Hi Terry, I am very much enjoying the work on your website. I am assuming they are oil? I would love to know some of your thinking on the figure ground relationship you are setting up and the relationship of the painting to the wall.
Hi Julie, thank you for dropping by. I am glad that you have enjoyed taking a look at the work i have up on here. I think you have some very fine work up on your site – i love: Kick Me (such wonderful titles). Re your questions – all the works are painted in acrylic.
My thinking is, in part, that i’m engaged with drawing attention to the fact of the paint or tape on the taut (or loose) plane of the canvas (or tape). Often the tape is employed as little objects on the canvas while at the same time they are colour and light illuminating the ground. And i’m also particularly interested in exploring, on a personal level, that moment between when the background and foreground don’t really meld or talk to one another and that split second that begin to – however unrefined. All of this is stretched over the rectangular-canvas-covered object on the wall that is the painting.
The figure/gound. I share your interest in that place that amost hovers between figure and ground and back …. I am interested in how the tape can at times (almost) deny the painted shape on the canvas. I am interested in your edges.
This is work I definately want to spend some quality time with.
Thank you Julie, edges are such interesting areas aren’t they – small sites where what is hidden can often be discerned.
Your reflections upon the sides of the canvas, as “the transition to real space, to the wall and the room”, is interesting. I’m keen to know to what extent this has an overt effect upon how you deal with the sides (or indeed edges) of your own work? Also does this inform your thinking in terms of how and where you show your work – perhaps in seeing certain works more appropriate for one site rather than to another?
For my part, In perhaps a critical act against my own intimidation (or reverence) for the “canvas” and its surface, i have been cutting the primed cotton away from the stretcher, (this also enables me to work on both sides of the canvas simultaneously). Sometimes i leave the evidence of the act attached to the edge of the stretcher, at other times i remove the canvas from the side and apply paint to the wooden stretcher itself.
When re attaching the canvas it is to the face of the support, nails (or staples) are applied directly to the edges of the picture plane, in a somewhat provisional manner. This methodology, naturally has a direct effect upon the painting and to the edges of the work specifically, and no doubt is revealing in itself – as behaviour often is.
Braque painted a trompe l’oeil nail in the midst of the near-abstract planes – an act of playfulness, an ironic gesture, certainly, it also draws attention to something of the self–reflexivity of the making and hanging of the painting-object, as well as a reference to its own artificiality or contrivance.
Thank you for the link Carla, i enjoyed looking at the work. It’s interesting that you are reminded of his paintings – perhaps you might say in what way. It’s not a link i would have immediatley made, however, i do find them very elegant and conceptually strong. Re the size of my work – they are very small in scale, roughly between A4 and A1.
Hey Carla, the paintings range in size between: 9 x 12 and 16 x 20 inches. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that when we look at a picture of something we develop certain ideas about it and the reality can come as a bit of a shock.
Yeah that’s the truth – seeing the old master paintings on the big screen in college art history classes and then going to Europe and seeing the real ones. When I am in painting mode Lots of times I do small paintings and people say, wow, that would look great on a big canvas. But I don’t want to do that one on a big canvas!!
Yes i know what you mean. There are still some arbitrary expectations placed upon an artist working within a painting framework. Power and size don’t always go hand in hand. The first time i saw an El Greco painting i remember that shock, it was so small. However, that didn’t detract from all it’s various means to hold and captivate you.
I think “provisional” and “lack of reverence” are important qualities in what I am drawn to these days. Way back when, the key terms were “ambiguous” and “things seen peripherally.” I think the more current vocabulary is trying to get at the move toward – both good and bad (?) – atomized power. One way I am thinking about this is correlating the lack of a central voice from the occupy movement with the often smaller, provisional work that I am interested in. Both speak to decentralized power, how to honor it but not take the lowest common denominator route. Both venues recognize a power system that is not working. The correlation between the two is helping me put some of my thoughts on painting into words and, hopefully, move my them forward.
Contradiction is my current love. The simultaneity of things that seem opposite. When the simultaneity happens it is often with a moment of free floating, open endedness. And one of my deep seeded contradiction is that I am a closet essentializer.
Edges. A lot happens on the edge in my work. The edge tightens and opens depending on the painting. Sometimes I push at the physical edge with dollops of paint that sit on the edge and expand the surface. The sides of the canvas – the transition from the surface to the wall – are usually left alone to show drips and finger prints. Sometimes I continue a shape around to the side and with “kick me” I added a small pink rectangle to the left and right sides that you, of course, can not see without an installation shot or better yet, walking past the painting.
