Firstly my apologies. This constant uploading of unfinished works and sketches must be annoying. I think its useful to upload works on the main section though as it allows us to see proper detail.
In regards to this last point…I am having a chat with my sister in how we can restructure this site. I think it serves its current purpose quite well, and we obviously need to be careful not to dedicate to much time and effort to something which is primarily a subsiduary to our work. Having said that, if a few easy(ish) changes can allow it too function, and fullfill our requirements, more sucesfully, than that can only be a good thing.
Anyhow, in regards to uploaded images. The map series ‘Between Somewhere and Nowhere’ are finished. Having said that, their completion marks the start of a new series of similar works. Anyway, I am happy with them…no need to say anymore than that. For those interested they are about a5 size. They work like thi9s but there is potential for these small paper works to spawn larger canvas works.
The attached sketch is one of the second batch of recent sketches I have done (first batch was uploaded the other day). I am particuarly happy with this sketch. It is called ‘Ballet of the Nightingale’. To an extent the title can be ignored, I merely name them at this stage to provide identification for myself. Having said that, the titles do provide an idication of certina elements of content. I am interested in how what were previously seperate elemetns can become one. By that I mean that they are not seperate figures by a single figure at various stages. Or perhaps not, maybe its something vaguer. Fuck knows actually. I don’t think I overly need to klnow at this point, these are designed to inform future works, not to be finalised works of clarity.
That said I tihnk the following is true: treat all sketches like major works and all major works like sketches. So the former can have the seriousness of the later and the later the freedome of the former. Or something like that. How depresingly simplisitc and didactic of me.
Merry Christmas.

Right well i had a load of waffle prepared, but then you wrote your last blog and it made me change my mind so i’m unsure whether i need to put it down now…. hmmm….. i think i will, unchanged so that it gives an idea of what i originally thought.

Your last post really helped to raise some pertinent issues with regards to both of our practices. First of all i’ll respond to your work (the receipt work), i think it looks like the most contemporary pieces you’ve made to date, but i don’t know what i feel about them, i don’t really know what you’re trying to say. Perhaps they are somewhere on the way to making a poignant point but for my tastes they’re a bit clinical. they seemto be saying something about the figures you’re interested in, falling, and thus between states of mind, particularly when placed alongside maps. but this is my quarrel, they “say” these things, linguistically. I’m thinking here of mike lill’s degree pieceand how it succeeded in doing some of the things that these pieces of your’s are just falling short of. It made me feel as well as think of being inbetween physical and psychological states. However i am glad that you stopped titling your work after classical characters, particularly when baring in mind what you have said about not having clear narratives.
I think there is a lot of potential in this new direction (the newest biro pieces, i believe are another step forward along this line, in fact i’d say that these really are interesting and have a lot more potential in breadth of meaning where the earlier ones are limited). Yet looking at the work has made me realise how difficult it is to unify these techniques that you are employing. I think you should look at gordon cheung’s work, he paints enormous apocalyptic landscapes on top of financial times records. I think what he does is a lot simpler than what you’re attempting in terms of context and subject but you may learn a lot by looking at his stuff.
What you have been saying has brought me back to looking at gerhard richter’s ‘the daily practise of painting’. last time i read this was in first year of uni, and if you’ve not read it you really should consider doing so, its basically the everyday diary of a painter. In the preface it is mentioned how different artists have used writing in different ways to inform their practise, barnett newman’s major works were preceded by a lengthy period of writing, hans hoffmans was a didactic impulse, whereas richters runs parallel to the act of painting, accompanies it, questions it and is corrected by it. I found this knowledge to be extremely eye opening, i suppose because it puts the brakes on our bombastic pontificating about how we should use writing for our practice. there is, rather obviously, no correct way of accompanying the work, only what is right for the individual.
here’s an extract from his writing. “strange though this may sound, not knowing where one is going - being lost, being a loser - reveals the greatest possible faith and optimism, as against collective security and collective significance. to believe, one must have lost god; to paint, one must have lost art”
i love this quote and suspect that whether you’re conscious of it or not, i think you’re attempting this exact process, in a way, to lose the shackles of your burgeoning knowledge and empty out your style. maybe thats codswallope.

