I’ve updated my website recently to show some things that are finally finished.
Over the past two years I have settled into a productive balance and studio time. It felt like I found a new creative stride, in part due to a perceived and impending big changes ahoy! Balance once found, it’s now lost by the recent house move, insulating the shed for a new studio and having a beautiful little being/ family to care for.
But when things were productive… I focused on a few new things, finished some old pieces that have hung around the studio for some time AND tried to address the fading issues in a number of pieces I made for the Taiwan exhibition.
The fading has been interesting and annoying. I have always been careful about light fastness until work for Taiwan began. Bear in mind that cameras and screens cannot pick up the neon quality of these paintings.
The coral/magenta colours of the original pieces were made with a pen that I purchased when revisiting a local art shop in Taiwan in 2016. I realised that by adding varnish, the dye based ink would break apart and melt into neon orange hues. This chance discovery became the main exploration in the studio for a few years, whilst preparing works for the solo show at 182 Artspace, Tainan, Taiwan. There was something refreshing about removing and melting carefully drawn line work, this is something I find difficult to do. Something that my old tutor and big inspiration, the late Graeme Todd had completely mastered and turned on its head many times over.
The original images from 2016, click and have a look…
The fades from last year. These images are not a great comparison as the below images were taken on my phone camera, but you get the idea, washed out.
A lack of contrast in forms that were previously well defined but also melty.
For both of these pieces I knew I had to go back in with ink and a drawn/tight approach to bring out the details and textures that existed or I could see needed to be developed. It’s a strange thing to work back into an old piece, however the steps were clear, this is something I have noticed over the past few years, there is more decision and desire to finish an image. To hunt it down actually.
The reworked images…
With the piece below (Joke’s Glen) I came at it with a different approach. Using a brush and paint to define forms in a loose and larger way.
I’ve tried to ensure lightfastness with these reworkings. It is time intensive to see how they will age. But for the most part I have been impressed with works from 2012 til now - excluding this series. Four years for the dye based pigments after varnish infused chemical alteration was probably a good innings and something I did wonder about at the time.
The challenge now is to find something a vibrant and fluid that will last the aeons!