Archive for February 2012
It is Formulaic!
I am “slavishly” following a strict formula
step 1
… though it doesn’t feel slavish to me
step 3 (conclusion)
I wonder how easy or difficult it would be to describe the process I am using as a simple set of rules or instructions, and whether it is easily work-out-able by a viewer (you).
I am sure we could find a mathematical formula for it too. Would anyone like to propose one?
Alan Gouk at Abstract Critical
If you missed the Alan Gouk exhibition at Poussin Gallery, London in January/February, as I did, then these two videos at Abstract Critical of him talking about the paintings in the show are the next best thing. More than touring the show, he has a lot of interesting things to say about his approach to abstraction, his working practices and colour.
There’s also this related article What Paint Does with some interesting comments.
Patterns on the ground – Ingrid Calame
Regular visitors to this blog will know how interested I have become in certain patterns on the ground, very consciously placed ones on the Streets of Nottingham.
Ingrid Calame’s painting Step on a Crack, Break Your Mother’s Back, which can be seen along with other abstract paintings at The Indiscipline of Painting at the Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, until 10 March 2012 relates to a specific pattern on the ground, not so consciously placed, this time in the car park outside the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.
Ingrid Calame, Step on a Crack, Break Your Mother’s Back, 2009, Courtesy of the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London
The coloured tracks in the painting are based on full size tracings of the repaired road surface. Calame employs this method for “finding” “abstract” marks, that are at the same time entirely “representational”. With the help of assistants, she traces the marks onto plastic sheets, collecting ‘templates’ for paintings. It reminds me of taking a photograph, but it is much more physical, or of taking a rubbing like we used to as children, with wax crayons recording the texts of grave stones.
In the studio, colours are chosen intuitively, combining a non-expressive, semi-mechanical method for arriving at a design with a more emotional/expressive use of colour.
The Happiest Moment
I like this video of Agnes Martin, where she says that the happiest moment in making paintings is when they go out of the door, into the world.
Berkeley Square 3, oil on canvas, 40" x 40", composite - 7 stretchers joined
bye bye painting!
Parallel Painting Paths – Mondrian and Nicholson converse at The Courtauld
As you know, the exhibition space at The Courtauld is at the very top of the building. Now, during a quiet afternoon it may be permissible to have a quick pant in-between floors or to embark on the climb wearing flat shoes but these weren’t options at an evening opening and so I bravely tottered all the way up, without stopping and without moaning (well, not that I recall).
Your Smile
Throw away your Television
When I am relaxing, I like to prop a painting I have been working on up against the TV and study it. Because the design always holds surprises, being always already existent, found art in a way, in the sense that Bob Nickas uses when he says that all abstract art is found art, it seems OK to spend a long time just looking, rather than watching the TV.
Quite literally it is art on the TV.
Didn’t the Red Hot Chili Peppers sing about throwing away your Television?
David Thorpe at THW
‘David Thorpe’s installation comprises new watercolours and meticulously crafted sculptural works, presented for the first time in Europe. Thorpe’s sculptures explore his interest in rehabilitating ancient craftsmanship and labour-intensive artisanal techniques. Drawing on the Arts and Crafts Movement and the work of William Morris and John Ruskin, Thorpe explores new forms of utopianism, where past and present intersect’. (Information from…
A postcard from MOMA
Thanks Gayle Alstrom for sending me a postcard from the Museum of Modern Art
How did you know that I am a fan of Ad Reinhardt’s paintings and writings? I don’t necessarily agree with his purism, though I do find it compelling.
Construction of Internal Polygon # 1 (order 4)
‘Self similarity’ within the geometry from macro to micro scale is resultant from the relationships between the same shape in factored scales.
Order 1
Order 2 - Isolated
Order 2 - Overlap of order 1
Order 3 - Isolated
Order 3 - Overlap of order 1 and order 2
Order 4 - Isolated
Order 4 - Overlap of order 1, order 2 and order 3…
