Blog

In this video, which was filmed and edited by Miheer Shetty, I talk about my retrospective show.

Annotation and thoughts on the small sketches. I have enjoyed this experimentation with smaller canvas’s, reducing the size has been helpful in the regard of the process.

1024 colours (1973) is one of Richter’s well-known colour chart paintings, which he began producing in the late 1960s. They were inspired by the commercial colour charts found in hardware stores.

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins begins his poem, by giving a simple judgement about spring, there is nothing more beautiful.

I bought this canvas from a charity shop I find this a convenient way to paint on a larger scale . I also like to use recycled materials in my practice.

“Good painting is like good cooking; it can be tasted, but not explained.” Maurice de Vlaminck.

Exploring and experimenting with colour as it is an important part of my painting practice. To explore mark-making, composition, space, and light within my process of painting.

Art can carry a message and provoke thoughts and feelings; this is what Abstract Expressionism, in my opinion, is about.

This oil on canvas was a direct response to the photograph below. I liked the blue of the sky and how the yellow Forsythia was lit by the street light .

I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos on the painting process. I have been inspired by the artist Liz Ackerley and her artistic process.

I have started my primary research by taking photographs of my daily journeys. Focusing mainly on what I see and what catches my attention.

Nature in the urban landscape is my starting point and initial line of enquiry.

Through out this project I have tried to focus on developing my own style in painting. I think painting for me is instinctive process, I enjoy the physicality of applying the paint.

Reflecting on nearly a year of living in a Pandemic situation all our lives have been seriously upended.

Thankfully , the new images are a lot better quality and they sit better in the gallery space.

In choosing which painting I will use for my final outcome I need to consider how it will be viewed.

The current restrictions have allowed me to indulge a reading habit, I reread “Kidnapped” by Robert Lewis Stevenson.

I decided to set up a print area in my studio space to develop my lino print series further.

Lee Lozano, an eccentric artist who pursued Conceptual Art and painting in the 1960’s and then left the New York art world for self-imposed exile that included an embargo on contact with other women.

My starting point was to look at other signifiers of fear such as knifes , guns and tools.

My starting point with sketching was from the photographs I took of a spider as Tom suggested that I look at motifs and imagery, I started with insects which we fear such as spiders, moths, mosquitos.

Fear is a natural, powerful, and primitive human emotion. It involves a universal biochemical response as well as a high individual emotional response.

After two life-threatening illnesses, Goya was likely to have been concerned with his own mortality and was increasingly embittered by the civil strife occurring in Spain.

This is a photograph which I took at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in my first year of art college.

Proposal for Specialist Studio practice

In the Final Major Project (FMP) I wanted to explore still life painting as a creative practice in order to look at symbolism and the wider meanings if object forms.

The three images I have submitted as my final outcome.

My original idea was to use one painting as the final outcome so I had only made one frame.

I used casting resin and an old paint brush to “glaze” the plastic on to the frame.

I took Toms advice to paint more and used it as an opportunity to really focus on light and shade and the effects of shadow within my paintings.

The frames development seems to be coming together quite well.

It has been really difficult to make a decision on what to put in my Still-life painting as I really wanted to give it implied meaning rather than a collection of objects.

I have decided to make the canvas from recycled materials as I do not have a large canvas at home and I like using recycled materials.

Still life painting has the ability through symbolism and the viewers interpretation to give a narrative of thoughts and ideas.

I think if I move the idea of still life drawings into a painting I will have to use the colours which I have enough of .

Hurwit (1995) says that the myth explains why humans must work to survive, that Pandora represents the beautiful figure of dread, something for which men can find no device or remedy.

The historical loss of the female narrative and a lament to the barriers that grew from religious interpretation , a double edged sword for the female.

Looking at online images of Adam and Eve and how they are depicted in a historical and contemporary context.

Looking at the work of Audrey Flack for composition ideas as her still life painting have a number of interesting messages and symbols to decode within them.

Charcoal, coloured pastels on a newspaper.

Moving into colour and still life , colours in religious paintings were a important element in implying meanings .

I have started my FMP looking at historical female figures in a religious context.

Thanks for joining me!