MAPS AND PLANS
ABACUS. X. METAL GRID. EMPIRE RIB LANDSCAPE WITH CAST FORMS.
Acrylic, household and spray paint, varnish on canvas and plywood with various found forms and detritus.
(233cm X 233cm. 2023).
“I began to feel that I could really learn, investigate, by losing a lot of what I knew.”
Phillip Guston.
Painting Not Painting? Sculpture Not Sculpture? Art Not Art?
Arranging ‘stuff’. Detritus. ‘More is More’ principle.
Then take it back / strip it down. Reduction…Then put it all back again. Repeat.
Keep it light. Keep it playful. Keep it almost throwaway.
Anathema to serious painting? What is serious painting?
“I pursue no objectives, no systems, no tendency; I have no program, no style, no direction.
I have no time for specialised concerns, working themes, or variations that lead to mastery.
I steer clear of definitions. I don’t know what I want. I am inconsistent, non-committal, passive;
I like the indefinite, the boundless; I like continual uncertainty.” Gerhard Richter.
Deconstructed. Pulled apart. Atomised. Intricate. Clumsy. Ugly / Beautiful.
On the edge of ‘not being art’.
Arte Povera. Anti Painting. Anti Sculpture. Hybrid. A Combine* in the rawest sense.
*“It is neither Art for Art, nor Art against Art. I am for Art, but for Art that has nothing to do with Art.
Art has everything to do with life, but it has nothing to do with Art.”
Robert Rauschenberg.
Discarded, abandoned, overlooked, leftover. Stuff.
“When one is young and has experienced a good deal of rejection, you want to show everyone how tough you are.
Later you want to show how clever you are. Later still, you want to see how far you can push yourself.
And finally, you don’t give a f**k about anything, you just want to howl at the moon.” John Hoyland.
Tests. Always testing. What will this do… Can this go there…
For me, this is not about representation or making pictures.
These pieces are the culmination of an archiving, collecting, finding, saving process...
Physical remnants of the city forced into new shapes, new contexts.
I am in a constant state of knowing and not knowing.
Tests. Testing. Keep testing.
Painting Not Painting.
Sculpture Not Sculpture.
Art Not Art.