Textural Works
These, what I have called textural images, were , I suppose, the real beginnings of what has since become my career. I had dabbled in oil paint for a number of years before this period (I was a construction worker -an electrician by trade) and could only indulged myself in my spare time.) It never occurred to me that I would come one day to live by it. I worked on cartridge paper at first and then on card and although I now paint on hardboard I think I will one day go back to re-explore paper. For texture; the surface and tooth of cartridge paper remains in my opinion unrivaled by any other material. It is truly remarkable what effects can be coaxed out of that humble product. Itīs cheap and easily available and the time taken to exhaust itīs image potential; would tire a comet. Above are just a few of the properties of paper and card.
No more knowledge is required to produce pictures of this nature than be would needed to wander heedless through a pathless wood and all the materials required could be bought for the price of one night at the movies. And the object of the exercise? Then and now. Pure fascination. What better motive for being here at all?
I am not "Arty" at all. I donīt even like the word. I have arrived in this alien domain like some Hill-Billy with all my British working class suspicions and prejudices still firmly in place yet I have to admit that up until now I have found not one professional painter who is "Arty. They seem to be the most practical of people. I am surprised to find- I like them.
As of yet, I am still ignorant of what a picture is actually supposed to constitute and I find the explanations bewildering. So, long ago, I consciously resolved never- ever- to paint one. "In one mighty bound; I was free". I released myself there and then from the burden of trying to conform to a formula I didnīt understand and a standard I couldnīt possibly meet. Armed with only my ignorance I had unknowingly become a "Post Modernist". I belonged!
Conceptual
This genre is a great forum for all who have missed their vocation to climb into a pulpit and lecture ad nauseam.Why conceptualization is -I feel - detrimental, is that the image is often sacrificed to the īmessageī. Itīs politicking, and whether personal or general is invariably īGripingī. At best a kind of "Das Kapital -The Musical" performed by the Red Army Minstrels. I have only one very blunt instrument for measuring my appreciation of anything, Am I bored? I find even my own lectures to myself boring. Unfortunately I canīt get away. An image or an idea appears in my head and I try to do it without question. Most attempts are unsuccessful but I developed lots of new ways of failing which I was able to use later. I might try and īreadī something into it later but if I try beforehand I weary before itīs anywhere near finished. īProvide! Provide!ī I loved this period. I had a great time being very serious and became a real pain in the arse. My dear Lady is not quite convinced that I have yet completely recovered.
After a few years this style began to incorporate a different kind of imagery. The images became more monochromatic and began to change into fragmented non- sequential parts of a story that buzzed around in my head about some īother-whereī to which the words real or unreal seemed completely irrelevant. Catharsis" is probably the transitional painting that began the next period "Universal Script"
Universal Script
It is impossible for me in these few lines to even begin conveying the fullness of this period. It lasted perhaps two years and with unabated intensity. It was, up until then, amongst the most exhilarating experiences of my life. I suppose it really started with "Catharsisī where I discovered imagery could be written, like a letter- as long as you didnīt specify what was to be written. I had noted it earlier and used it in many previous paintings but not exclusively as I did during this period. Universal Script is the writing of almost infinitely interpretable imagery. You can isolate any part- full or fractional- and it always seems to resolve into almost photographic scenes. You can turn it anyway and it still works and hardly any two people see the same things. There was one friend of mine who saw scenes in the negative and could describe what they were whilst the rest of us looked on unable to see anything. Many people see things I canīt - stare as I might. Under certain conditions -and Iīm not talking about heavy drugs- I saw people moving around and talking to each other (in full colour- like a movie) even though the painting was in black and white. I could never actually "Think" about what I was doing; I had to work with a blank mind and let it just create itself. It was a tremendous time for me. There is no way that these images you see on your screen can hope to convey the subtlety of what they look like in the real. Even then one is quite likely to pass by without taking notice, and there is something appropriate in that response too. I did only a couple of large Script paintings but used it extensively throughout my work and especially in the composite portraits that follow.
