One of the biggest realisations I made during my two years at Cambridge was the need for a return to subject matter. I think Brian Graham and Andy both made little statements that really stuck in my head. I have finally lost faith with my obsession with Modernist ideals regarding pure abstraction. The total autonomy and self worth of painting for its own sake feels to me now to be an empty and self aggrandising philosophy. I have allowed this notion of subject matter to filter through my mind for some time, not sure of exactly where to latch onto. Initially I went back to old friends like Keats, or the notion of music as a source. All I found was indirect avenues towards abstraction. I finally realised that my subject has to be visual in its root. That does not mean painting something which stands in front of you. It does mean, however, taking an idea, a source which sparks off visual rather than philosophical notions. The intellectual rigour will then hopefully emerge from that rather than some preconceived abstract notion searching for a visual answer. Without such a tangible source I think there is a danger of stumbling in the dark looking for something which was never there. (Only a month or two since I stopped writing and already I have fallen into pompous crap) The French painting paper I did made me realise that perhaps figural narrative is a place I can start.I have been reading Ted Hughes Crow as advised by Andy. Christ its epic. Has really triggered off some ideas about the potential for poetic narrative in painting. By poetic I think I mean something which is none specific, but which looks to trigger suggestions of a causal narrative plot which is more universal. For me this is where I think my painting should be going. I don’t believe in the supposed total lose of autonomous meaning, which has led us to suggest that every painting needs maximum explanation through comparison to another discourse. Equally, however, I don’t believe that a painting can be a doctrine. It’s nature does not allow a didactic tone. As a container of messages it moves more naturally towards suggestion. The fact it is silent. Therefore we need to move towards narrative which deals with something less stable, less tied down. Okay, waffling now. So the crow and what it is making me think.

I have taken from Andy the idea of no longer be restricted by a particular narrative. Rather taking a range of sources and allowing them to feed each other to create a new poetic narrative. That being one which can expand and contract without necessarily fully revealing itself, if that makes sense. I think I also like the idea of the narratives developing in both writing and painterly form. Informing each other but able to also grow independently. So it is neither illustration of the written narrative or explanation of the painting.

The original ‘Paradise Lost’ verse
“There Leviathon,
hugest of all living creatures, on the deep.
Stretched like a promontary,
sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land, and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts, a sea”

I liked to exaggerate the idea that he spouts a sea to suggest he created all the sea’s. so i wanked on for several pages thinking i was milton. it turned into a sci-fi-athon. might be able to take some bits tho and apply them to the crow notion.

“And there, Leviathon,
Hugest of all living creatures
On the bone-china ground of proto-earth,
before gods, monsters and media moguls
Raised empires and built scrapers,
so high.
With their crowns of spires
As to block out the sun
And tear shadows in the chiffon sky.

Before all this.
She was queen, emperor, sire to the dirt
And all who crawled on it
or slithered through it.
And as the rocks of ages wore to dust around her,
her and her wisdom bloomed.

And everywhere she stepped brought forth new life.
plants that breathed in her air
creatures that fed on the plants.

Though through success
builds successes pyres.
For those who deem to fly too high
or dig too deep,
oft burn under the burden of torchlite fingers.

Thus, the Fates showed their cruel hand
And sent their mistress, Gravity
To press her desires upon Leviathon
whose legs as wide as a forest bower
buckled under the weight of success.
Herself to become an isle in an ocean of dust.

A state to confound and burden slow demise
on lesser beings, earthly beings.
But earthly she was not
so through sacrifice she defiled the Fates
and bid adieu to her lover and only master
Life.

Tears welled in her third eye
(of what man, as man was, called the blow hole)
And thunder, from the cavenous depths of her bowels,
at first a low tremor, rising to a terrifying crescendo
threw mountains from her belly.

Tears of composition untill then unknown,
flowed across the partched land.
Hewn from her bosom, Lifes milk,
Water soaked the desserts and the rocks.
The land drank with fervour, as befits one,
who knows nought but thirst for a creations age.

The land drank
Then the land drowned.”

endless rant and poetic vomit over, and out.

The crow descended
and planted a seed
Before melting into shadow
to watch it all unfurl below

Hello world?!?!

Currently really busy so not be able to work on the series of mini articles I have had planned for a few motnhs now. Currently though I am more absorbed in the actual act of painting. Having had a self imposed painting break for the last two years I am more concerned with the paintings themsleves than any surrouding ideologies. Even in these first few studies I have realised that my practise, whilst rusty, has progressed further during this break than it ever has before. I shall get around to getting something written soon and upload it as soon as I have. There are a large range of things (pretensions?) I feel a need to get off my chest to allow me to stop obsessing over them.

As the header of this blog implies this is a site for myself and Andy to discuss our artwork, the history of painting and surrounding issues which impact upon our practise. I think it is important to keep an open dialogue between word and image in the development of my practise. At this very early stage in my work I find the two are not as close as I would like.