I have done a whole batch now of similar quick sketches to the one in the last post. I am not sure if I have already stated the intention of these sketches, if not then I shall do now. I have have then perhaps this will provide a bit more clarity.

Firstly it should be stated there existence is not explicit in terms of any deep seated meaning. They come from a current desire to manipulate imagery, so are in the purest sense nothing more than an extension of that fascination. They are playful, if you like.

Beyond this I do think they are touching on areas of interest and broadening certainly iconographic potential in my work. I should at least attempt to explain more clearly what I mean by this. Once again, I hope this does not appear to be a justification, more a written clariifcation of the process. I am not sure how much difference there is between those two things.

In terms of broadening areas of interest i suppose I am talking about what we like to call content, subject matter. I know I am increasingly interested in what is found when something else is lost. The construction of images, moments and suggested narratives from the destruction (partial destruction I should say) of another.

These sketches are nothing more than images from newsppaers drawn over with biro and white acrylic. Yet I enjoy the point where the specifics of a figure and his context is lost. Where a footballer jumping to head a ball beceoms something more general. No longer a crowd, opposition play eror footabller around. With these props of recognised meaning removed he transforms. He becoems a figures floating, rising, falling in mid air. Someone locked inside some unknown narrative of potentially heroic proportions (this last statment is tenuous at best)

In terms of image making/destruction, the acrylic biro process has interested me. I know this because I have had the desire (and continued desire) to continue with it. It has not been over thought, i am just finding myself constantly picking up images from the paper and wishing to work them up/down in such a way. Ithink what I like is how when reduced to these basic tonal eleemnts (with detail of fabric and limbs removed) the figure seems to take on a weight, a solidity. Beyond this the continuity of surface in the figure and his surrounds seem to allow him to occupy space in an altogether different manner. He becomes a kind of heavy floating form in the ether; I think.

When reduced to simple lines the movement, energy and power of the various forms can be kept while their specific identiy is lost. I like it when the animalistic energy of a horse is kept but its part in a race, or even it looking like a horse, is lost. I like the idea of finding some kind of horse/dog/bull creature. I don’t think I am interested in purposelly abstracting the animal to become some kind of mutant fantasy creature. Its hopefully more subtle than that. I think I just want a particular character of the animal, of which its species is not necessarily relevant. I am not sure I believe this, but my brain seems to want me to when I translate the thoughts into written form. Thats the trouble with words, terribly restructiuve, terribly dogmatic, terribly literal. TERRIBLY? Not sure why I am using such a pompous word, shhhhhhhh.

In terms of iconography I see the potential for these sketches to provide a kind of cast of characters. Figures adn actors who can be called upon to act out parts in new stage productions in the flat. Still Movies and silent actors. Once a cast is built they will help me find stories as much as they will fulfill certain rols I decide upon. Due to the limitations of the process I cannot predefine the stories I wish to make, I have to be guided, to an extent by the cast I have.

Yet seeing as I have created the cast, slected the images to work on, chosen how to work them up and then chosen what contexst to put them in… I obvioulsy have a directors role. That means I know the kind of ‘picture play’ I am trying to make. I know I am interested in lose, in memory, in rising adn falling, in tragedy, in beauty and melancholy, in transcience and stillness, in moment, in drama, in the post and the pre defining moment. These are all vague terms, but I know they provide the framework around which I wish these figures to act.

Hopefully these various visual and theoretical coordinates provide me with a kind of unknowing direction. With a path which leads us somewhere but through the dark and into something as yet undiscovered (undiscovered by me, not suggesting any search for originality here…I dont really give a toss about that…perhaps i do a little)

Which bring me full circle back to the destruction of the image. Its about what is found when something else is lost.

All that said, these are just crappy little sketches which pass the time when I am waiting for my toast to pop.

