". . . what will not have . . ."

". . . what will not have . . ." - ruled in some measure by the negative future perfect, or future anterior denial evoked in its title. Titles in my last show indicated lines of filiation or homage. Titles in this show tease with an approximation of descriptive phrases that none the less fail even to evoke the simple presence of something, no matter what, anything at all, mere existence: whatever is announced or called in these elliptical phrases is constantly being erased. Moreover, it is its own erasure. 
Like all of these works, this one went through a number of stages while remaining the sam. I had a basic idea: that of a fleshy tone to ground the cosmetics pigments used elsewhere in the works, often layered over reds or pinks, all sorts of fleshy tones.
The interference pigments I use were designed first of all to look good next to or on top of flesh tones: in some ways a photograph of a bikini clad model lying on a car coated in these pigments would be an ideal point of reference for some of my works. 

This fleshy colour, what John Sallis would call, after Hegel, "carnation" is literally the "foundation" of a great many of these works.
Although in ways they feign the lofty tone of the post-minimalist monochrome, I think of these works, especially their placement in the space, as having an element of playfulness. It seems only appropriate to acknowledge the fact that the colours used here exist in the world also, on lips, above and below eyes, on cheeks, on the curves of custom cars, on sneakers, on mobile phones, cameras and computers, in packaging and mazrketing: in this way the material substance of my work mirrors my attempt to allow the work of painting to involve a relation to the world other than that of representation

". . . (t)here . . ."

 
 

" . . . clearing . . ."

Further installation shots of "(T)HERE"

Looking across to the back wall from the little return on which hung a large matte lime or acid green wooden construction of a good thickness. This work in the foreground is about 7.5cm deep and is thickly coated with the dripped remainders of dozens of layers of sometimes clashingly contrasted colour, some of which subtly changes in hue as you move, others are dead and matte. The pattern of criss-crossed brush-strokes just about matches the imitation textile textures of the gallery walls. I think of the implied violence of the sides as demonstrating the price paid for the surface it adjoins, they are a kind of artificial irrationality, a mixture of unplanned and planned "accidents" that end up demonstrating the history of the surface, meaning the frontal surface.

Less than a week now to go "(t)here"

My favourite "violet/silver/turquoise travelling interference pigment on wood construction as it was on the floor in the centre of the gallery. Now moved to the back corner wall for protection. This piece was a true intervention into the spectator's space and hence their relation to the works on the wall, enforcing a degree of closeness and intimacy upon the viewing experience of the more conventionally hung paintings on panel or stretched linen or canvas. At the opening a group of people ended up standing around and over it. Quite appropriate given its title ". . . moreover, when . . ." This piece represents a future direction for my work. In this particular space, when lit by natural light, the most beautiful effects are achieved with the work on the floor, especially in the morning around 10 am when the gallery has just opened.

Installation shots of "(T)HERE"

Opening tomorrow evening

Well what a day. With Paul the installing wizard I spent all day in the gallery just deciding what stays, what goes. Amazing how some pieces just did not work and pieces I took along thinking they might be fun to play with became just so necessary to the whole show. 

A ladder left behind became part of one group of works and, oddly enough, is in almost exactly the same place where, at my previous solo show, there was a fluorescent green set of fence palings leaning up against the wall. Somehow that particular corner calls for something other than just another painting. 

A more conventional blog-posting

Tonight went to studio for a while to see how works were looking and to experiment with some combinations of panels in unusual situations for paintings, in corners, on floors. 


Listening now to Andras Schiff playing the 2nd Partita in C minor from his new, live recording of the Six Partitas on ECM records. My favourite CD of this year.


As I have long I love how he creates a singing yet precise tone and love his rhythmic freedom and imaginative embellishment in all the repeats. I love the way he phrases, always in a singing way, articulated often into micro-phrases as in the fugal section of the 2nd Partita's opening movement. It is astonshing the intensity of affect he derives here from bare 2 part counterpoint that nevertheless evokes at least a 4 part texture of orchestral scale.


Schiff's playing has the effect of making all other pianists seem dry and, dare I say, academic and merely "correct". The variety of colour and attack he derives from the piano, coupled with the intensity of the recorded sound means this is like no other Bach recording I have ever encountered. 


It sounds best played in open spaces, in a large room, then listened to from a slight distance. I have never experienced the sound of a piano in real space in quite this way before. 


It is in its own understated way as radical a re-thinking of piano sound as the prepared piano of John Cage, the sound of early instruments or even the piano sound of Glenn Gould and Thelonious Monk. One reviewer has commented that the recording sounds as if one were seated next to him, the pianist, eerily silent as he is. In a space that allows its colours to resonate and resound in real space the effect is of a private concert, an unusually intimate effect of musical communication between composer, performer and listener. This recording has touched me like no other this year. 


Let's come backto the Sinfonia of the 2 Partita. Without resorting to pedal at all Schiff sustains the andante's lines in a cantabile, singing right hand melody which builds in intensity leading to a short recitative- or toccata-like passage, full of diminished seventh chords leading inexorably to a fugue of blistering speed that evokes memories of the fugal finale of Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata op. 106. The way he performs the cadential trill on an E natural just before the end of the first movement immediately evokes the trills of the Beethoven finale. 


This is one of many things I love about this recording: not only does it treat the Six Partitas as a totality, reordering them and performing them in the order 5 3 1 2 4 6, it re-inscribes them by way of later styles of keyboard music, as Schiff evokes, simply through phrasing, touch and rhythmic articulation the musics of Schumann, Chopin and late and middle-period Beethoven.


More to follow . . .