And Then There Were Two...

Following the previous entry, the latest painting to be brought to a conclusion features a different composition of the same subject matter and context, with but two of the collected 'Homepride Fred' figures rather than three and a slightly more  'measured'/geometrical approach applied to the representation of the patterned wallpaper and consideration of the placement of the objects in relation to (the figure to the left might be observed to be 'pinned' at the shoulders within the confines of an aspect of the pattern, for example), all being a bit more 'Uglowian' in conception, perhaps, which returns us to the original image to feature the Freds dating from almost two years ago.

Again, the active observation of the play of natural light upon the surface of the objects, those fleeting, momentary 'flashes' that enliven the whole set-up, describing aspects of their form and nature, is the motivating factor in engaging with such a challenge and the hoped-for result is a convincing pictorial representation of such, a record of the environmental activity, the time spent looking and painting.

'Two Freds and Retro Wallpaper'

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

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The finished painting on the easel, in position as observed and painted

During a little light workplace research, hoping to find suitable examples of wallpaper design that might provide grist to the creative mill and extend the project, it was something of a delight to find an example of a ‘Fred’ amongst the pages of a rather fine book:

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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The Art of ‘Quick and Easy Haircutting’

Creative inspiration can strike from anywhere at any time and the following pair of examples of recent painting illustrate that very point.

I’m a keen fan of Instagram for both promotion and research, enjoying the exchange, the give-and-take, of creative endeavour that it facilitates in what I consider to be user-friendly style. One of the accounts I follow, with keen anticipation, features regular postings of vintage products in their original packaging and one such update provided irresistible grist to the mill. I must confess a particular nostalgia for the things and imagery of the time of my own childhood in the 1960s and 70s, and packaging and advertising are evocative and fertile source material indeed. I should also confess that despite the attraction of this image, I was most averse to having my hair cut until well into my teens, so there's no way I would have ever been pictured beaming, as the depicted young chap is, in the presence of any such implements.

There was just something so insistent about the image illustrating a box of ‘Pifco’ electric home hair clippers that it demanded representation, with certain artistic licence taken in the process of.

'untitled (Pifco) #1'

oil on canvas/16 x 20"/December 2018 - January 2019

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Subsequent research produced evidence of a related product, or another temporally similar version of, either a predecessor or successor, with its associated packaging imagery providing the perfect complement to the original, a parental coupling attending to the tonsorial maintenance of their offspring with tender regard.

Interpretation as to meaning is left entirely to the spectator.

'untitled (Pifco) #2'

oil on canvas/16 x 20"/January 2019

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To conclude, the paintings presented as a diptych.

Widescreen Version

Today the opposite of tomato is 'Code: Selfish'

Finally, an update of recent painting practice, this example being the latest in the series of still life studies of a selection of the sawn cylinders of silver birch, (re)presented as a panorama suggesting a woodland space rather than the domestic arrangement it in fact is.

The physical support is a length of shelf from a deconstructed unit (which thus has a relationship to the similar horizontal plane on which the objects are composed and actively observed), over which canvas has been stretched.

As is habitual, the application of the paint is intended to make of the painting an object and foreground itself as handmade material fact as it represents other objects in space.

'Silver Birch Still Life #4'

oil on canvas on board/15.5 x 78cm/January 2019

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Autumn Update

Having finally brought a painting of a third configuration of the sawn cylinders of silver birch on the shelving unit to some form of resolution this very morning and also managed to photograph both it and its as-yet unrecorded predecessor in the dim late-November day’light’, here then are presented the most recent pair of fruits of the studio practice.

The familiar concerns are in evidence, first and foremost that dialogue between the representation of objects and the painting as object, the material fact of the paint itself as applied to the surface, the communication of the act of looking intently and transcribing the results to be presented in physical form. The objects under contemplation are themselves rich in detail and the challenge becomes to capture something of this individually and collectively as well as a more universal ‘thingness’.

'Silver Birch Still Life #2'

oil and graphite on canvas/16 x 20"/November 2018

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'Silver Birch Still Life #3'

oil and graphite on canvas/16 x 20"/November 2018

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Nature Encroaches

Regular readers may recognise that I have long been enamoured of the work of Edmund de Waal and certain of my paintings have reflected the influence of this artist on my own process of thinking and making (some of the ‘white pears’ series make this explicit, for example).

Thus the most recent painting to be brought to a conclusion, (re)presented here, can be said to be haunted by a de Waalian spirit. Another still life, it yet incorporates a significant element from subject matter explored in what essentially constitutes my alternative painting practice, i.e. the world of objects and forms in spaces beyond the domestic realm, in the form of a collection of cylinders of silver birch, between about 12 – 18cm in height, sawn from a length of discarded trunk found in the woods close to home. Such ‘white’ cylindrical objects pay a certain homage to de Waal’s familiar white porcelain pots and are arranged within a shelving unit that in effect resembles the vitrines in which he exhibits such collections of handmade objects.

That’s the background, anyway. What follows is the habitual process of ‘active contemplation’, first through a pencil drawing and subsequently, with slight compositional modifications in the interest of achieving a more harmonious visual balance (the sketch made obvious what wasn’t working that hadn’t occurred to the eye), in oil paint on canvas.

Silver birch still life compositional sketch

graphite on paper/30 x 21cm/30th Sept. 2018

The usual rules apply, of the communication of the physical nature of the objects and ‘tactile’ space and the making of the painting though the materiality of the medium, paint as paint and the painting itself as a discrete object before it resolves itself into a representation of the observed world. Far from being white, of course, the cylinders of silver birch each display shared and their own particular characteristics in terms of subtle earthy colouration (greens, ochres, siennas, umbers), as distinct from the purity of de Waal’s white porcelain objects, and light and shadow describes and differentiates the form of the shelving unit on and in which they stand, but it is to be hoped something of a dialogue is at least suggested with the influential source. Furthermore, by introducing such barely-modified natural objects into the realm of the still life, a dialogue is opened-up between the two genres of painting that effectively constitute my practice and continuing areas of exploration, the woodland, albeit mediated, encroaches into the domestic environment, outside meets inside.

‘Silver Birch Still Life’

oil and graphite on canvas/40″ x 30″ (101cm x 76cm)/October 2018

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