(obvisouly the playing with newspapers has a whole history. It takes us from the Cubists through to Andys comment about sourcing from the detritus of modern day life. Between these points lie a ton of people who source photographs, newspaper imagery etc to find imagery) I make no claim to be original, therefore, or to be competing with these past figures. I am merely acknowledging the hgistory from which such a process comes. Bacon is perhaps occupying my thoguhts in this sense most obviously at the moment. A true painters painter.

FUCK- this last paragraph sounds ludicrous. It would be false to remove it now though.

Your post the other day really struck me. I think you had some very important points. I don’t really want to systemmatically deconstruct it as that will not be an overly constructive process(thats either a pun or lazy english).

What interests me is the need, or lack of need, to justify what we do in words. I think I have, can and will be quilty of over talking my work. It is equally dangerous, as you suggested, to under talk our practise, to totally deny the need for reason or justification. What is important is the nature of what we say. Not so much in terms of quality, but in terms of its ability to feed rather than hinder our work. It should supplement its progression and interpretation, not justify or limit either.

In this forum (if we can call it that) it seems that a lot of talk is not so much about what has been done but what we are in the process of doing. A kinf o forward looking commentary. The danger of this, obviously, is that theory gets ahead of practise. What I hope is that I can find a level where I am finding some kind of linguistic clarity in my thoughts and processes which helps me to find a new visual clairty and direction in my practise. The kind of clairty I am searching for is of a poetic rather than scientific kind. I don’t want to justify my every action, to fully understand or explain what I am trying to do. In stead its about finding the arena in which I wish to act out certain little painterly journeys. (if that does not sound too horrifically pretentious)

With that in mind I have had some thoughts over where my current batch of new studies is going…

In most of the new small works I have started imagery seems to be deconstructed rather than constructed. This has something to do with my choice to work from a photographic starting point, with a predefined image laid down on the surface. By its nature I then take this image in a direction (normally with definition and calirty being attacked to various degress). This is oposed to image making, which starts with a material and looks to lay in down in such a way to build up a sense of an image. One is the synthetic construction of images and the other is the analytical deconstruction. With one painterly absrtact parts are used to create, with the other to destroy. The extent to which we go on this journey relates to where we wish to sit in terms of pictorial clarity (clairty here meaning that of a recognisable image) I know that I wish to sit in the ether, somewhere between knowing and not knowing. Snippets of reality lost and found between more painterly tendencies. (trying to write honestly but sounding progressively more pretentious)

This play with image obviously has a role. Painting is more functional and pragmattic than mere random play; however much we sometimes try to tell ourselves it isnt. We always move to the next level of interpretation, which tends to be narrative.

Seeing as I am sometimes taking elements from one narrative and erasing huge parts I am seemingly destroying stories. All the props and actors which interrelate lose meaning if only singular, floating elements are left. But when something is lost something else is found. Perhaps this is what I am after, the forgetting of one story in order to remember another (which does not yet exist in this exact form). This is why I have moved away, in general, form exact subject matter.

What I hope happens is that I find narratives, rather than making images which fulfill preordained stories I had in my head. Obviously I have thoughts in my head. By bringing together falling or flaoting figures, recipts, maps etc I clearly have certain ideas. I wish to keep these vague and think discussing them would perhaps trap their potential to expand and surprise. Issues of journeys, memories, reality and the human condition are obvious loose reference points.

What I hope is that from this mass of ’stuff’ stories evolve, that they present themsevles to me. That the painterly process takes over to an extent. I am aware this is a romantic notion, and one I have been trapped in before. Yet I feel, with a more strict framework in place, beyond mere painterly exploration, that the rewards will be worthwhile. What I am enjoying is the process of being in the dark, the adventure of it all. I like the not fully knowing that currently exists.

On a wider level I know the kind of stories I am looking to make. By the nature of the process these will not be clear narratives. The paintings will not be able to read in such a way as to know who is who, who did what to whom, who is where or when or any such other linear or logica sequence of events or relationship of parts. I am more interested in a whole which directs us, its musical…I suppose. I suppose by the unreal nature of such stories I am intersted in allegory over narrative. That is, in something universal not specific. That does not mean I am into philosophy over drama. It just means its a more poetic form of drama. The danger of vague and obtruse philosophical or social dimensions being read into works is not something I am interested in.

