Abstracts

'Scapa Bay Abstract 3'
40 x 40"
Acrylic and oil pastel on canvas.

For one reason and another I seem to have shifted recently into a phase of painting a lot of abstracts. Ever since I took up brushes again I have produced abstract work, but I think only now I'm truly understanding why I do this...

I think there is a definite truth to the thought that keeps occurring to me, which is that when I am painting abstracts it is the most authentically 'me' as an artist that I can possibly be.

I actually really like this feeling. It's a kind of freedom. I know whatever I create, even if I'm not absolutely happy with it, it comes from somewhere very genuine and honest. There's a certain ease and grace about that.

'Orkney Held Me Close and Blew Me Away'
24 x 24"
Diptych - two 24 x 12” canvases.

Acrylic on canvas.

I have always admired landscapes, and I felt for a long time that I wanted to paint them. That was a huge ambition as an artist, to become a competent landscape painter. In order to do that I began to learn this complex language of composition, mark making, colour use, depth, perspective, that allows me to make that type of work. I am a student. I work. I learn. I improve. I evolve - but it's a dance, and the landscape leads, with me following and trying to keep up.

Studio Collage Collection of CD Sized Artworks
for Inchmore Gallery

I remember seeing my first abstracts as a child, and then later studying Kandinsky at school, and just feeling this kind of soaring, bubbling over, exploding feeling of awe, and amazement, and emotions - and belonging. As a kid you usually feel a belonging to a family, a place, a school, a band, a sport (and of course I did), but I also felt a belonging to abstract art - because those works expressed in physical form what the inside of my brain looked like. My amazement was that someone had hard wired inside *my very being* and extracted my inner languages and made them real. It's kind of like someone playing you a video recording of your imaginary friend, whom of course nobody else knows or can even see.

Of course all that is in some ways a sweeping, emotionally driven overstatement - but you know, most of it isn't... Whilst of course there cannot be one universal visual language, the language of talking in colour, form, texture, pattern, space, tempo, contrast is universal I think. I guess it's rather like saying I know a person is speaking some sort of English, it's not *my* sort of English, I'm not quite getting the dialect and the intonation, the references are a mystery to me, and they have different views, but the fact they are speaking English at all, that makes sense. I understand it without effort or conscious thought - whereas my French is a learned thing, and I can only speak and read a little, and I have to put a lot of effort into communicating that way.

'Soft and Hard'
16 x 16"
Acrylic on canvas.

In recent years I became aware of Synesthesia, which as Wikipedia puts it is...

...is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway.

Synesthetes might involuntarily connect particular colours with letters of the alphabet, or experience certain taste sensations when hearing sounds, or find sounds create various visual responses... It's something I'd really like to learn a lot more about.

To me emotions always have had certain colours and textures (these do change a little sometimes with time). Places occasionally have an association in my mind with colours or shapes. Sound and music have always been experienced in a visual way, like animations inside my mind - music is very beautiful and has shapes, colours, textures, physical movement... If I hear a lot of sound I feel quite overwhelmed and experience what I've always thought of as 'white out' in my mind, everything becomes blank and the visuals that usually play out in my mind disappear. Time I experience as a 3D space which I can move about and view from different angles depending on what data I wish to access.

My inner world speaks in texture, colour, movement, space, light and dark...

'Ocean'
8 x 8"
Mixed media on canvas.

Of course what may be considered 'true synesthesia' gets a bit jumbled up with more learned ideas, like what objects or colours or shapes might be 'male' or 'female', red is stop, green is go, and no doubt some associations may have been formed by childhood experiences. Perhaps I had a book with coloured days of the week which formed all my Wednesdays into 'blue' in my minds eye, perhaps that's not real synesthesia at all? A calendar where Saturday was always marked in red? I know it's been proven that people tend to associate 'sharp' sounding words with angular shapes, etc. Never the less, it's all part of the rich tapestry of information, memory, experience and association that I draw upon when creating art.

'Self Suspended in the Universe'
16 x 20"
Acrylic on canvas.

