SEEING AND IMPLICATION IN ABSTRACT FORM AND COLOUR
It seems to me that much visual art confirms what we expect. The journey to painting is dominated by confirmation and does not employ the imagination.
I like the idea that a journey of discovery is set up. It begins with recognition, but is not confirmed, so the imagination is evoked.
When I see something that is suggestive and ambiguous I find myself trying to imply meaning, different people see in different ways. The old psychology test, where one squeezed paint between two pages then, when opening it up, one sees either a butterfly or faces or something else. With this in mind I like to make work that is suggestive in form and colour and then to see and hear their reactions.
Colour can be ambiguous when used in and abstract way, it reminds me of colour relationship in light and nature in the landscape.
My forms work in a similar way. When I throw paint it takes form in mid air, affected by gravity and fluid dynamics, when it lands it makes a perfect perimeter on the surface. This perfect perimeter takes only a moment to happen, made by the natural forces.
If I try to make this perimeter by skill with pencil or brush it would take a very long time and would only be a poor copy.
When I see the form it reminds me of things I recognise or have experienced, like people or animals and things.
I find myself mixing colours obsessively; I’m interested in the colour relationships in nature and light in the landscape. When the colours at the bleed stage are generically related to the colour in the thrown forms they appear to belong to the space they are in, again this evokes the imagination to search for recognition and meaning.
I like the possibility that my paintings are made largely by natural forces; I try to evolve how I let this happen. For me it allows me to have a philosophy that I can live with, by this I mean nature acting through me allows me to become more passive in the act of painting but still evolve it for its own good. Rather than dominating the process with my ideas and skills, which for me is indicative of the 20th century and the cause of so much that is destructive as well as constructive.
