Since the last post, I’ve completed four small works in the studio and have a couple still in progress.

Smiley's People
acrylic on canvas
200 × 250mm
2024

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
acrylic on canvas
200 × 250mm
2024

Work in progress
acrylic on canvas
200 × 250mm
2024

I am enjoying the complexity and variety of these new works. They are so much busier than my previous small paintings. I want to keep pushing things – the colour by consciously choosing different palettes and the marks by varying their variety, scale, and speed.

The latest work-in-progress adds pattern as another possibility. I can’t help but wonder how busy/complex they can become before they collapse.

Mix paint, load a brush, and mark the canvas. While I can think as much as I want about a painting (and often do and need to), tangible progress is only made in the doing. Doing is thinking in motion.

“Everyone has a plan: until they get punched in the face”
– Mike Tyson.

Of course, once the paint hits the canvas, any plans often need to be let go. As I frequently hear in the rugby commentary, you must adapt to an ever-changing game and play to what’s in front of you.

While I’ve started introducing figurative elements to my work, I’m not yet comfortable with them. The face in the above painting wasn’t sitting right, even when turned upside down. The figuration felt forced (perhaps because it was), so it got painted over. Plans were abandoned and adapted to what was working or wasn’t working in front of me.

That said, I think there’s value in using an “inserted provocation,” adding a random element to my painting to ask, “What if…?” Like Edward De Bono’s “Po” tool, using a random word to spark new ideas, there’s value in pushing at the edges of my practice, working in unchartered areas, and discovering what I’m (un)comfortable with.

I’m back in the studio after a few days, and it’s taking me a while to get back into the work. I’m feeling lost, wondering what on Earth I’m doing. An hour and a half later, things are starting to make sense, to cohere. I have an understanding of what’s needed, of direction, and of feeling I’m back in the work. Relief. Perhaps this art thing isn’t such a crazy idea after all.

Sometimes, things I see grab my attention. This comms tower—something about the structure, the squareness, and brute physicality.

In the studio, the original photo becomes a black-and-white laser print used as a reference for my painting. My brushwork is quite tight right now. For the background, perhaps I’ll go with the blue you see below or keep things in shades of grey. Maybe a stain rather than brushwork. Decisions.

What also strikes me is the painterly quality of the photo. It’s pretty lovely.

I now have a vast space to work in. So, of course, I’m working on small paintings.

I’ve started to experiment with figurative images in my paintings.

The source material for the hand comes from one of the many “eye candy” images I’ve saved. An intuitive choice. It reminds me of a Throwing Muses record cover, which, after a quick Google search, exits only in my imagination!

Why figurative images?

To see what might happen, to challenge myself technically, and to break some of my unwritten rules about painting.

I feel uncomfortable using figurative images – I’m uncertain how they’ll be read and what they mean. I want to make paintings where I’ve gotten myself out of the way, allowing the painting to emerge. Works that are, hmmm, authentic. I’m not sure if figurative images allow this (yet). It’s early days; this is new ground that will be unfamiliar. Also, I like a challenge.