When I create abstracts there is always a 'process'. This changes depending on the subject matter, if the painting is a commission, or for a certain project, where the inspiration is coming from. Some of how I pull together a painting does come from the inner parts of my mind, some of it is quite subconscious, but other elements of the process are quite methodical and consciously thought through.

Sometimes certain colours (sometimes those from more representational work I am working on) excite me and I feel moved to take them off, on another canvas, to somewhere more abstract. Sometimes I'm inspired by shapes, or music, or the landscape or something else in nature, events in the news... I tend to get down rough sketches, or a plan of colours I want to use - some sort of basic building blocks. From that I will make connections. So for instance if I am painting something based around the idea of 'love' I will start to make associations, some of which I guess are learned and universal - I might start jotting down colour swatches in reds and pinks, say - and others will come from somewhere less obvious - for example 'love' to me is always circles (did I get this from copying a lot of Celtic knot work I wonder, or somewhere else). Some elements of the painting will simply come from what I think makes the other elements work together, what 'finishes' the painting off.

'The Riots'
16 x 36"
Acrylic on canvas.

I rarely plan a whole abstract down on paper in advance of starting painting - I've long since given up beating myself up about this (I used to feel it was very un-studious and slapdash), the truth is I can usually see a kind of 75% complete version of my original vision for the painting in my mind eye, so I kind of know where I am headed. This gives me enough to plan out the size and shape of canvas I need - which fairly often will get compromised a little according to what canvases I have in stock, I find it generally better to get onto an abstract ASAP whilst it's all fresh in my head. I usually try to make a start within three days, which often isn't a big enough window of time to get anywhere and buy a special canvas. If it's the right project though I'll wait, and in the mean time keep jotting down ideas and sketching things out to keep it as fresh as I can... My ideal is to begin right away, the moment an idea comes.

'Colour Makes me Happy'
40 x 40"
Acrylic on canvas.

Often the finished painting has drifted away to a lesser or greater degree from the original vision I had - but that's fine, I really believe that a painting is a journey and an experience and that the process of painting can be absolutely as important as sticking rigidly to some plan or initial vision. It's nice when things evolve on the easel. There has to be some link back to the original inspiration though - or the thing has to have grown from that 'parent idea' into a child that can stand on it's own two feet. At the end of the day the painting has to look good, hang together visually, be something I feel has a sense of completeness.

'Moine Thrust'
Triptych - three 8 x 8" canvases.
Overall size 8 x 24 (hung without spacing).

When painting I always think creating an abstract is like some sort of dance. It's the dancers movements and steps on the canvas. So I am always looking at the individual elements and the tempo they have, the way they flow one to the other, and where they lead around the canvas. Individual areas of canvas have to work, like the sections of a dance, but the whole picture of where the dance started, moved to and ended has to work too. And the dancers need to have considered all areas of the dance floor. Each hand movement or step needs to have been precise and well executed, but also they need to become part of a stronger, better whole.

'Floral Note'
20 x 20"
Acrylic on canvas.

I have no idea really how others judge my abstracts. I have had people say they feel a real connection with certain pieces, and that is such an awesome thing! There is no doubt that when someone views an abstract work all sorts of subjective things within them comes to play. I can intend the elements or whole as something, but it's entirely up to the viewer if they agree (if they have some advance clue of what I was thinking) or have their own interpretation. I do get a huge kick out of the thought that whilst, as the artist, I explore my inner world, my views, the things that move me, that inspire me, that get me excited or make me sad, each viewer of any of my paintings goes through exactly the same process. So many truths! I'm not sure how much the art buying public gets excited about abstract painting, I feel blessed that I do sell some of this work, even through a recession, but for me abstract painting is never going to be a fully commercial activity. Whilst I'm happy to let these babies go out into the world, I could no more stop painting abstracts as I could chop off my own hand. And thank goodness for that!

'Icons Ascending'
Triptych - three 10 x 14" canvases.
Acrylic on canvas.