'City of Glass 31- (A Study in Violet)'

'City of Glass 31 - (A Study in Violet)'    180x100cms

 

A reference/homage to 'A Study in Scarlet', the first Sherlock Holmes story - after all,  'City of Glass'* is a detective novel. The painting was originally worked as two canvases side by side, and planned as a much larger version of 'Celestial' with a less sweet blue/black sky. I had great problems dealing with the scale, lots of bitty areas, confusion.  After separation,  the colour-scheme was pared down,  the composition strengthened with the introduction of the violet/black stripe, an extended Central Park.  There are obvious connections with 'City of Glass 29- (The Space Between' and intriguing ambiguities. Is the violet stripe a sinister tower? A violet void - the entrance to the alley where 'detective' Quinn obsessively watches the entrance to the Stillman apartment? Love the play with the violet-black curves of Riverside Drive and the horizontal of 42nd St - in my eyes, the painting is exquisitely balanced. Perhaps because of the scale, the paint is less all-over heavy, with staining and transparent layerings bringing  areas of light to the piece.  

 

 

The main idea for my (unsuccessful) applications to the Pollack Krasner Foundation, Triangle Arts Association & the Tate St.Ives Residency, was to make a suite of paintings, each containing one of the letters that spell T.H.E.T.O.W.E.R.O.F.B.A.B.E.L. Maybe this is the first painting in that series within a series....(L).  Might need some funding though - these are substantial canvases! The concept still excites me, it is a piece I have to make, somehow, sometime. Because the 15 paintings will be arranged/hung with the greatest visual coherence, the letters will inevitably be all jumbled up, forcing the viewer, like Quinn, to discover the letters that spell T.H.E.T.O.W.E.R.O.F.B.A.B.E.L.

 

 

 

 

 

I am working in The Shire Hall Gallery at the Bodmin Visitors Centre for Open Studios, once again sharing a fantastic space with Janie M McDonald.  We are also both exhibiting a large selection of our work. Come see - we are there until 12 June.

 

 



 

 

 *from 'The New York Trilogy', a novel by Paul Auster

 

 

'City of Glass 14' - (Dialogue) 120 x 80cms

Sunday 8 Dec

It's done!  And so, finally, is my Pollock Krasner Foundation application - ping, there it goes. 20 years in the making according to Denise!

Thurs 5 Dec 

'Possibly, maybe... once again I had big problems with the shock of the change in colour when I took the painting out of the lights in the studio to natural light -the painting looked terrible in daylight- especially the orange which was too dark, too dense, too cold.  This colour shift is always a problem : if you work with a daylight bulb the painting might look terrible in a gallery, so the painting has to work in all kinds of light. Anyhow, in the painting I tuned the orange up, warmed it up and made it more interesting, with the introduction of indian yellow and warm orange glazes and a greater tonal shift from top to bottom.   I did all this as a demonstration in my class at Truro College- thanks for the feedback everyone!  The title 'Dialogue' refers to the dialogue between the left and right sides, between map-shape and image- and of course 'dialogue' has a literary reference. All along I've tried to link the grids of the streets, the grid of the painting itself, my mapping-out grid with the grid of the façade of a building.  The building, giant and sinister, emerged from the paint-  it appears transparent, made of glass...... It's verticality links to the pink block of Central Park, the perspective line of the roof 'talks' to the angled spike of the Williamsburg Bridge.. it seems to lift Manhattan and and make it vertical too.

I love the leverage and breathing space on the bottom edge and I’m happy that, finally, the three canvases have a reason, a purpose and the strength of the lines where they meet add to the painting. They work formally but also, as 42nd St and W107St, they are significant to the novel.

Detail: the Upper West Side, the streets where Stillman walks.......

 
Below in sequence are 3 previous stages of the painting: