After a day building and stretching more and more complex canvases sometimes you just have to remember where you are and paint. Very different limited palette here but still just four colours; hookers green, burnt sienna, titanium white and mars black.

I'm putting this one differently up as a piece for my #artistsupportpledge and the very affordable price of just £100 unframed + p&p. For more details please contact me through this website, Instagram or through Facebook messenger.

Due to the more time consuming processes of making my spatial paintings  I thought I'd just share with you my latest work on progress. I'm currently working on 4 new pieces but this is the most advanced to date, it's a new spatial painting, oil on canvas. This one hangs around a 90° corner so as to address two spatial planes. It also  references both my current 'Near black to near white series' and my older 'Mauve Skys Series'.

NB. I've realised these photos really don't exploit the 3D aspects of the piece so please look out for more to follow.

 Yesterday I posted of an image of some calculations in one of my sketchbooks with the title 'play' attached, I find myself with a little more time to transcribe some of my notes today so I would like to put a little more flesh on the bones of that post. In the past I have talked about the importance part that the notion of play can contribute to the creative process but I don't think I have expanded upon what I mean by play and how it is creative for an artist to play. When we play as children we tend to let our guards down and move into a world of imagination where anything is allowed to happen without there being any control devices to say 'don't do that'. Wherever these control devises come from, as adults we tend to have then firmly in place and they 'guide' us to fulfill our acceptable place in society. If a person varies too far from these social guidelines their behaviour is seen as aberrant from the social norm. For me it is critical that artists should aberr in this way both for the good of their work and for the betterment of society in general. I intend to expand on how this aberrance helps society at another time, I have already touch on this as part of the essay 'Questions and Paradoxes, Enigmas and Wonders; excerpts from 'the Manifesto of a Global Village-Idiot', the body of which can be read here

Today I wanted to write just as few notes about how as artists we should allow ourselves time to play without any recourse to any judgements that society may wish to place on such behaviour. As a tutor and mentor to artists of all levels probably the inquiry that has been asked of me most often by artists in regards to process is 'should I do this?' Be it about trying a variation in the colours of a paint palette, about carving a sculpture from stone or about visiting a certain exhibition there is always one answer to that question; 'YES'. As an artist if we can imagine an idea we should experiment and 'play' with that idea, there are no wrong ideas, just ones that have not been fully explored and that exploration comes in the form of play. From this exploration we gain knowledge and understanding, it may not be the knowledge  that we hoped or expected to gain and indeed it might not appear to be knowledge that is useful at this particular time, but often such knowledge will kindle the embers of new ideas for our current or future work.

And so back to my own work and that images of my calculations; how can something that looks so regimented as mathematics be considered as play? Attached to this post are images of 3 of the spatial paintings, (above 'Heaven and Earth, Diptych', below 'PMYH' and 'Reality plus 1') which I have completed at various times in the past. These pieces all derive from the historical process of painting with oil paint on a stretched canvas but take that process into previously uncharted dimensions. To create stretchers that curve and twist canvas into these new, 3 dimensional, ways takes both a large degree of childlike imagination but also many hours of design calculations where precision can make the difference between if a piece works or fails. As part of the self isolation residency I have over the last week started work on 4 new spatial paintings of different forms and sizes. Each of these requires a high degree of design work long before paint meets canvas and for the most part that is what I was illustrating with the image of my sketchbook. But that this doesn't explain where the play comes in I hear you ask? Well it comes bizarrely enough in regards to the level of precision that I previously mentioned. Although I have to be very precise when I am designing a stretcher for a piece of work like this I really only have to work to certain tolerances, it's not as though I'm designing a rocker engine. If a piece of the stretcher has to be calculated through trigonometry to fir into a space that is say 12 cm wide the likelihood is that if my calculations get me to 11.95 cm it will be close enough, especially when one considers the vagaries of sawing wood. So once I have achieved the figure of 11.95 why pursue my calculations until I achieve a figure of 12.0000041736? Because I a playing with the process, it may sound a little OCD and perhaps it is, but in making these calculations new possibilities within the creative process can be explored with potentially new, unexpected ends and potentially more satisfactory creative outcomes.

'From near black to near white I' (above left) is the first in a new series of experimental paintings, the concept of which has been rumbling around in my head and even in this blog for a while now; I guess I could even say that to some extent the beginnings of the the concept go back to seeing Robert Ryman's 'White' paintings in the flesh for the first time at the Venice Biennale in 2007. His use and interest in the materiality of painting chimed with my ongoing preoccupation with the the painting process but also conjured up the kinds feelings of space and 'depth' invoked by Jackson Pollock at his best. For some time my own studies have distracted me from these ideas but now during lockdown it seems like I have the perfect opportunity to introspect, reflect, experiment and play with this subject again.

As a precursor to starting this series of experiments I have gone back to another old 'habit' of mine, photographing the moods of the sky (above right, Depth): of course anyone can do this anywhere and at anytime, but somehow doing this at this time on the West Coast of Scotland seems more than appropriate. I've often said that the sky here isn't really blue its mauve and this has been my starting point for both my photography and my new paintings. Working 'from near black to near white' has given this project both its title and structure; I've mentioned on many occasions that it is my preference to work with a limited palette of my own devising but with references to the Zorn Palette. Zorn of course used, probably ivory, black in his palette instead of blue, I myself prefer not to use black at all in my paintings but I find that using an intense mixture of Prussian Blue and Alizarin Crimson gives me a rich, dark purple or near black. As Titanium White is added to this mixture I start to head into my mauves and with the final addition of Yellow Ochre to the mix, the forth and final colour in my palette, I can create true greys that can take me 'near to white.

For me this is an interesting and important painting which I feel will be influencing my work for some time to come and from that point of view I have considered both archiving it or putting it up for sale at my usual price scale.   I have on reflection however decided to do something very different with it, I am going to put it up for sale at a reduced rate both as part of my #artistsupportpledge, but also as part of a new idea that I am considering which is a form of artist sponsorship. What I would like to do is sell the early experimental pieces in this series at affordable prices with the dual idea of both getting the work out there but also to directly fund the further development of this project. This means that by purchasing this piece or other pieces in the same series the purchaser will be directly helping to fund the further development of work on this project.

For more details on the 'near black to near white project, #artistsponsorshipproject or for sales please contact me either through this website, by email or Facebook messenger.

'Near black to near white I', acrylic on paper, 29.5 x 29.5 cm, 2020, Antony Clarkson, £75 + shipping.