'City of Glass 37- (PLOT.noun/PLOT.verb)'

TUESDAY 26 JULY

Exciting news - this painting has been shortlisted for the Lacey Contemporary Art Prize and will be on show in the Finalist Exhibition at Lacey Contemporary, London W11 from 3 -16 August

Gallery view - Lacey Contemporary

Private View at Lacey Contemporary. (Ashley with Chris Salmon on left)

WED 10 FEB

I've spoken many times about 'breaking (the perfection of) the square' - well, it's not a square now....

This is very exciting; the power and tension of the black-lines of 8th Ave and 14th St, holding the shape that wants to spin round...I've pushed the shape of Manhattan right into the corner - more plotting.  Because of the orientation of the canvas, the original drips now become a subversive, subtle pattern of angled lines beneath the transparent paint.  I think it might be done. 

Mysterious doorway.

'Hello Mondrian..' would make a good title, though he wasn't fond of green! (or curves)

This goes back to something I was looking at during Open Studios last year when this painting and 'City of Glass 33 - (Buried)' were in very early stages. 

I have used the idea of the controlling vertical in a shaped canvas before in 'Porthleven 13', (below), the only circular canvas that has worked and that I've kept.

'Porthleven 13'

detail- City of Glass 37

FRI 5 FEB 

in progress

Early days but I already have a title- the relationship with words is so important in this series witrh its source in text*

Love the multiple meanings of the word 'Plot':

• plot as in narrative
• plot as in conspire
• plot as in plan or map....

In the novel, Quinn plots Stillman's walks onto a street-map of New York

In turn, in City of Glass 6 and 35, I have 'plotted' Quinn's walk described on pages 106-112...

In the act of painting, I have 'plotted' the grid of New York, already several times in this piece, to establish the angle, scale and position of Manhattan within the canvas , looking for the strongest composition. 

My 'plot 'is for the Manhattan shape, once established, to be painted entirely with layers of transparent colours, giving the appearance of coloured-glass.....


*'The New York Trilogy' by Paul Auster

'Pier'

'Pier'   60x40cms

A continuation of the idea of 'surge', this painting has a rawness and dynamism rare in my work. That sea is an irresistible force, the orange pier frail and overwhelmed...... The canvas-divide provides the only point of stability in the piece....Fast marks/fast thinking.... Fast paint, a twisting, surging, writhing mass...uncontrollable..Tension: the dark blue line visually holds the paint but will it physically hold the paint?   Already a fat piece of blue slid off while I was watching the football...

detail

The beginning, (1) was too static the frozen moment akin to a photograph,  The second canvas was added (2) to diminish the scale of the structure and enlarge the 'surge'. These are my daughter Faye's colours -using her leftover paint- but the canvas a perfect match. The last act was to open up the painting more by taking out the downward movement of the heavy blue line on the bottom left edge

'Pier' is a very personal motif, in my life and in my art. The title is a kind of tribute to Mondrian's wonderful 'Pier and Ocean (Composition No.10)'. and I was secretly thrilled when Janie  said 'where's the pier?' when I told her the title. This of course is a common reaction when seeing Mondrian's painting for the first time! If you know Porthleven you may recognise the pier with its' distinctive kink - here the crisp line leads the eye back into the painting, and forms the tip of the diamond-shape. 

'Pier and Ocean (Composition No.10'   Piet Mondrian

3

2

1

'City of Glass 22 - (Cleave)' .......final thoughts....

This is a strange piece...I have been looking again at the paintings in isolation and have concluded that while working as a pair, they both work individually ... they were made that way.  I only put the paintings together when a friend took this photo and then I began to see them as a pair with a 'cleave' within each painting and also between them which I think adds an exciting additional dimension. As a pair the power of the face is diminished, both because of its smaller proportion within the whole but also because of the power of the divide between the two paintings.

The painting(s) have divided opinion and provoked thought, in particular the painting with the face. I had a great discussion with staff and students from Canterbury Christchurch University, exchanging ideas, analysis and possibilities for the piece. Even during our drawing session in Charlestown and in the pub after, the conversation continued so I guess the piece has had an impact which is no bad thing. 

There have been comments about whether the face works at all, whether it belongs, whether it is too strong, too graphic, too out of kilter with the rest of the series. Also how disturbing the face and the stare are. This is intentional: this is the face of Stillman, the man who locked up his 2 yr old son in a dark room for 9 years in a deranged experiment to discover the language of God.
  
So, to conclude, I think I can and shall, show the paintings individually or as a pair. This duality is delicious: after all in the novel, in his thesis* Stillman discusses the dual meaning of 'cleave', to both break apart and put together.

I have long been an admirer of Richard Diebenkorn and Mondrian and the 'City of Glass' series owes a debt to their work (not too much I hope!). Mondrian is hot news at the moment with two current shows. I have just read a  review of the Mondrian and His Studios at Tate Liverpool, where Waldemar Januszczak talks about the connections between Mondrian's abstraction and his membership of the cult of Theosophy, where universal order is explained 'as a balance between horizontal lines, representing the female force, and vertical lines representing the male force, enclosed in a circle'.

Fascinating stuff. There is also a 'Mondrian and Colour' exhibition on at Turner Contemporary in Margate which I'll have to check out when I'm down in Canterbury in a couple of weeks.

Open Studios has now finished and I'm back in the garage, now even smaller with the arrival of the new work. There are another couple of new paintings in the series, including a red study of Peter Stillman (the son), that I can't yet post having dropped my camera.  It's been a great 3 weeks at the Shire Hall Gallery in Bodmin - big thanks to Wendy and the team for letting me and Janie M McDonald take over the space and to all the visitors who came.

* P:43, 'The New York Trilogy' by Paul Auster.