Revisiting Old Friends

'Three Freds and Retro Wallpaper'

oil on canvas/16" x 20"/March 2019

Returning to previous-visited subject/object-matter in the form of the Homepride ‘Fred’ plastic figures (please see here), this time incorporating a third and more recently-acquired member of the team, its facial features more weather-worn and thus offering a more ambiguous expression than the other broadly-smiling pair.

The objects were actively observed as placed upon a horizontal shelf against a backdrop of boldly-patterned wallpaper of recent vintage referencing a Sixties-Seventies’ design trope.

The use of both the ‘Freds’ and the patterned ground are influenced by Euan Uglow, a frequent visitor to these parts, of course, encouraging a ‘measured’ approach to proceedings, in the interest of a convincing verité up to a certain point at the same time as an ‘all-over’ approach to the picture surface, with a degree of licence taken in the pursuit of creating a picture in its own right, the wallpaper offering the opportunity to represent a painterly equivalent to itself.

The light-reflective surfaces of the plastic figures, each subtly or a little more obviously different from the others, as ever present the opportunity of responding to and recording any fleeting moments as observed under the mercurial conditions of natural daylight, and engaging specifically with that Uglowian challenge of depicting (the appearance of) plastic, within the general concern of representing form.

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The finished painting on the easel in front of the composition, as painted

Familiar Ground

Following the short interlude of the most recent pair of paintings (those based on the vintage Pifco electric hair trimmers packaging), we return to the familiar ground of the ongoing compositional exploration of selections from the stock of sawn cylinders of silver birch – again looking to the work of Edmund de Waal for a little inspiration – and the ‘homely’ environment of the still life.

The particular objects selected on this occasion were from a batch not previously utilised and contemplated, being a little slimmer and in some cases shorter than those used up until now, thus more have been accommodated within the relatively compact dimensions of the 20″ x 16″ canvas, which represents a more-or-less life-sized arrangement of shelves and objects.

Again, the in the observation and translation of the scene, the materiality of the medium and the manner of its manual application is of equal importance in the resolution of the picture-as-object, depicting objects in space (and here, these objects and their visual and physical qualities are rather user-friendly, it might be said)- as with Ivon Hitchens, the intention is that “the tree is paint and the paint is tree”.

'Silver Birch Still Life #5'

oil on canvas/20" x 16"/February 2019

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