composition — ART JOURNAL

in december 2008 i wrote i had started some incidental abstract paintings on some scavenged pieces of wood, surfaces that have been gradually built-up, partially obscured, then revealed, slowly reworked & edited over the course of about two years. it was never my intention to finish these paintings in a week or a month - painting them has been a slow, drawn-out process, as i added some colour here and there and then left them for quite a while, before attending to them again, effectively lost then found again - a succession of related 'incidents' contributed to the visual outcome of these paintings.here are some surface details of one of the incidental abstract paintings... abstract painting - surface textures, orange, brown, grey as ever, the colours are muted, faded... and the surface textures a little aged... abstract painting - rough surface textures - rural industrial environment drawn from hereabouts perhaps, in the rural/industrial environs... abstract painting textures - chalky, bluish white, greeny-grey, earthy brown a chalky, bluish white, a greeny-grey and a dark, earthy brown... abstract painting - surface textures, brown, grey, stone elements of stone, dark earth and slate grey-black... detail of abstract painting on wood - eroded weathered orange, brown, grey a slab of tawny orange, light grey and a thin brown stripe... close-up of abstract painting on wood - grey brown texture dark brown-black and a scrubby, scratched layer of grey-green......the dilemma of having to give paintings titles, which should either reference the process or the subject matter... square forms, surface elements, hidden layers, interior/exterior, industrial blocks, stacks, containers, structures, doors, windows, walls, a flawed facade..?this painting 'incident' is called 'orange slab, dark brown and various greys', 30cm x 30cm, acrylic on wood...orange slab, dark brown and various greys, 2011if these incidental paintings represent anything, they are another small record of my enduring fascination with weathered surfaces and the working dialogue that develops as i have created them - the slow emergence of a simple grid structure or rectilinear form, much influenced by the originating ground or surface (wood) - unlike say, the relative smoothness (or 'not') of paper or the regular weave of canvas (i like the texture & colour of raw canvas, but i seem to go to great lengths to deny its material existence in my paintings)...some visual clues scavenged from the journal archive might hint at some of my surface influences... photograph - weathered wall facade, wood textures - brown black grey photograph of old rusty metal shutters - brown rust grey photograph of rusty metal corrugated iron - brown blue grey photograph of weathered wood - rust white crackled grey paint photograph of weathered surface - decay white grey striations photograph - weathered surface - decay green mould algae photograph of rusted iron bars intersecting dark space - like a drawing …all images & text © jazz green 2005-2011…Reunion Refresh @ Reunion Gallery, 5 Feb - 22 Oct 2011(incidentally, there will be two 'incident paintings' on wood in the reunion refresh exhibition)HWAT exhibition 2011 @ Harleston Gallery, 18 June to 11 July 2011...

There is a lot tweaking to be done to these paintings but I am enjoying a certain freedom with colour...There was no intention to portray these as a triptych but having photographed three paintings in progress it made me reflect on the significance of threes, from the holy trinity to the rule of thirds. Statements or slogans have more impact when delivered in three simple words, and all stories or events have a beginning, middle and an end, the ABC of action, behaviour and consequence. I still like to divide my compositions horizontally by three even if the middle section is really only a merging of the other two, the space between air/sky/vapour and earth/matter/solid. Working in thirds within a square makes more relevant the basic elements of composition: tonality, weight, balance, symmetry...Is there any significance that I have just begun reading J G Ballard's The Drowned World? (sorry Mr Proust, as much as I love the way you describe the minutiae of things, I need to put you on hold for a while, and then perhaps remember better the things past)...