More Comings-and-Goings

graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm

Another ‘allover’ surface & spatial continuum from which a pair of objects are extracted, described tonally, mostly by a process of erasure, by & from the fading source of available natural light as dusk once again approached & encroached apace. Although they might appear to touch, the pears do so only visually, within the constructed artifice of the picture plane (the only relevant truth here, of course) with, physically, the object to the right being positioned slightly before the other on the horizontal plane upon which they rest in the real space of the compositional arena.
In this example, the edges of the forms take on a particularly diffuse, glowing quality as observed through the ‘granular’, fugitive light as this itself comes into contact with the changing nature of the ageing pears’ skins, now of a more ‘satiny’, less reflective finish, empirically imbuing the objects with something of a ‘spectral’ appearance in contrast to the ‘known’ palpable physicality of their three-dimensional form, which endures even as the pears’ sense of absolute opaque solidity softens & they take on something of a translucent quality, & physical alterations also manifest themselves in various localized details.

Rather serendipitously related, at least on a superficial visual level, one might claim, to the appearance of this in particular of the sequence of the pear drawings, is a certain recent discovery, found in the October issue of ‘Art Review’, of a still image captured from Rodney Graham’s video film ‘Rheinmetall/Victoria-8’, featuring as it does a flour-covered old-style typewriter:


As one might appreciate, the substantial coating of flour creates a distinctive physical transformation & a palpable atmosphere, as would a fall of snow, seeming to still the still life object yet more profoundly, muting both the object (& by imaginative association, the clatter of its keys &, indeed, the language their action produces) & the overall atmosphere, communicating both the physical presence of the obviously transformed object yet also at the same time something of a ghostly nature, an ‘otherness’, as it softens the hard edges & surface of the machine.

One is also reminded of Morandi’s compositions of dusty-surfaced objects & the subdued, mute simplicity of such as they feature in his compelling, beautiful paintings.

Soundtrack:

Lambchop 'What Another Man Spills' & 'Aw, C'mon'/'No, You C'mon'