Colour paintings

These are two of the paintings I did for submission to Fabric of the Land 2012.

Whilst they may not be quite appropriate for the audience (they weren’t chosen), I welcomed the opportunity to hone my ideas and techniques for a particular purpose. I wanted to experiment further with the dripping paint and how colours influenced the depressive (or not) feeling of them.

The theme of the exhibition was geological marks on the landscape. I felt these would apply well to my paintings as they can be read as water and deposits trickling through rock creating geological layers and features. I called one ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ And the other ‘Trace’. In the end I only submitted Trace.

Looking back on WDYTYA I think this fits really well with where my work is moving to. Perhaps I was trying to subconsciously tell myself something back then! The use of colour, drips and title all add up to reading this as a work about identity too. Does the artist have a right to use bright colours with such depressing marks? Marks that pull and drag downwards or imply the British, all encompassing, ultimately depressing weather state: rain.

I found an article in this months Art of England about Peter Vaillant. It featured a photo of his piece ‘City Night‘. His work was unknown to me – but I think I saw him working on the Millennium Bridge during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee pageant. But I recognise many of the same qualities in his image as I do in my own paintings of this style.