Power with Paint?

Power with Paint?

Exploring expressionistic painting methods in new work

Recently I have been trying to quite radically change the style of my work by employing more 'action painting' type methods, to try and create a more energetic composition and interplay of elements in my work. I have also started to limit the colours I use in a painting, and in some cases dull them down from my usual bright primary colours! The reason for this is because most of the work I have produced recently which I think has had the most impact has been the pieces with a limited pallete, and I am beginning to learn that simply bombarding the eye with colour does not have as much potential for creating atmospheres in paintings, as say using a more limited amount of colours effectively.

These are the results of my experimentation

Schism 01:



















Medium sized acrylic painting on Board
This was one of the earlier experiments with using more expressive , painterly methods in my work. I have splattered paint, smudged it, scratched into it etc and I like the final frenzied nature of it. Be interesting to see if I can expand on this style and make it more my own as it were.

Drowning:


















Another medium scale square canvas painting. This time with a even more reduced pallete and with a lot more emphasis on scratching and smudging. Fairly happy with it, in some ways I find it unnerving and intense but I like that quality , make it more interesting perhaps?

Glacial Unrest:



















This is the biggest work I have done in this style at 48 by 36 inches , I'm really happy with it and I think it achieves that which i've been groping for with this experimentation - namely the portrayal of atmosphere and an increased intenstity that my older work may have lacked. I think it is a perfect synthesis of the first piece and the 2nd piece, as it employs methods from both in a more effective manner than both I think. This has portrayed some manner of power in paint I think, and I am going to aim to capture this kind of power again.

Leave any comments you may have about employing expressive methods in painting, about the work or anything else (relevant) that comes to mind. How do you portray power in paint? Leave your thoughts!

Upcoming Exhibition - Lost and Found

Upcoming Exhibition: Lost and Found As Part of Macclesfield Barnaby Festival

I have an group exhibition coming up soon which I am going to be a part of, Lost and Found is an exhibition featuring art which uses 'lost' 'discarded' or discovered' objects as the raw materials for the work. It is going to be one of many visual art exhibitions running as part of the Barnaby Cultural Festival in Macclesfield

The artists are all artists based in Victoria Mill, the converted mill with studios where my own studio is located.

I have been quite busy for the last few months doing work and organizing this exhibition and am very excited about it. So excited that i'm going to post up a sneak peek of one of the works on this blog.


This is one of the first works I completed in preperation for the exhibition called Bug City , it is acrylic , emulsion posca pen on Found fence. It will be on show along with many other works Lost and Found art from the 16th (Private View Night) till the 25th of June.

More specifics can be found on the lost and found microsite

Work 2010 - Breakthroughs and important works

It's been a while since I have updated this, but I figured I should update on what I've been up to art wise this year with a bit of blurb about each artwork I present.

Ok first up then is this untitled long format painting I did

Untitled - Acrylic on canvas

This was a slight departure for me in terms of I wanted to mix things up a bit more and make something that had geometric elements but mixed up with some more expressive marks, instead of my usual quite expressive style. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, but I haven't explored this area much more over the year so this remains in terms of my 2010 work a bit of an anomaly. Still I may explore this idea of mixing up the geometric and expressive so that they become a single unity more in the coming year.

Gateway - Acrylic on wood

This was a second of two paintings I did on some long pieces of MDF I was given, really enjoyed the process of creating it and I am very pleased with how it came out. There is some very nice mark making in the painting and I think the more subdued colour than usual is actually a plus. It's also certainly more abstract than some of my other work, although I think it hints at the landscape.

Twilight - Marker Pen on Card - Framed

This is one of a series of drawings I have been producing recently with marker pens on card. Am very pleased with this and the other drawings I have done and I love the spontaneous process of creating it. Again Interestingly this work hints at landscape as does the previous painting, expect obviously in an abstracted surrealistic way.