I like the descriptions of your process and appreciate how you are approaching things. There are many (no where near too many) artist working in that vein. One of my favorites is Susan S Scott. She has a spotty web presence but here is one link. http://lynettehaggard.blogspot.com/2011/02/susan-s-scott-boston-artist.html
Can you share with me some of your favorites? And what do you think of John Zurier?
I think perhaps we are all growing tired of those big narratives which are deployed to continually contrive to overwhelm and trivialise the individual voice. I can therefore see that the decision to take up a medium, whilst attempting to employ a level of distance and ambivalence towards it’s own grand narrative has a certain political (with a small p) implication. Paintings made on a smaller more intimate scale and with a concentrated and mindful eye towards arresting an uncertain and un-remarkable moment – is (unapologetically) an alternative to all that it is not.
I also enjoy your descriptions of your process and I especially love your idea of pushing “at the physical edge with dollops of paint that sit on the edge and expand the surface”. Such dynamic potential is conjured – i would really like to see that in action. It has also made me reconsider what potentially is happening around the edges of Phillip Allen’s paintings.
Susan S Scott’s work, strangely i stumbled on via Facebook a short while ago, and posted an image of a beautiful piece of her recent work Here and a link. That interview with Susan was really good.
I’m sorry to say that i haven’t heard of John Zurier before, or seen examples of his work. Thank you for bringing it to my attention – he appears to have produced an impressive body of work. I detect in paintings, such as Oblaka 1, that he would seem to have affinities with Belgian painter, Raoul de Keyser. De Keyser is an artist who is producing work which i respond to. Julian Wakelin and Alice Browne are two more very interesting painters.
I’m sending this discussion onto my studio mate. I think her website is michelesudduth.com/ She works with edges also. Terry I imagine shadows come into play with your 2 D painting, tape etc. Those small paintings have a lot to say. Carla
Hi Carla, I tried following the link but i keep getting a “Safari can’t open this page”, and something to do with the server. But thank you and I will try it another time.
Re the paintings – there is a slight element of shadow cast by the tape and it also plays its part as an area of texture (like an impasto mark on the surface).
Hi Terry,
I really like your blog- lots of good work by other artists (including some friends of mine) and also lots of interesting and juicy work of your own, which gets me excited to head back into my studio. I love the work on various materials- I’ve also been experimenting with book pages, phone book, scraps of canvas, all of which makes for a different relationship with the paint.
thanks!
Thank you Julia for dropping by. I enjoyed exploring your work up on your website – i had the same response also, i wanted to head straight for the studio!
I have bounced off your work on the internet in the past but this is the first time I have had the chance to see a cohesive body of your work. May I ask, how early are the early paintings, tape paintings and recent paintings?
I very much liked your comments on standard (interview) recently. Most of your references to artists who are important to you would be echoed by me as well. Curious about your age and location too.
Thank you for dropping by and leaving your message Steve. To answer some of your questions, i think some of the paintngs in ‘Earlier Work’ go back at least 10 years. The tape paintings are on-going and the majority of the paintings/works on paper are mostly current and span the last 2 or 3 years. And i’m UK based.
Discovered your work via Twitter. Love your work and site and blog. You’re obviously a Hodgkin fan, me too. I saw a show of his many years ago in Sheffield.. stunning.
Love your use of colour and techniques. Nice to find such excellent work on the net. Inspiring.
I’m following you on Twitter and have bookmarked your site.
Best wishes from a fellow Yorkshire painter.
nice paintings – I love the burlap one.I used to be an abstract painter – you might get me back painting again . thanks for your posts
Thank you Carla for your very kind comments. Please do drop by again sometime and let me know how the painting is going.
like these!
Thank you Steffan, i’m always very grateful for any feedback – especially of a positve nature.
love this approach to new abstraction
check out my site…my art is shifting
http://www.gasowskiarts.com
Thank you James and thank you for the link to your site – i will take a look, cheers.
Hi Terry, I am very much enjoying the work on your website. I am assuming they are oil? I would love to know some of your thinking on the figure ground relationship you are setting up and the relationship of the painting to the wall.
Hi Julie, thank you for dropping by. I am glad that you have enjoyed taking a look at the work i have up on here. I think you have some very fine work up on your site – i love: Kick Me (such wonderful titles). Re your questions – all the works are painted in acrylic.
