Off-Colour...

graphite, putty eraser, wax crayon & watercolour/30x20cm

Continuing with the 'roadkill' diptych watercolours, the very slight development here being the introduction of occasional inflections of colour (green, blue & red ochre) into the layers of the Payne's Grey 'ground' (overlaying the initial erased graphite marks, which are intended to remain visible, as 'archaeological evidence' of the process of the work's making, through the subsequent translucent superimpositions), which seems to have served no particularly significant visual purpose, & indeed might be read as being superfluously & mildly-distractingly decorative in nature.

The original found object which forms the ostensible subject matter is that which might be recognized as having featured in photocopied form & pictorially enlarged to 'human size' in the latter pair of previously-posted digital collages (please refer to 'And a Large Coke').

On a digital note, an aspect of the watercolour development of the general 'roadkill' diptych series one notices, with a certain frustration, is that, in scanning the results to be subsequently posted on the blog here, it seems impossible to achieve a faithful or even particularly satisfactorily compromised reproduction of the actual colour as seen in the physical painting, thus rendering the digital version something else entirely (the red of the can here, for instance, displays a much bluer tendency than in the original, yet any attempted corrective measures destroy the integrity of the bluish grey of the 'ground', & vice versa): viewer, do not believe what you see!

Soundtrack:


Emily Jane White 'Dark Undercoat'
Sparklehorse 'Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot', 'Good Morning Spider', 'It's a Wonderful Life' & 'Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain'
Test Match Special Pakistan v Australia 1st Test, day 1

A soundtrack appropriately dominated by Sparklehorse, in recognition of the shocking & very sad news (only recently discovered, some four months after the fact) of the suicide of Mark Linkous. Such a terrible event & loss renders these four albums (two of which are permanently resident in the list of all-time favourites) all the more precious: the unique aesthetic vision central to their creation, suffused with wonder at the natural world, their fragile yet enduring beauty (all the more poignant now), their beguiling & delightful idiosyncrasy, the heart & soul at their core, to be treasured all the more. 'Sparklehorse' might be regarded by the empathetic listener to be something of a dream-like state, a magical & profoundly rewarding place in which to exist for the time spent immersed-in, a rare gift with which to have been blessed, & truly great art.

A Not-So-Still Life...

Today the opposite of tomato is fruit & nut Toblerone (mmm)


graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm
original source: 'The Times' 10/03/08

Another image used as source material because of its obviously ‘photographic’ appearance, the capturing of a frozen micro-moment yet suggestive of action & movement courtesy of the blurred elements of the composition. Again, the drawn transcription relates, in formal terms at least, to the blurring technique utilised by Gerhard Richter, &, of course, the process of drawing & the temporal investment involved contrasts with the split-second creation of the original photographic image, although both drawing & running share a physically active dimension & sense of being-in-the-world.

By way of a sort-of coincidence relating to this image, the current reading & research matter includes the most handsome volume, ‘The Not-So-Still Life’, a survey of a century (i.e. the 20th) of Californian painting & sculpture based on the genre of the still life & its development over the course of that time. Fascinating stuff, both in the featured artists’ engagement with contemporaneous developments elsewhere in the (art) world & their deviations from such, lavishly & beautifully illustrated with many a fine example of work. I came across the book during a visit to the workplace by a bookseller, we chose it for our own resources from amongst the selection on offer, & then, suitably impressed & enthused to do so, I managed to track down a copy for my personal library via Amazon for a mere £3, absolute irresistible bargain! A while back I discovered a wonderful resource for cataloguing one’s books online, Librarything, which also has an active community aspect: well worth investigating for any bibliophile.



Soundtrack:


Sparklehorse ‘Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot’
Belle & Sebastian ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’
Sigur Ros ‘Takk’
Throwing Muses ‘In a Doghouse’
Lambchop ‘What Another man Spills’

Dug out the Sparklehorse for a listen after surprisingly encountering a snippet of one of its tracks during the course of a TV programme, this particular album being the first in a wonderful trinity of such also including ‘Good Morning Spider’ & ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’: I’m a great admirer of Mark Linkous’s aesthetic & the unique sound he creates, the inclusion of all manner of instruments he uses to layer his songs with such engaging textures, & of course the range of the songs themselves, from full-on, wig-flipping rockouts to irresistible melodic pop tunes (my first encounter with his ouevre was in fact ‘Sick of Goodbyes’, one such example) to the most gentle, fragile & vulnerable melancholic (almost more so than anyone) ballads, all suffused with a unique poetry & vision: a true artist, a painter of wonderful sound pictures.

For whatever whim - perhaps the idiosyncrasies of Sparklehorse - something drew my thoughts back to the first Throwing Muses releases, the eponymous debut album & the subsequent ‘Chains Changed’ EP, eventually discovered as existing as the ‘In a Doghouse’ collection: still sounding as astonishing & electrifying now as upon first hearing 20 years ago (more than!), music & an energy coming as close to escaping description as it’s possible to imagine, a truly incredible sound & experience, the sheer visceral quality, the thrill of which I always felt they somehow never managed to recapture…thoroughly recommended.

Must write upon the magnificence of Lambchop, another one-off in terms of their aesthetic, sometime too…