Hegel and Kant in the first lecture. Christ! did any students run out screaming, poor kids, you must’ve scared them half to death. But seriously, it sounded very interesting, you certainly are strong in this area and linking it to how they may use the knowledge in their own work is perhaps the key thing. have you thought about a lecture in the future which assesses how contemporary painters are using this knowledge. think that would be useful both for the students and for you. Neo rauch and mattias weischer are particularly accessible in this respect.

You talk about how painting in the past has been a splurge, an idealised outpouring of emotion for you. And it is absolutely true that in order to create more constructive, more successful work you have to temper these emotions, its cruelly ironic that one of the reasons you love painting so much, turns out to be one of the greatest hinderances to becoming anything like your idols in the artworld, i think all artists must go through the same contextual quandry at one point or another.

As you know tom, i probably started to talk about that same principle about 18months ago, the need to objectfy the subjective moment. However, i am coming to understand more and more that life isn’t a journey towards a destination, its a fluid series of here and nows with constantly changing goals. It seems to be a principle i struggle with, constantly reciting the mantra “i exist and learn today in order to live tomorrow”. But with an attitude like this, when do i suppose that this imagined future day will come, if i’m not careful the whole of my life will be spent preparing for some unreachable goal. I guess what i’m trying to talk about is that at the moment i’m realising, or perhaps worried that my own work has gone too far in the opposing direction. Much like i have tempered my emotions in everyday life, my painting has also become too unfeeling, whereas i was trying to objectify in order to be able to convey accurately those small humanist moments of frailty, vulnerability etc etc, what i have actually done is close off my eye from those moments. I think its very easy to do, our mind seems to find anyway possible to keep us from those tiny emotional truths, to find an easy way out, probably because those emotions are so raw and so real that it takes the bravest of people to search in the abyss for them. And thats why a lot of those souls are lost to us, they never find their way out. Nietszche was right when he said “whomsoever searches for monsters, beware, lest he become one, for when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares into you”. I just don’t know whether i’ve got that strength, or foolhardyness in me, but ultimately we probably won’t have to make that choice anyway, these things have a habit of finding you or passing you by whether you want them to or not.

So you see, the long and short of it is that, the goal posts have shifted once again back to the other end, undoubtedly before too long they will need to be moved again, the image we seek is a mirage and its perfection doesn’t exist. all we can do is keep searching for it.

ready to explode and need to release some air.

I used to think painting was cathartic. The romanace of the act appealed to me. That chance to find some temporary release from the seeming chaos of the everyday. I think that where my work suffered, beleiving that if I got lost in a dreamy release like state what would come out would be some inspired work of art. Truth is what comes out is a self indulgent, nonsensicle splurge. It worked in terms of the phycolgoy of escape, but I have no interest in painting singuarly as a mode to provide a release valve. So what ever it theraputic benefits the product was lost and pointless. A few analogies spring to mind- the releasing of pressure in a ballon, vomitting or masturbation. It was akin to all of those things. i shall leave you to make of it what you will.

Andys description of Rothko still sticks in my head. Saying how his method was more like an assasination than a crime of passion. Thats brilliant and perceptive. (sorry, ill remove my hand from your crutch Andy)

So with painting having more of an implicit function than a pretensious release of pressure I thought I might use this blog to fulfill that void. I dont intend coming on here every night and abusing webspace just in order to clam myself down, but tonight I shall.

I have go tback into obsessive list making, it has to stop. I write a list and then in five minutes its being transferred to a new updated versions. Lists of lists of lists. Its the kind of viscious circle which resemble sa map to nowhere and back again.

My frustration has been with time. At the moment I feel I have so much to do, too much to do that I am not getting anything done well as i try and do it all. The lists are an attempt to order everything, to fit everything in.. .but instead, and with that old foe irony, they eat up more time. Am i getting old or does twenty four hours run faster than it used to? Maybe its just Autumn teasing me.

(He played the song they had never seen
and all the Autumn leaves turned green)

I have a series of paintings on the go but dont feel i am dedicating enough time to push them where they need to go. I also feel that I need to be formulating new processes to come up with ideas and conceptions. I am worried that the process in which I develop ideas is getting stale. Drawing, photoshop, research, gallery visits, ohp’s, life drawing- all of these are things which could help reestablish something more organic and less literal. Yet where do I find the time. Do you ever feel frustrated that time is being constantly lost and that you could be using it so much more constructibely?

