Word Painting

 

 

The first word painting uses images of the old Red Fort that may or may not still exist off the East Coast of England.  It was certainly there when I sailed passed it as a young person with my father and sister; it was the most eerie thing one could come across at sea. I have used the internet to discover images of it so I assume it is still there.   I have used the words "red fort" and "red faught" to give meaning to the images not only by naming the constructions but to infer their purpose. As they decayed they certainly did become red. The  use of the colour has obvious connotations., not only of rust and decay but of blood and warring aggression.  I have used printed labels which is the nearest I can get to sinking the image into the paper, I would have preferred to have printed straight on to the paper but it is too thick for the printer.   However, by using the lables I can re-position them at random, and cut them up as necessary. Rauschenburg used silk screen printing to achieve the effect of an image appearing "in" the paper and it is his work that has inspired me.   I wanted to use the four holes on the left to imply the barrel of a weapon, punching out the letters "Fort".  The image for me is a recollection of happy times, yet in themselves they are fortifications for the protection of our island whilst at the same time being aggressive weapons in order to carry out that task.

 

 

 

 

 

My second image uses a similar technique to the above with the addition of printed swags using foam impressed into an object which had a raised surface, thereby making a printing "block". I liked this form of image making but it is rather precarious as I can't source the right magic foam in order to make the block, so it is a bit limited.  I have used an image I have used before which is of the multiple heads of a child.  Printed in black they have a sinister look which reminds me slightly of Richter's grey images of the Badermindoff gang.  I wanted to get a sense of the untoward, slightly mysterious, unsettling feel to the picture as it is meant to imply a victim of child abuse.  The text (EY)Escape utilizes the word Eye and Escape to invoke the feeling I am aiming for in the picture. The fractured black section on the right can be read as a man's face in semi profile.  The red eye represents anger but is also has other implications, the idea of a wild animal or of a mystical creature of the night.  The use of brightened eyes is used a lot in such programmes as Merlin and insights the unknown magical powers in the viewer.  In this case it might imply a resolve to Escape. The lips are blue, and are restrained i.e. without any emotion.  Whatever psychological/emotional activity going on is inside her head.



 



The third image is the Large Work (A2), and has the word Ambivalence. 

I had taken some photographs of my own shadow and decided to manipulate them, reproduce them in different colours then print on to newspaper.  The latter was risky as newspaper likes to  jam up printers!  However it worked in all but one case when I quit whilst ahead. It occurred to me that in philosophical terms one's shadow is both you and not you, this ambivalence I felt was interesting.  I also liked the fact that the image didn't look like a horizontal flat image but an image standing up, another ambivalence worth noting.

The idea of being there and not there occurred to me with regard to collapsed or collapsing buildings and I thought of the church at Covehythe, of which I also had images.  I decided to include the windows with the remains of tracery, and there are times when they look like church windows and, sometimes doors and sometimes buildings, more simultaneous contradictions.  The tracery in the middle window was made from Chinese writing, it may well say something quite inappropriate, but that in itself would represent a further uncertainty, or ambivalence.  I used some textured wallpaper on the right of the painting and although it doesn't show much from the photograph, the actual effect is like that of stained glass.  I enjoyed doing this as it involved many aspects of creativity, i.e. pc generated images, text, experimentation with newspaper printing, wallpaper texture as well as developing the concept.  I felt the colours worked well and I that the composition is a satisfactory and balanced one.  John Piper did paint Covehythe and I felt some of his style is influencing my work here probably more in terms of colour than mark making. I tried to use the slanted words to indicate light source from the windows.  The shape of the legs from the photographic image also formed an arch thereby echoing the Norman church window , effectively bringing both images together.