The Miniature
The miniature period began the more sensuous phase when I imagined just what paradise might be. Itīs all about definition. By now I was staring to merge Universal script with realistic figures and the effect was quite startling. I have always found forests extremely fascinating and had discovered that almost everything visually perceived was a texture of sorts. I found that forests were just such a texture and a very convincing one at that. The figures -using a method I had discovered earlier- were best left to suggest themselves in a most unorthodox way. I would usually allow the forest to be just about what it pleased then place the figures in the most desirable position. I never knew until it was finished what it was going to be as I never had any plan when I started a painting; I just went along with it naturally. The figures, whether woodcutters, explorers or girls, moved around as though on their own volition until they finally settled down. My wife Jill couldnīt believe I could paint without any structure but was the only way I could paint. I didnīt know any other. In the beginning I hardly ever used any model to copy from (I was no good at copying, being somewhat dyslectic) and sometimes I would start with just a face- the size of a match-head on a blank piece of white card and let the body and forest grow around it. Unusual though it might have been; it was never boring and it always looked natural to me.When the girls started arriving in the forests I couldnīt stay away. I was determined to make these images as near to my own reality as I was humanly capable. I strove to make them real and in doing so immersed myself in their reality. I had found where Paradise was. It was in the imagination. From then on I needed no spur to prick the sides of my intent. I was going to attempt the impossible. I resolved to create reality and bend all to my sway. The paintings vary in size from about the size of a matchbox to that of a postcard and all are oil on card.
The Portraits
Theses paintings are really the forges of my techniques and I could not over estimate their importance in this history. I have painted almost one a year for twenty years and it is through these that most of my ideas and directions have evolved. Each successive one tends to become more complex, mirroring the phase Iīm going through.Working on such formidable undertakings test all the limits of ones resources- both physical and mental. One is driven to invent new ways, styles and content in order to maintain ones interest. They are truly īwork outsī but without them I may have ended up stuck in one genre and lost interest long ago. The first (Spain) was painted in Alicante in the early eighties when after months of Jill and myself touring galleries, my sleep had become hallucinogenic. I bought some paper and a few materials and began to exorcise my dreams. So here are, the very first and last of the composites.
The first composites were constructed originally using almost buildingscapes as the scaffold and the faces tended to be of authors I had been reading around that time and who had impressed me. I also used a few film stars; one of Jill and one of her daughter Alex but it became obvious after a while that self-portraits were the natural vehicle. From that time on they became almost like diaries of my exposure to the world. I explored without restraint my fears, interests and sexual fascinations. They gave me more insight into myself than any amount of soul searching could ever have done. They also told me what I had long suspected - that in the vast majority of characteristics- I was boringly normal.
The portraits are for me a continual source of fascination for many different reasons not the least being the avoidance of īmessagesī. Only later could I see what the relationships were between the images and even later before I saw the links between the portraits themselves. I was often amazed that what became obvious had been so obscure at the time. Common references ran through them like woven threads. This kind of pursuit takes one to another plain. A labor of love -if there ever was one. Everything that comprises and compromises oneself is here, waiting to be discovered. They are truly journeys inside. The Portraits changed my perception of almost everything.
Classical
The miniatures of course grew in size as a natural consequence of becoming familiar and therefore losing their challenge. Pursuit of fascination knows no bounds. I had to experiment with new techniques to allow for increase, as what may appear convincing in miniature does not always do so through simple expansion, as any experience will teach. Fortunately many of the earlier textural discoveries that seemed isolated at the time became of use. This was both exciting and rewarding.Sketches and paintings of figures- however well executed- placed in empty or bland backgrounds do little for me. The whole painting must be convincing; every part of it. I began to move out of the forest and onto the beach then into the drawing room and boudoir.
Eventually even these small but intense pictures followed the same pattern as before and began to grow in size with their subsequent demands until no doubt in the future I will attempt life scale. As the paintings become larger and more complex, time becomes a problem. The freedom of working small and unrestrained by time must be compensated by the lure of accomplishment of things beyond one for the moment. Failure is an inevitable property of experimentation but as I have never had any goals in my paintings except to indulge my fascination these failures usually yield some benefit-even if to avoid the same thing in the future. What they never fail to do however, whether successful or not in execution, is to hold me spell bound during that period. Success by this measure is never in doubt.
I realise that very little of what I have discovered is new; I have just put together known things in a slightly different way.
