Hell-O/Goodbye...

It must seem that, over the years (& especially the last two), enough has been seen of & written about the numerous examples of discarded aluminium can ‘roadkill’ regularly found along & upon various stretches of the local ‘double black lines’ road markings during the course of perambulations around the environment in which such a quite possibly unique phenomenon exists.

This latest pictorial recording of such a circumstance, however, has a certain & particular poignancy attached to it in that it might represent the final instalment of its kind due to the forthcoming (& indeed imminent) geographical relocation of the physical hub of TOoT’s operations, thus distancing from a source that has provided not inconsiderable ongoing grist to the creative (or at least visual-evidence-to-be-blogged) mill: the thought, though, is that such distance lent may afford the opportunity to consider the photographs of the substantial body of findings with the aim of subsequently enabling the processing of such visual matter into the forms of drawing & painting, as has long been intended.

Anyway, before pastures new we return to the matter in hand: to wit, another ‘roadkill’ object flattened upon a section of the double black lines as they exist, like the previous example, in relation to the striking compositional element of other road markings in the form of broken white lines that diagonally intersect the composition & compromise the integrity of the subtly-modulated tones & hues of the overall, all-over grey monochrome pictorial field that forms the modernist-minimalist basis of all such images. Indeed, this occurrence happens at the very same location.
Again, the double black lines display a slight curve from the horizontal, & the surfaces of both their strata are eroded in places to display patches of the original underlying yellow paint that not only provides ‘archaeological’ evidence of the narrative of the temporal history of their physical substance but also echoes, rather pleasingly, the gold of the ‘O’ of the can’s iconic branded livery (which also illustrates a synecdochal fragment of the brand name).

One particular niotable feature of the composition as framed is the presence upon the surface of the road/picture plane of a couple of instances of three-dimensional debris & such objects’ accompanying cast shadows that serve to emphasize the flatness of the ‘roadkill’ can, which appears especially so in the first image, relative to.



Farewell, then, to the double black lines & from TOoT in Wales: tune in for the inaugural broadcast, hopefully sometime soonish, from an English address…