My thinking is, in part, that i’m engaged with drawing attention to the fact of the paint or tape on the taut (or loose) plane of the canvas (or tape). Often the tape is employed as little objects on the canvas while at the same time they are colour and light illuminating the ground. And i’m also particularly interested in exploring, on a personal level, that moment between when the background and foreground don’t really meld or talk to one another and that split second that begin to – however unrefined. All of this is stretched over the rectangular-canvas-covered object on the wall that is the painting.
The figure/gound. I share your interest in that place that amost hovers between figure and ground and back …. I am interested in how the tape can at times (almost) deny the painted shape on the canvas. I am interested in your edges.
This is work I definately want to spend some quality time with.
Thank you Julie, edges are such interesting areas aren’t they – small sites where what is hidden can often be discerned.
Your reflections upon the sides of the canvas, as “the transition to real space, to the wall and the room”, is interesting. I’m keen to know to what extent this has an overt effect upon how you deal with the sides (or indeed edges) of your own work? Also does this inform your thinking in terms of how and where you show your work – perhaps in seeing certain works more appropriate for one site rather than to another?
For my part, In perhaps a critical act against my own intimidation (or reverence) for the “canvas” and its surface, i have been cutting the primed cotton away from the stretcher, (this also enables me to work on both sides of the canvas simultaneously). Sometimes i leave the evidence of the act attached to the edge of the stretcher, at other times i remove the canvas from the side and apply paint to the wooden stretcher itself.
When re attaching the canvas it is to the face of the support, nails (or staples) are applied directly to the edges of the picture plane, in a somewhat provisional manner. This methodology, naturally has a direct effect upon the painting and to the edges of the work specifically, and no doubt is revealing in itself – as behaviour often is.
Braque painted a trompe l’oeil nail in the midst of the near-abstract planes – an act of playfulness, an ironic gesture, certainly, it also draws attention to something of the self–reflexivity of the making and hanging of the painting-object, as well as a reference to its own artificiality or contrivance.
https://www.google.com/search?q=robert+ryman&hl=en&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=1DdKT-bTIMSWiQKBra3bDQ&sqi=2&ved=0CD8QsAQ&biw=1139&bih=913
Did I tell you your work reminded me of robert ryman?
What is the size of your paintings? It’s probably posted somewhere here.
Thank you for the link Carla, i enjoyed looking at the work. It’s interesting that you are reminded of his paintings – perhaps you might say in what way. It’s not a link i would have immediatley made, however, i do find them very elegant and conceptually strong. Re the size of my work – they are very small in scale, roughly between A4 and A1.
interesting – they could be huge art pieces. guess I’d better hint at the size of my work.
They coud be gigantic too although I like the size. I figuere they must be about 8 x 10 inches.
Hey Carla, the paintings range in size between: 9 x 12 and 16 x 20 inches. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that when we look at a picture of something we develop certain ideas about it and the reality can come as a bit of a shock.
Yeah that’s the truth – seeing the old master paintings on the big screen in college art history classes and then going to Europe and seeing the real ones. When I am in painting mode Lots of times I do small paintings and people say, wow, that would look great on a big canvas. But I don’t want to do that one on a big canvas!!
Yes i know what you mean. There are still some arbitrary expectations placed upon an artist working within a painting framework. Power and size don’t always go hand in hand. The first time i saw an El Greco painting i remember that shock, it was so small. However, that didn’t detract from all it’s various means to hold and captivate you.
I think “provisional” and “lack of reverence” are important qualities in what I am drawn to these days. Way back when, the key terms were “ambiguous” and “things seen peripherally.” I think the more current vocabulary is trying to get at the move toward – both good and bad (?) – atomized power. One way I am thinking about this is correlating the lack of a central voice from the occupy movement with the often smaller, provisional work that I am interested in. Both speak to decentralized power, how to honor it but not take the lowest common denominator route. Both venues recognize a power system that is not working. The correlation between the two is helping me put some of my thoughts on painting into words and, hopefully, move my them forward.
Contradiction is my current love. The simultaneity of things that seem opposite. When the simultaneity happens it is often with a moment of free floating, open endedness. And one of my deep seeded contradiction is that I am a closet essentializer.
Edges. A lot happens on the edge in my work. The edge tightens and opens depending on the painting. Sometimes I push at the physical edge with dollops of paint that sit on the edge and expand the surface. The sides of the canvas – the transition from the surface to the wall – are usually left alone to show drips and finger prints. Sometimes I continue a shape around to the side and with “kick me” I added a small pink rectangle to the left and right sides that you, of course, can not see without an installation shot or better yet, walking past the painting.
