2001/2003 Paths of Desire suite of paintings - Artist Statement
Story of a Painting.
This painting started out to be a plain colour with lines on it. The colour of the lines created a frisson with the colour of the ground. The shapes of the lines were bouncing back and forth from the edges to the middle, side to side, and crossing over. Another voice of lines, of a different colour, joined the conversation. It was like the way we talk and only understand or meet each other every so often. It is sad but it is exciting too. In the painting a veil of transparent jelled colour offered surface texture as well as pushing what had been said already back into memory where it was distorted and partially forgotten. More lines, incisions, dances, maneuvers, exercises, wre developed, reacting to and referring to all that had gone before. There was a depth to it all, an implied space and an actual sense of time having passed and having been contained. The time of year or time of life was hinted at in the colour and possibly the speed of the marks.
Paths.
Paths in the snow or across areas where there are no paths constructed in straight lines, never follow straight lines. People follow natural invisible lines in the land, they curve even when supposedly going directly from one point to another. The first feet set the pattern which is then followed by others traveling in the same direction. The width of the line of each path depends on the number of people who walk this way over time. Tracks made by sheep or cattle wandering over the moors and hills meander but even those people who are hurrying in the winter cold still do not walk in straight lines. They create elegant loops and bends across the white land. These are called Lines or Paths of Desire.
Painting like a tree grows.
Painting is a journey. Every decision made is only one a several possibilities: at each stage in the process it is necessary to choose from a number of possible directions. Each decision is like a fork in the road – and only one direction can be taken each time. To allow two choices at each step, with six steps, one must begin with 32 canvases.
The 36 paintings in this Suite are highly informed by nature. They arise as part of the world in harmony and natural balance. The painter is making non-linear decisions for each step and is devising a system which allows the random to occur, is acting as an element of dynamic deterministic chaos.
Story of a Painting.
This painting started out to be a plain colour with lines on it. The colour of the lines created a frisson with the colour of the ground. The shapes of the lines were bouncing back and forth from the edges to the middle, side to side, and crossing over. Another voice of lines, of a different colour, joined the conversation. It was like the way we talk and only understand or meet each other every so often. It is sad but it is exciting too. In the painting a veil of transparent jelled colour offered surface texture as well as pushing what had been said already back into memory where it was distorted and partially forgotten. More lines, incisions, dances, maneuvers, exercises, wre developed, reacting to and referring to all that had gone before. There was a depth to it all, an implied space and an actual sense of time having passed and having been contained. The time of year or time of life was hinted at in the colour and possibly the speed of the marks.
Paths.
Paths in the snow or across areas where there are no paths constructed in straight lines, never follow straight lines. People follow natural invisible lines in the land, they curve even when supposedly going directly from one point to another. The first feet set the pattern which is then followed by others traveling in the same direction. The width of the line of each path depends on the number of people who walk this way over time. Tracks made by sheep or cattle wandering over the moors and hills meander but even those people who are hurrying in the winter cold still do not walk in straight lines. They create elegant loops and bends across the white land. These are called Lines or Paths of Desire.
Painting like a tree grows.
Painting is a journey. Every decision made is only one a several possibilities: at each stage in the process it is necessary to choose from a number of possible directions. Each decision is like a fork in the road – and only one direction can be taken each time. To allow two choices at each step, with six steps, one must begin with 32 canvases.
The 36 paintings in this Suite are highly informed by nature. They arise as part of the world in harmony and natural balance. The painter is making non-linear decisions for each step and is devising a system which allows the random to occur, is acting as an element of dynamic deterministic chaos.