Dark City - Acrylic and marker pen on 30 inch by 3o inch canvas

This I think was perhaps one of the more ambitious and style shifting works I produced in 2010 as it is quiet markedly different from everything else in a lot of different ways. Firstly the pallete is reduced to a monochrome gray, black and dark blue, giving it a much more sombre feel than my usual colour. Secondly the composition is quite a departure in the sense that is much more obviously incorporating figurative elements such as the building to the right, but still with abstraction and distortion. It also looks quite graphical and I was quite consciously trying to incorporate a more graphical style for this work, influenced by street art. One of my favourite paintings of the year I think.

Cool Mechanics - Acrylic on canvas

This painting I like mostly because I enjoy the composition of it , especially all the jumbled up craziness in the bottom left corner! Not much of a departure from my usual style I.E Black lines, solid areas of colour etc, but I think it's done well, so it doesn't matter.

Combust 01 - Acrylic on 30 inch by 30 inch canvas

This is quite recent and again I am returning to a darker pallete, but I like several elements of this painting. Firstly I love some of the painterly mark making of it, such as the scratch marks and dollops of paint applied with pallete knives and secondly I like the composition , especially the central shape which looks like some kind of creature. Very pleased with this painting and it was a joy to paint!

Recent Work April - May 2010

Some Pictures of recent work starting from the most recent -

The Eyes of the Storm



Untitled



Overflowing


Vivid Dream


Belly of the Beast

These paintings form a series that I completed recently called 'The Flesh Distort' Series and I figured I’d write a little about the thought processes that went into their creation. I always find it interesting to hear artists wax lyrical about their work because it provides a bit of insight into their minds and intentions, and maybe you (yes you reading this!) can take something from this, or more likely I’ll have wasted several minutes of your life.... Ahh well onwards -

Basically as far as I can figure out from the skittering network of misfiring neurons in my noggin, I was pushing forward with the biomorthic abstraction that has marked some of my more recent work. I was trying to create images that are almost violent but dazzling at the same time.

I didn't prepare a sketch for the first painting in the series and it was in fact a happy accident (The result of experimentation after a failed painting) and then when that experiment turned out well I ran with it.

I tried to keep some of the symbols and other compositional elements universal in all three paintings to get the sense of a ‘series’. Thus there is

White circles with lines sprouting out (Almost like suns)
A red half circle line is included in every painting
Similar colours – The Yellow, Black, Fleshy tones etc

I guess to sum up they're kind of a dream landscape of half forms and distorted flesh ... Much as the title implies!

Open Studios / Craft Fair - Next Month (April)

Upcoming Event at Victoria Mill Art Centre , Congleton (Location of my studio)

Open studios and Craft Fair April 18th 11.00 - 16.00

Open day to promote the new arts centre.
There will be an Art and Craft Fair, an Exhibition and some of the Studios will be open for you to see.

Browse jewellery, ceramics, textiles, fine art and much more at your leisure.

Facebook Event -
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=354134570765

(I won't be there for this particulur event as I'm away on holiday but some of my work should be on show)

Where do I go from here?

Painting is a strange beast , frustrating and rewarding in equal measure, for every joy you have at evolving and getting more satisfied with the work you produce there is an equal amount of despair at pictures gone wrong, and the dreaded effects that creative block produces.

I've been going though a strange period in my creative output recently, experiencing periods of elatation and confidence in my work mixed with certain periods of feeling burnt out and experiencing creative block. It is probably to do with the fact that I paint on such a regular basis now, it kind of saps the energy out of me at a certain point.

I feel my work is evolving , certainly in terms of composition, colour and complexity my work is getting better, but I do still knock into these walls of blockage and extreme self doubt as to the direction and the quality of my work. The self doubt part may be down to the fact that I paint in an abstract manner in most of my work, and that requires a kind of constant self-reinvention so that I don't repeat myself over and over again, and so that I can forge my own style.

That is my major concern at the minute, forging my own vision as opposed to something derivitive of other artists. Of course to a degree it will be derivitive, I should imagine it obvious to anyone with a knowledge of art history that I am taking inspiration from several sources - Kandinsky, Picasso, Pollock, Gorky etc etc , but the real challenge is to work though those influences, learn from them and create something new from a type of art some decree as already dead.

So where do I go from here?? God knows, but in a way thats how I like it.....

Newest painting - Triple Charged (Acrylic on 28 by 36 inch canvas)