I like the descriptions of your process and appreciate how you are approaching things. There are many (no where near too many) artist working in that vein. One of my favorites is Susan S Scott. She has a spotty web presence but here is one link. http://lynettehaggard.blogspot.com/2011/02/susan-s-scott-boston-artist.html
Can you share with me some of your favorites? And what do you think of John Zurier?
Thanks for the dialogue.
Julie
I think perhaps we are all growing tired of those big narratives which are deployed to continually contrive to overwhelm and trivialise the individual voice. I can therefore see that the decision to take up a medium, whilst attempting to employ a level of distance and ambivalence towards it’s own grand narrative has a certain political (with a small p) implication. Paintings made on a smaller more intimate scale and with a concentrated and mindful eye towards arresting an uncertain and un-remarkable moment – is (unapologetically) an alternative to all that it is not.
I also enjoy your descriptions of your process and I especially love your idea of pushing “at the physical edge with dollops of paint that sit on the edge and expand the surface”. Such dynamic potential is conjured – i would really like to see that in action. It has also made me reconsider what potentially is happening around the edges of Phillip Allen’s paintings.
Susan S Scott’s work, strangely i stumbled on via Facebook a short while ago, and posted an image of a beautiful piece of her recent work Here and a link. That interview with Susan was really good.
I’m sorry to say that i haven’t heard of John Zurier before, or seen examples of his work. Thank you for bringing it to my attention – he appears to have produced an impressive body of work. I detect in paintings, such as Oblaka 1, that he would seem to have affinities with Belgian painter, Raoul de Keyser. De Keyser is an artist who is producing work which i respond to. Julian Wakelin and Alice Browne are two more very interesting painters.
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I’m sending this discussion onto my studio mate. I think her website is michelesudduth.com/ She works with edges also. Terry I imagine shadows come into play with your 2 D painting, tape etc. Those small paintings have a lot to say. Carla
Hi Carla, I tried following the link but i keep getting a “Safari can’t open this page”, and something to do with the server. But thank you and I will try it another time.
Re the paintings – there is a slight element of shadow cast by the tape and it also plays its part as an area of texture (like an impasto mark on the surface).
What;s the difference in a drawing and a painting in Julian Wakelin’s work?
Good question! I can only suggest from my perspective that it’s intention.
Terry,
Love the work–the piece 8 down is a personal favorite. Joyously free and natural and lots of fun.
Thank’s Derrick for dropping buy. Glad you liked the work and cheers for leaving such a nice comment. I hope you return again sometime.
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Loved browsing here, thanks. And seeing just what you had meant by “provisionally” attached canvases!
Thank you for visiting the blog Diane – I’m glad that you enjoyed it.
Hi Terry,
I really like your blog- lots of good work by other artists (including some friends of mine) and also lots of interesting and juicy work of your own, which gets me excited to head back into my studio. I love the work on various materials- I’ve also been experimenting with book pages, phone book, scraps of canvas, all of which makes for a different relationship with the paint.
thanks!
Thank you Julia for dropping by. I enjoyed exploring your work up on your website – i had the same response also, i wanted to head straight for the studio!
wave , hangman, aftermath – a few of my favorites. I like how the heavy color picks up the ripples on the edge of the paper
Thanks Carla, those paintings are all on canvas, i think. The paint is extending and sliding off the boundary of the canvas edge.
I have bounced off your work on the internet in the past but this is the first time I have had the chance to see a cohesive body of your work. May I ask, how early are the early paintings, tape paintings and recent paintings?
I very much liked your comments on standard (interview) recently. Most of your references to artists who are important to you would be echoed by me as well. Curious about your age and location too.
Thank you for dropping by and leaving your message Steve. To answer some of your questions, i think some of the paintngs in ‘Earlier Work’ go back at least 10 years. The tape paintings are on-going and the majority of the paintings/works on paper are mostly current and span the last 2 or 3 years. And i’m UK based.
Just stumbled on your stuff via google search… sweet …. I assume small pieces?
Hello Ric, yes my work tends towards the intimate scale (small).
Hi Terry, really great work and very interesting reading your thoughts, thanks for sharing
Discovered your work via Twitter. Love your work and site and blog. You’re obviously a Hodgkin fan, me too. I saw a show of his many years ago in Sheffield.. stunning.
Love your use of colour and techniques. Nice to find such excellent work on the net. Inspiring.
I’m following you on Twitter and have bookmarked your site.
Best wishes from a fellow Yorkshire painter.
Thank you Mark, that’s really appreciated.