New painting- 'City of Glass 6: Pages 106-112' finished during Open Studios

'City of Glass 6: Pages 106-112'    150x120cms


I'm enjoying working in the new (temporary) studio at the Shire Hall and the dialogue with Janie (M Mcdonald). 

In 'The New York Trilogy',  Auster's explores layers of reality and truth and identity and this painting is about the very first idea I had for the series. Just as Quinn, the writer of detective-stories, who becomes a detective, transcribes the movements of his quarry onto a New York street map, I too have been become a detective, extracting clues from the text and transcribing Quinn's walk from his home to his clients apartment, described on pages 106-112. In turn, the viewer too becomes a detective, following my clues with their eyes.

Paradoxically, the facts, and the truth of the detailed translation of the walk held back the truth of the painting;it was only when I allowed the line to be broken up and disguised that the painting came alive again. Like the letters of the Tower of Babel in the novel, invisibly written in the streets, my line is there but not there.

Below is the painting at at earlier stage, where my gut feeling was that Manhattan was too 'cut-out' and the blue too cold.  In the finished piece, the yellow is 'something' and flows through the island and the yellow splashes imply shipping and define scale. Within the order of the grid-pattern, the painting now pulsates with the energy and chaos of the city.  Underneath is the painting in the studio with some very special visitors, my children!



Ollie & Faye with 'City of Glass 6'