The World Turned Upside Down

Today the opposite of tomato is ‘dance, dance, dance, dance, dancing to the radio’ (& singing along to ‘Transmission’ & other of the songs of Joy Division)


graphite/30x20cm
original source: ‘The Guardian’ 13/05/09

Featuring another drawing transcribed from a newspaper photograph compositionally featuring a distinct grid format (see numerous previous posts referring to the personal addiction to this icon of artistic Modernism), done so on a deliberate, resolved square-by-square basis as much as possible.

The drawing was actually made in the manner illustrated below, i.e. from the original source inverted.


The inspiration for this technique was that of the painter Malcolm Morley, observed doing so in a recently-watched DVD featuring the artist discussing his work in a most interesting, engaging & entertaining manner whilst painting.

The film itself is one of a whole series of interviews with individual contemporary artists produced by Illuminations, going under the umbrella title of ‘theEYE’. The films are most informative, being of a format that allows the artists themselves to talk – at about 25 minutes length – about their work whilst in its company or otherwise illustrated by specific examples of taken from across the individual’s career: the access this allows to the creative process, influences, techniques, etc, expressed in someone’s own words, builds up a fascinating portrait of a particular artist – with instant ‘influential’ results, as can be seen!

Returning specifically to Morley, the technique he currently employs is to take a newspaper photograph, divide it into squares (measuring & then cutting, rather than leaving it in one piece), squaring-up a canvas accordingly, & then attaching the inverted sections of the photo next to the square on which he will transcribe it, enlarged, faithfully, meticulously, in paint, physically working from the top left of the canvas across & down but of course transcribing the photo from its bottom right, upside down. In this manner, the image is only resolved when the finished canvas is inverted to reproduce the photo in its original state, & the working process is thus an accretion of small finished sections at a time – all, in themselves, individual abstract paintings that only exist in relation to their immediate neighbours as the process unfolds.

In this manner, working from the inverted photographic original & from, as habitually, top left to lower right, was the drawing made, being an abstract process disconnected from any figurative considerations, an interesting variation on the usual process of transcription.

Further to ‘theEYE’ films, I intended during the previous post to make mention of Gary Hume’s in the series, which had reminded me of his ‘Water Paintings’ & provided the direct inspiration for the related ‘overlaid images’ composite drawing from the tabloid ‘girlie’ original sources.

Soundtrack:


Scritti Politti ‘White Bread Black Beer’
PJ Harvey ‘Uh Huh Her’
Bjork – homemade compilation from ‘Debut’, ‘Post’ & remixed tracks
Wire ‘A Bell is a Cup Until it is Struck’
Low ‘Trust’
Luna ‘Best of’

and, in memory of Ian Curtis & the anniversary of his death on 18th May (1980),


Joy Division ‘Unknown Pleasures’, ‘Closer’ & ‘Substance’ –
still magnificent after all these years.