Series of Paintings for Thames Narratives exhibition 3 – 14 September 2019
Group show of four artists working with the Thames river as part of Totally Thames festival.
To engage with the river in such a way that human intention or gesture doesn’t dominate, I employed John Cage’s idea of ‘chance procedure’. For this, you devise a collection of actions, choose a group of objects, paint colours, brushes etc, and then throw a dice to determine which combination you use. Chance procedure reduces the amount of choice and control you have thereby opening up a free space of potential which can also be thought of as an opening into nature. I also borrowed from John Cage the idea of painting around objects, so the human mark is limited to a tracing. You are following the shape of the object itself rather than making a human representation of it. Cage painted around river stones. The Thames, being a crucible of human and non-human elements throws up a more complex variety of stuff so I used what I found on the foreshore: Chalk, flint, bone, rubber, metal, ceramics and wood. However, chance procedure is only one element in the painting, there is unavoidably choice involved as well; which way up do you lay the stone? Where do you start circling the stone with the brush? at what point do you stop? But incorporating even an aspect of chance opens up a free space like a wind running through the process.
In this open element, I am looking for a moment where there is a mutual human/nature action at work. This is not a fixed destination or a precisely definable thing but it exists. The aim is to touch on it, make it visible and weave in and out of it.
Thames Narratives 1st series – i, 2019 Giclee print and acrylic on canvas 127cm x 63.5cm
Thames Narratives 1st series – ii, 2019 Giclee print and acrylic on canvas 127cm x 63.5cm
Thames Narratives 1st series – iii, 2019 Giclee print and acrylic on canvas 127cm x 63.5cm
Thames Narratives 2nd series – i, 2019 Giclee print and acrylic on canvas 127cm x 63.5cm
Thames Narratives 2nd series – ii, 2019 Giclee print and acrylic on canvas 127cm x 63.5cm
Thames Narratives 2nd series – iii, 2019 Giclee print and acrylic on canvas 127cm x 63.5cm