Writting these lectures up is taking longer than I thought. On and off I have taken over a week to get the first one done, and its not even finished yet. Let alone be able to add pictures etc.

I am thnking I might work on paper for a bit, but treat it as I would a canvas. By that I mean treat it as a complete piece not a sketch.

I now have no idea what I came on here to write. it had a direction and a purpose in my head to start with. Now it has turned out to be nothing more than one of those paintings I used to make. A splurge.

On a random point- Andy- really glad oyu like Icarus. I hope I can capture its simplicity in some other works. Currently trying to finalise the composition and approach for Marsyas and Danae III and possibly IV. Both are going very close to abstraction in formal terms but hopefully towards a more sophisiticated form of representation in other terms. In that kind of Brian Graham and Howard Hodgkin kind of way.

Andy- good news on the Orwell work. Mr Orwells son likes it. He said to congratulate you.

Really do like Icarus II Tom, been looking at it again, for me its the best thing you’ve done bar none.

A new batch

The above three pictures have all recently been completed (althyough Icarus II might need a little bit more glazing in the bottom middle section) Their completion made me realise how important working in groups has become to my work. It seems I like to have a few paintings working alongside each other, and they seem to feed each other. A lesson learnt in one place can be put into practise somewhere else.

I also noticed how in each group themes seem to exist in harmony, despite not having an predetermined desire to unite subject matter. This logic will be tested by my next three paintings as two of them push closer to abstraction and the other looks to articulate a stronger characterisation in a hunt for figuration. I am not quite sure how these new ones will work in tandem.

One of the reasons I am writting this blog is due to a technical flaw. I want to get these images up but when I uploaded onto the picture section 9to the right) the two vertical rectangular canvases have stretche dout of proportion. This is frustrating nad has happened before. I will sort it out soon with some photoshop help but thought I would add them hear in the mean time.

I am going to use the blog when I finsih every new set of works now as a quick chance to recrod my intial formal reactions. It will hopefully be a chance to not be so caught up in pretention and conception.

Lucretia: Happy with the figure in terms of drawing but not at all happy with the surface. It needs to be sexier, smoother and present the image rather than distract form it with bumps and lumps.

Endymion: The surface really works here. The glow, the breaking up of sections, the sense of light pouring from behind. I cant decide if the figures lose of solid form is a strength or a clear sign of weak underdrawing.

Icarus: The geometry of this work is something I am really happy about. it is more graphic than anything I have ever done before. i dont know if this is an exception or a new direction. I am also beginging to leanr how to use my colours, which is still a weakness. The greys (colbalt/burnt sienna and ultramarine/burnt umber) are started to exist in harmony. i also think that I am learning how to use the transparent yellow oxide I purchased. It gives a warm fog when laid on grey and a deep vibrant glow when brushed over a white base. It sits well in the heavy gel I have now finished, but I think it will sit better inthe thick glazing medium which is due to arrive this week.

I have also purchased a transparent red oxide and a new yellow. I am going to have some fun with green for a bit. I really wanted to get Jenkins green but it was just outside my budget. Perhaps it is the arrival of autumn that has suddenly made me want to get back to green. I dont tihnk it is a colour I have ever really got to grips with. Howard Hodgkin, you basterd.

Right. I will be uploading the first of my recent lectures tomorrow. I need to get them online for my students and have nowehre else to put them. Hopefully they will be of some interest Andy, apologies in advance for their length. I will look into seeing if it is possible to only have a small bit on display then a link to click to get to the whole thing.

finally- on a totally seperate note. I am still in total shock regarding Englands win over Australia. One of the great great sporting shocks. Fingers crossed for Saturday.

Stolen

The sun left a shadow behind her
Before dissolving behind the clouds
Autumnal rhythms conducted the medlody of leaves
To dry for yet another tear
Escape from thought amoungst the crowds
Fucked of with Cupid and his theives

A glimpse of light

A vacuous container, nothing more
Three folds settle in dust
A fleshy mess and an empty core
When love turns to rust

Received, the Autumns sun
Elusive, logisitcally intangible
Eyes a nattering one by one
A container, fleeting but full

For now the Crow has gone
For now the Crow has gone