Black Lines (Do It)...(More Road Art)

My fascination with the previously-posted double black lines grows with each passing glimpse of them & their endless visual complexities. This latest set of photos has incorporated more self-consciously compositional elements such as patches of mended road, other more subtle changes in road surface texture & variations of colour (not unlike Ad Reinhardt’s ‘black’ paintings, for instance) in addition to incidental features such as drawn chalk markings which themselves add another layer of attraction. Whilst the images themselves offer plenty of visual interest, they inspire too, both in terms of the numerous art references they display &, especially, as it’s not such a leap of the imagination to see them rendered as a form of (apparently) ‘geometric abstractions’ with variously textured, sensuous, painterly surfaces, these latter in the manner of two of my great modern painter heroes, Jasper Johns (& perhaps the double black lines also share the readymade, mundane quality of much of Johns’ ‘iconic’ subject matter such as flags, targets, maps & numbers) & Robert Ryman – also echoing his project of attempting to ‘paint the paint’ (quite literally so, in fact, when one considers representing the black-over-yellow lines which are, of course, themselves painted, obviously so, onto the road surface) - & also, in suitably contemporary vein, those of Gillian Carnegie’s textured black paintings of tree trunks as seen in her Turner Prize 2005 exhibit, with which they particularly share real subject matter. These images seem to offer great potential in terms of engaging in a profound painterly enterprise, which promises hope & represents a goal for the future.