About the Image
Sometimes the simplest of lines work best. There is a misconception that the more complicated a picture is, the harder it is to create. Not so, as any cartoonist will tell you.
Creating an image with a few lines is incredibly difficult, as the slightest change will alter the character of the line. The fewer the lines the more work each one has to do. Each line must be exactly right, there is no margin for error.
We’re looking at the burnt out shell of Battersea Arts Centre, following the fire in 2015. Although the painting was created four years later. Being an art centre, I took liberties with the sky and introduced a rainbow of colour. Not an accurate rainbow, and suggestive of the pride movement and diversity. The blending of colours to create more colours.
There is space for each colour to find its own shape, influenced by the other colours, and the way each line was applied to the paper, but not controlled by it. Each colour has been allowed to find its own natural path.
The colours are escaping from a rigid urban Victorian structure. Liberated from the confines of boundaries and borders. Potential for the colours can be seen in the window frames, but they are allowed to explode into life as they burst upwards, through what was once the roof.
The old structure is dark and oppressive, but still has life within it. The work of a moment, but the effect is permanent. Often paint is best when it’s allowed to find its own path. My paintings are order and chaos, the balance between the two. Often order tries to control the results and takes over, but, with Battersea Arts shell, chaos is finding a way to take back control.
Creation: Masking fluid is painted onto watercolour paper to create an image. This is covered with a watercolour wash and covered with clingfilm. The picture is further developed using acrylic inks once the film is removed. The masking is removed after several layers are added and allowed to dry. Revealing the final picture.
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