Unit 3 – Proposal

MY PROPOSAL FOR UNIT 3:

I intend to make paintings with mostly oil on canvas, as the oil paint is best suited for some of my techniques (rubbing off, thin drizzling), and I intend to make them large scale, as I want the size of the canvas to make the viewer feel a part of the painting, and feel drawn into it. These will probably not be on stretchers, as I wish to make them free hanging and have frayed edges when displayed to accentuate their materiality, so they will probably be fixed on a batten on the wall and bracketed or hung from the ceiling of a gallery space. 

In current conditions of social distancing, I am sad that this probably won’t happen in a public space, but I think I may be able to access a friend’s gallery near my home studio, and I intend to make a little movie with commentary, as a kind of ‘walk round’ in place of  public exhibition.

 DETAIL:  I intend to develop the unconsciously recurring theme of the polka dot or circle, which has started to transmute into a kind of ‘lens’, or a negative space, by incorporating this graphic device more consciously in my paintings. These will not be perfect circles, but be more ‘hand drawn’ on to the canvas. This is so that I can bring the evidence of the ‘arm of the painter’ and  movement into my work which I admire so much in the abstract expressionist painters such as Robert Motherwell. The artist is ‘there’, even when he or she is not physically there, by the evidence of the how the paint is applied, the underlying drawing, and by the use of different consistencies of paint, and possibly the inclusion of thin layers of fabrics, as in the work of Antoni Tapies and Jean Fautrier. 

I also want to develop or incorporate the use of the actual canvas as a 3D element as part ofthe paintings. The idea for this has come from several different sources, but I hope to emphasise the materiality of the work as a whole by this method. It could include layering, stitching, folding, constructing. These pieces could be a series of slightly smaller works, so as to be manageable in the slightly restricted space of home.

I also intend to use any pre painted or pre used fabric I can obtain, as re-use and recycling  have always been a part of my life, and for me, that element becomes even more important in today’s society. I also enjoy the unpredictability of found materials.