It's often said that painting is dead, and as a way to capture an image  this is certainly true. There really is no point in executing a portrait, landscape or still-life, except as a 'technical exercise'; when the camera can do it so much more accurately. However that phrase, 'technical exercise' is the key, and saviour of painting, and indeed of all art.

​Since the invention of photography painting, and by extension all art,  has been recognised for what it always has been, a 'technical exercise. Art is a  technical exercise which allows an artist to interpret and express an idea via paint or various other media. In other words, abstraction. If we happen to translate that abstraction into an image, that is where apophenia enters the equation; this is not more true now than it always has been. I would maintain that all painting, indeed all art is abstract. Art is, and always has been a way to express ideas, not to simply render an accurate 'image'.

When working with found objects there are two main categories. The first involving complete sets of objects, as with the clamps for Crow. The second is with multiples of the same object, the brackets for Black Bird and the shower rings here. Obviously there are also crossovers; the blocks used in Self-portrait with Giant Jenga are both a complete set but are also multiples of the same object.

​Possibly archetypes. Both of these possibilities bring their own problems and delights with them. The main problem, which is also a delight,  is obvious, to play with the objects until one has learned their potential.  

As I've mentioned a couple of times about how my paintings inform my sculpture and visa versa, today I've decided to give a clear example of this process. I chose to base elements of this Womb sculpture on the first painting in the Apophenia Series, 'NN'. Although this painting is purely flat abstraction, I do believe that it maintains a strong sculptural form. 

Obviously when taking references from a 2D image of any kind to influence a 3D form there is only so much information available to you. In this case it might be slightly, easier is the wrong word, but perhaps fluid, as I am referencing one of my own abstract paintings to create my sculpture. There is something innate in me when considering my painting that allows me to develop it into a scuptural form. 

I recently included a photo of one of my large spatial paintings ,Conversation Piece: A Painting Built for Two (Yellow), in one of these blogs post to draw attention to how my work moves from painting into sculpture and back again. The image received a very favorable response and  so today I posting an image of three of my spatial paintings from the exhibition they featured in in 2007.  These particular pieces perhaps go further than 'Yellow' as they explore not only my connection between painting and sculpture, but also installation work. 

Purple, Green & Orange where created for the space that they inhabited, but the space was also created for them. Some of the works are in the space, some of them without it, challenging out concepts of the boundaries of an environment.

​I'll start with Green, because it is probably the simplest of the 3. it was created to exist in the corner of a space, addressing all the planes of that 3D space. 

Purple is a space in it's own right, it is basically a doorway into a cylindrical painting. Once inside you are effectively surrounded and enveloped by it's rich, deep hue. 

Orange is the real joker in the pack. It may look like a shaded orange disc hanging on the wall, and believe me that is not just the photograph, but it is actually a circular hole cut into the wall with a one metre deep, conical canvas mounted behind it. The shading is real as the cone is angled to take its apex above the level of the aperture. 

I think that I have always been fascinated by the idea of Apophenia in regards to art. Good art should always be an open question. It should make you think without telling, or even suggesting, what it is that you should think. 

As I have mentioned previously I constantly nurture a nature of play within my daily, working practice. This leads me to explore the possibilities of the most unlikely materials and objects. A few weeks ago I was having a discussion with a fellow artist and tutor when I mentioned this practice and how I'd set it as a lesson for groups of student in the past. I told him I brought all of the tools out of the storages cupboards, paint brushes, hammers, pilers, scissors etc. and encouraged the students to use them as materials rather than as tools. 

My friend was very interested in the idea, but couldn't see how something like scissors could be used in a sculptural way. I revisited this conversation, the culmination of which was a series of new pop-up sculptures called 'With scissors'. Above, Dancing with Scissors. 

I've thought long and hard about this process of sculpting. As I said previously the idea for the womb support frame came together towards the end of the Self-Isolation Residency in 2021, but the idea of working with fabric and fibres stiffened with size goes back much further. Essentially this is an offshoot of my Spatial Paintings which began in 2006. 

Whist studying for my BA I began to consider how the techniques used to stretch a flat canvas could be adapted to to create 3D forms and even spaces.  One the most interesting outcomes of these experiments was 'Conversation Piece, A Painting Built for Two (Yellow)'. This painting comprised of sections cylindrical painting supposed by size on a 3D wooden frame; just large enough for two people to enter and view at the same time. 

The sculptures that I intend to 'grow' inside these wombs are created via very traditional sculpting materials and techniques. Ostensibly, they will be plaster sculptures and this form of work needs an armature to support it. Unusually in this case the armature will be made from sisal twine which is  hardened with size and gesso, just like a canvas for a painting.   However,  to start with the sisal is of course just a flexible piece of fibre, this where the womb comes in.  

In the same way that canvas is tensioned across a wooden stretcher to create a 2D plane, the twine here is interwoven tightly throughout the structure of the womb as the beginnings of a 3D form. I call these fibres 'umbilicus'.