The Shapes of Paintings

I had intended to keep my website as Zen as possible; couple of clicks, 2019 work only. 3 works max. But the illusion of my current work bursting forth, fully-formed from nowhere would have missed the opportunity to share an interesting illustrated back story of self-doubt, dubious choices, indecision and absence of follow-through that have brought my work to where it is now. Much of that work has been lost in the transit of time, some of it actually lost in transit, some stolen (unbelievably, from a garage in Croydon ) and some pieces have been sold. Fortunately, despite the erratic execution and preservation of my work, I have an obsessional drive to create and I photograph everything. Come with me dear reader, backwards to 1986, starting with the best of my recent work since 2017: I had spent the dozen or so years prior to 2017 trying to quit painting entirely. Here is the evidence that I couldn't even make a success of that: Looking at them now, I can see t...

This is my most recent artwork. Oils on eight panels. Each panel painted separately, without reference to its neighbours. I didn't know exactly what I'd get until I'd assembled all the pieces for the photograph here. I had an overall plan incubating for about three weeks, which was a combination of these two sketches. I wanted more unpainted than painted space. The positioning and configuration of each element was improvised in the moment and painted free-hand without rulers, pencil guidelines or tape masking - not that I have anything against the use of tools - it just didn't want that degree of precision. I wanted the lines to be as ragged and energetic as possible. I recorded a video of myself starting and finishing the painting.