THE SELF-ISOLATION RESIDENCY 14th FEBRUARY 2021: DAY 322

New work in progress. Working title: "Possible."
Oil paint on canvas, 610 x 610 mm

19, 20, 21: Finding a reason to paint, in search of the sublime. 14th February 2021.
Part 29: 'Interpretation, abstraction, illusion.
An Unsettling Appeal: Insearch of the Sublime.

Landscapes, mindscapes, voids? Whatever I may choose to call these spaces today; I am becoming more and more intrigued by their volume and, potentially, by their contents. 
I am currently painting on either deep canvases, 38mm, or plywood blocks, 36mm. This depth of the support, particularly in regards to the plywood blocks, feels very significant. The supports are becoming a form of box to be filled with one of these mindscapes; in many ways this is a great signifier of the illusion of painting. These paintings have a form of objecthood without being sculptural or even reliefs; although I can imagine some of the brush marks becoming more impasto as this process progresses. But if anything, the current volume of these pieces is contained below the surface, as behind a sheet of glass on a fish tank. The alluded to volume of these paintings is of course much deeper that the inferred depth of the supports; therefore, perhaps in a way they are more akin to an old cathode ray tube television in its wooden surrounds rather than to a fish tank with its established parameters of confinement  in that they potentially have an infinite depths beyond their surfaces?
 
The more I consider these ‘volumes’ the more I begin to appreciate the way that some of my favourite artists also employ these same devices within their painting. At the moment I am thinking particularly of Francis Bacon and Yves Tanguy, both create a discernible depth within their canvas into which a cast of tangible characters is introduced.

To be continued...