Havingt said this I except that as a product of our time our images always offer up some kind of indirect assesment and commentary, however much we seek to avoid it. Even the avoidance of direct association says something in itself. Yet this kind of meaning is the most prone to change and the whims of circumstance and context (historical, physical and social).

Anyway, just some quick thoughts. It might all be bollocks; and probally is, but its kinda of what I am currently thinking…I think.

I have just started a large series of small works, literally in the first few days. These particular three have caught my eye at what was supposed to be a very early stage. I am considering not doing to much more to them. I am not so much seeking advise as to how far to push them, but more just interested in what you think of what is a shift in direction. It is one which has been working its way through for a while, but just been held back by other works being finished.
The large series of small works also sees another direction open up. There are a group of works which more consciously quote from and comment on past works. The commentary is not an art historical one (although that obviously informs it). I hope it is a more democratic borrowing, but one which considers memory, history, the destruction of imagery and the reconstruction of more universal narratives. The semiotics of images also interest me, taking a sign and then destabalising it, placing it in a new context (spatial in particular) to shift its reference. This is all obviously talk at the moment. Ill give you some kind of idea of how I envisage it visually when a few works from this series get further down the line.

I am, despite how it may sound, trying to avoid being to preconceived in the ideas. It is more about finding images that interest me and then finding ways to play with them to create new dramas, new narratives, new images. About harnessing that which already exists and transferrring it into a parrell world. I think.

so these are the changes again, in summary i think that the background to the queen is an improvement, however i just can’t make up my mind about the reddening of the pillars and the whitening/makeup of the queens face. what do you think, my minds all over the place at the min and i need a critical comment from someone i trust.
I also think your drummer boy looks very exciting, perhaps better commenting on it if i aver actually make it down to your neck of the woods.

In order from Top:
1) Ritual Dance of the Drummer Boy (attached to the bottom right is a small, manual music box which plays Pop Goes the Wessel)

2) Ritual Dance of the Drummer boy (close up to see details of maps. Close up with details of music score on drum to be added later)

3) The Sinner and the Child
4) Where did those stories go?

5) Danae IV

6) Danae I-V (not to scale)

7) Some photos of works in bedroom (no reason really)

Mr. Foulds, sir.
El Greco is not someone who, to date, I have spent a great deal of time trying to digest. One thing I know is he has always felt like one of those artists who does not fit historically. There is a certain crude sophisticaion, which I like.

I think the comparison between your work’s intentions and El Greco’s work is a pertinant one. He seems to use figural line, application and colour in order to find his own indepenndant power. The curving line, which historians seem determined to call ‘mannerist’, seems solid enough to justify the term sculptural.
The main thing of interst is, as you pointed out, both the application and chosen colour of his flesh tones. It is an obvious point but I don’t think this can be considered on its own, its relationship to the tones of the colours around it.
He feels, to me, to do a lot of similar things to Cezanne. This is over simplisitic, but the application of colour seems to be parallel but with Cezannes being of a more retangular type. The colour range is certainly similar in what it does. Perhaps El Greco’ colour range is more consistenly cool, but its function seems the same. In applying the paint in palpably present strokes and in using colours which create and capture intangible space they seem to detach the viewing space from us. Yet there seems a dichotomy, becasue it is these exact same features which seems to drag us in, eat us up. Yet we end up floating in this inbetween space, not quite capable of getting into the stage, but not also sat entirely outside of its space.
Anyway, long story short. I think this is what you are looking to do in many ways. Or at the least what ‘Mary the Queen.’ seems to be moving towards doing. I think linear spatial plays also have a role to play in this.

In terms of how to do this, colour wise. Fuck knows. Your use and knowledge of colour puts mine to shame. It is only recently I have made an attempt to approach colour ’scientifically’. Progress, i tihnk, is being made. Yet at the moment I very much feel I am in your shadow (shivering and feel pathetic). So, Sir, the puzzle of El Greco’s colour range is something I hope you crack and I can then steal.

ps Good luck today in the game. United to steal a 2-1 victory from the jaws of defeat.