More Grate Stuff...

Following-on from the immediately previous watercolour drawing, & continuing with the current general concerns of the explicit statement of horizontal & vertical formal elements within the composition, which complement both each other & also the sequence of diagonals into which the objects have invariably been reformed, on this occasion incorporating a more dominant 'approximate' representation of a drainage grid, & the rust-patinated barred grating of, embedding the 'roadkill' object within such formal device, in the manner of one such object found resting upon & framed in a recent photograph...


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

Currently reading Matthew Simms' 'Cezanne's Watercolors: Between Drawing and Painting' & amongst many an interesting point as raised in the text, one such concerns the 'tactility' of the artist's facture, originally as applied to considerations of his oil painting (Merleau-Ponty writes of the kinaesthetic intertwining of the optical & the tactile in Cezanne's painting), but also much in evidence in the watercolours (to which I must admit a particularly deep & abiding attachment), where the discrete brushstrokes retain their individual identity & character even when repeatedly overlaid across the continuum of the picture surface.
Simms argues that, in Cezanne's watercolours, with their obvious division of labour, drawing performs the 'tactile' function & watercolour the optical in the ongoing formal dialogue between the two, but, personally, Cezanne's application of watercolour alone is itself both tactile & optical, explicity so through the manner in which the vibrant hues of the paint is applied in, generally, small touches of the brush that dry, become fixed, undeniably as such.
Obviously, this explicit record of process is also very much a personal concern, hence the technique of deliberate small brushstrokes - that also pay a certain referential homage to Braque's & Picasso's Cubist 'stippling' - employed in the facture of this particular series of watercolour drawings, & also the general commitment to the mark-made nature of my surfaces as has been carried out in the drawings presented here at TOoT over the last few years.
Braque it was, indeed, who spoke of the representation of 'tactile spaces' (as perceived) in his painting (which one might relate to Cezanne's 'envelope' of light & atmosphere surroundings objects, features of the landscape, etc), & such has long been a subject of much fascination to me, being that which connects artist & spectator in a profoundly human & philosophical manner.

Soundtrack:

Test Match Special England v Pakistan 2nd Test, days 2 & 3