The Ups & Downs of Geometry...

graphite, putty eraser & watercolour/30x20cm

Following on from & engaged in direct dialogue with the previous drawing-painting, utilizing the same face of the particular found object-subject matter (the very first occasion on which such a device has in fact occurred), the development here is the introduction of a vertical aspect to the composition, to complement the horizontal nature of both the 'directional' short brushstrokes that, repeatedly layered, constitute the 'ground'/surface of the painting in what has recently become the habitual manner &, indeed, the orientation of the page, with the diagonals of the folded planes of the angularly-reformed represented object further enriching the geometry of the whole in a manner that owes a considerable debt to the structural elements of the typical Cubist composition.

In a Greenbergian reading of the (linear, 'logical' - but highly selective) development of Modernist painting, such horizontals & verticals - to which Cezanne gravitated as a compositional, structural device, setting such progress in motion, which Braque & Picasso, & other 'Cubists', thus influenced, & then Mondrian in particular intensified - relate & refer to the edges of the 'picture plane', thus contributing to the assertion of its nature, the very essence of which was its surface flatness, of course (which might also be said, more or less, of the 'roadkill' found objects themselves, hence an important aspect of their art-historical significance).

Soundtrack:


Eels 'Meet the Eels'
Sol Seppy 'The Bells of 1 2'
Jesca Hoop 'Kismet'
Delgados 'The Great Eastern'
Nick Drake 'Made to Love Magic'
Luna 'Best of'
Sundays 'Reading, Writing & Arithmetic'

An interesting little coincidence relating to the soundtrack here, with the rather overdue listen-to of the fabulous 'The Great Eastern' (titled after the Glasgow hotel) being followed, during the course of the same evening's TV's 'Coast', by a featured reference to Brunel's ship of the very same name, & the site upon which it was broken up.