…I’ve just got to paint a monochrome.

The “black” consists of Paynes Grey, a splash of Red Oxide and a daub of Phthalo Green (Blue Shade), mixed into a Regular Gel (Semi-Gloss) medium.

I was taught on my foundation course not to use pure black. In doing so, you risk creating a dead hole in a painting, a pit from which the eye struggles to escape. Mixing a black avoids the pit, creates something more subtle, more mysterious and hopefully, more interesting.

Resisting the temptation of overworking, this little guy initially felt awkward to me. After living with it for a few days, I’m appreciating the composition, colours, and variety of this painting. It’s not perfect (whatever that is) but it’s feeling complete.

Happy New Year! And let’s start with something colourful, especially for those of you locked down in the Northern Hemisphere.

These recent works see me recycling selected paintings from my 52 Weeks 52 Colours project. At first I was reluctant to break up the series however, every artist reaches a point where old work needs to be destroyed or recycled. And let’s be frank, not every piece is worth keeping.

Feeling my way back into painting with these works I seem to be playing with different types of visual language – drawing, over painting, sanding and more.

Of the eleven surfaces I’ve got on the go, seven quite different works are in a state of completion (for now at least). There’s one work I’ve sanded back and left as is. The remaining three pieces will run their course before I stop, assess and work out what next.

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I’ve just realised I’ve made no journal posts for a year. I’m going to blame my concussion, among other things. I did send out newsletters though - sign up if you’d like to join my mailing list

Just read Vaughan Oliver has died, age 62. Fuck.

A couple of articles in the Guardian caught my eye this week:

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‘It’s about solidarity’: the artists who hijacked the Turner prize speak out by Charlotte Higgins

They asked to be judged as a collective – so all four shortlisted artists won. They explain how our toxic political climate made them take a stand against individualism.

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Put our colonial history on the curriculum – then we’ll understand who we really are by Maya Goodfellow

Britain’s past weighs on our present: learning about it would mean a better debate about race and migration.

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Both articles feel very pertinent to me.

The four artists combining to make a strong symbolic statement in such a volatile political climate feels very much like the right thing to do. It’s inspiring to see artists coming together, being true to their values and taking a stand.

In the penultimate paragraph there’s talk of a shift, of “a mood of unpicking authority, of seeing through the accepted matrices of power and questioning them. It is possible that the world is moving beyond the monolithic, winner-takes-all prize – increasingly people are questioning the act that holds up one artist as the best.” I’m intrigued as to what this new world will look like and how it will operate.

I think the second article resonated with me as being from the UK and now living in Aotearoa New Zealand it’s impossible not to be aware of the various effects of colonialism and how it shapes this country. Acknowledging one’s own history, especially the bits we’d rather not look at, is essential for developing identity and understanding ourselves. I mean this both personally and as a nation, and yes, it’s a complicated, challenging, and difficult process, but one which is vital.