the interplay between sensation and perception. Sensation, in its primal form, can connect me to emotions and experiences, while perception, based on my senses, helps me to interpret and understand the spaces I explore.
Footnotes
1. Barbara Purcell, "Ellsworth Kelly’s 'Postcards'," Salmagundi: The Art Project, accessed May 11, 2024, https://salmagundi.skidmore.edu/articles/460-ellsworth-kelly-s-postcards.
Bibliography
Busch, Dennis, and Robert Klanten, eds. The Age of Collage Vol. 2: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art. Gestalten, 2016.
Hughes, Robert. Nothing If not Critical: Selected Essays On Art And Artists. Paperback, Penguin, February 27, 1992.
Illuminations. Art Now: Interviews with Modern Artists. Paperback, Bloomsbury Academic, April 1, 2004. Introduction by Sandy Nairne.
Morrill, Rebecca, ed. Vitamin C. Phaidon Press Ltd, 2023.
Nairne, Sandy John, Geoff Dunlop, and Author Wyver. STATE OF THE ART. Paperback, Chatto & Windus, January 1, 1988.
