[another saltscape... #22 of 25]15cm x 15cm, gesso and mixed media on wood panel, for the exhibition salthouse 09...using a flash has brought out unexpected textures, ones that i had not noticed before..
[another shot...]
[detail; showing textures]...and a haiku poem...stepping on stones, skippingthe sedimental slabs, water blackenedstriated, to the shore...i have been tempted to edit my experimental haikus, change words, but perhaps they should stay as intended... spontaneous responses, of the moment... just words, caught in the net...
and lastly, some small paintings on paper, now box framed, for HWAT...
between two rocks
[another saltscape]15cm x 15cm, one of 25 works on wood panel for the exhibition salthouse 09... and a small haiku-style poem.a rockscape mouldedvestigal tracesmarks the slippery way out...
[saltscape: detail, showing textures]having had a few days away from this artwork, i finally decided this evening that the 'vertical' has it... as twenty five paintings they could, if hung in a line or in small groupings, be enough work for one exhibition, but as i have to work within a very small space the tight grid arrangement remains...
a couple of weeks back, when going around a student exhibition, i was reminded of an exhibition i had way back, a small solo show in an artsy café, entitled stuck between a rock and a hard place, because there was a work in the student show with the same title.my exhibition (in 2001) consisted of small collages and paintings on wood. i realised then that this small body of work from 1999 to 2001 was neither resolved nor cohesive... it was a transitional time, signalling a move away from the clutter of collage to the flat planes of painting, but at that point i wasn't really sure what direction to take my painting; it was too simplified, too flat, too empty.i've also become a bit stuck with saltscapes too, indecisive over the simplest of things; should they be viewed as glimpses of landscapes, or not? as grid components they seem to fit together better as verticals - vestigial traces of walls, caverns, exposed rocks, silt beds, tidelines, and timelines…anyhow, it's done now, and it's time to fix them to the backing panel...
and finally, some new works in progress (sans salt)… because it's not always what you've done or where you've been, but where you're headed, hard place or not...
poetry [e-motion]
bruised rouge, to greyclodded clay,clawed deep, the way...
[another saltscape] 15cm x 15cm, one of 25 works in progress on for the salthouse contemporary art exhibition 2009...i am not a poet but i quite like poetry... i won a poetry prize at school but the careers officer said if i really wanted to be a writer i had to study journalism... i once signed up to a creative writing workshop, but came away disillusioned after a day's workshop on plot development and characterisation... the more said with less appeals... an economy with language, painting the scene with single words, not gilding with ornate prose... perhaps there is something good to come out of the texting phenomenon; in time we will all become poets, communication condensed, a poetry in nano...i have debated whether or not these panels should be hung together to look as a series of landscapes... implied historical narratives seem to be a big part of the exhibition... but i have a reasoning behind a current preference for stripes, horizontal or vertical... i am reminded of barcode images, maps, of extracted dna, information refined for analysis, visually coded, simplified data... i realised that the stripes were in some way linked to a need to condense, compartmentalise, tidy up collected and stored visual information, putting things in order, creating an essense out of the apparent mess of things...p.s. a gentle plug for the HWAT website which i have been working on.... my involvement in a local art trail [artists' open studios]... these artworks [saltscapes i-xxv] will not be on show as by then they will be installed at salthouse church...