Gothic Orange Dream
Painting, Sacred / Mythological, Mixed technique, 16x16x.025cm
In this series of paintings, the draped table serves as a fitting analogy for the family.
The death or absence of a family member impacts on the stability of the family unit.
I wanted to create a table that would embody this sense of aftermath, a kind of limbo. The table is also provides a classical hiding place for the child, a bit like taking shelter in the mother’s petticoats, the ambivalence of tablecloth is in the dress-like shape of the pleated material. The objects that occasionally appear on the tables are not fully explained, but this is not a primary concern at this stage.
I began applying fluorescent pink and orange stripes across the surface of the paintings as a way of diminishing the hierarchy that the subject (Table) holds over the viewer, by subjugating its energy, splitting the viewer’s vision into two parts. The introduction of movement creates a state of flux, where one image fights for survival ( the underlying image vs. the stripe motif). The stripes also serve as an interference, not unlike a bad television signal, and as each table painting is effectively an imaginative composition, the stripes act as ‘blank areas’ commonly experienced when trying to hold a mental image of something or someone for any length of time.
Following on from this, I decided to look closer at the cloth folds by cropping the image down to a series of near-vertical lines (folds), the optical grey colouring was intended initially as an grisaille under-painting in preparation for a series of coloured glazes. As I progressed with the modelling of the grey cloth, I decided that a monochrome set of works would provide a foil for the heightened colour of the previously mentioned works.
The resulting images remind me of the ubiquitous grey curtains, familiar to anyone who has ever used a passport photo booth.
I felt that these curtain paintings provided the metaphor for the sense of absence.
The curtains remind me of stage curtains, they are ‘serious’ curtains, the official curtains for the ID photo, the ones that signify a beginning and/or end of a performance, or of a life.
The death or absence of a family member impacts on the stability of the family unit.
I wanted to create a table that would embody this sense of aftermath, a kind of limbo. The table is also provides a classical hiding place for the child, a bit like taking shelter in the mother’s petticoats, the ambivalence of tablecloth is in the dress-like shape of the pleated material. The objects that occasionally appear on the tables are not fully explained, but this is not a primary concern at this stage.
I began applying fluorescent pink and orange stripes across the surface of the paintings as a way of diminishing the hierarchy that the subject (Table) holds over the viewer, by subjugating its energy, splitting the viewer’s vision into two parts. The introduction of movement creates a state of flux, where one image fights for survival ( the underlying image vs. the stripe motif). The stripes also serve as an interference, not unlike a bad television signal, and as each table painting is effectively an imaginative composition, the stripes act as ‘blank areas’ commonly experienced when trying to hold a mental image of something or someone for any length of time.
Following on from this, I decided to look closer at the cloth folds by cropping the image down to a series of near-vertical lines (folds), the optical grey colouring was intended initially as an grisaille under-painting in preparation for a series of coloured glazes. As I progressed with the modelling of the grey cloth, I decided that a monochrome set of works would provide a foil for the heightened colour of the previously mentioned works.
The resulting images remind me of the ubiquitous grey curtains, familiar to anyone who has ever used a passport photo booth.
I felt that these curtain paintings provided the metaphor for the sense of absence.
The curtains remind me of stage curtains, they are ‘serious’ curtains, the official curtains for the ID photo, the ones that signify a beginning and/or end of a performance, or of a life.
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