A Second Coming...

Another representation of the 'roadkill' object as featured in photographic form, as found, in the preceding post of yesterday, this time via the medium of the latest in the sequence of watercolour drawings of such subject/object matter...


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

As with recent developments in this series, the ground or 'tactile space' in which the object is embedded features horizontal & vertical structural elements, appropriated from the physical sites of the road surfaces upon which the source material is invariably found, that geometrically complement each other, the short, horizontal brushstrokes that construct & comprise the explicitly layered surface & also the sequence of diagonals into which the object has been reformed: all of these various compositional devices are intended to make fond reference to Braque's & Picasso's Cubism, further enhanced by the picture's colouration, predominantly grey with 'earthy' additions, with such an object as that represented being proposed as appearing as a 'readymade' example of such, especially so as it features an element of text in the form of a synecdochal fragment of its brand name & identity, in the tradition of many an example of the Cubist pictorial composition.
In further homage to aspects of (Greenbergian) Modernist painting, the horizontals & verticals also relate to the physical limits of the picture plane, of course, which subsequently developed into microcosmic concerns of the formal device of the grid, another form of which is playfully made compositional reference to here.

On a techical point, a pleasing aspect that may be observed in this particular picture is the preservation, more so than has often been the case, of visible evidence of the underdrawing, as a further textural, 'tactile' element of the mark-making process of the whole, beneath the transparent layers of the touches of watercolour.

Soundtrack:

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