PAINTING: PULLED, STRETCHED, REVEALED / 25/10/12 - 23/11/12 SIMON CALLERY / ALEXIS HARDING / JAN MAARTEN VOSKUIL

Turner, 2011, Alexis Harding, oil and gloss paint on panel, 122cm diameter

Informed by contact with archaeological excavation sites, Simon Callery’s canvases are cut open to reveal the interior body of the work, or hang at disjointed angles, exposing their internal supporting structures.
Where Simon Callery’s irregular frameworks support canvases painted in absorbent muted hues, the work of Jan Maarten Voskuil is characterised by smooth curves and bright, monochromatic colours held taught by precisely engineered structures. Both artists have expanded the notion of thecanvas stretcher to thrust the picture plane out into the viewer’s space, yet Voskuil’s work often responds to architecture, curving around corners and between walls. 

Simon Callery,Test Pit Painting, 2009, canvas, wood, oil, distemper, 182 x 82 x 40cm

Pointless cornered perspective orange, 2012, Jan Maarten Voskuil, acrylic on linen, 100 x 40 x 20cm

Alexis Harding similarly roots his work in the language of abstract painting but aims to fundamentally change it; to harness and stretch it to its limits. Where Voskuil enhances the structure that supports the painting, Harding focuses on the paint itself. By mixing oils and household paints he causes paint to dry far more slowly, leaving a hardened layer on the surface which moves over a still viscous layer below. For Harding, painting is a process, a skin, a physically tangible substance manipulated by the will of gravity or grabbed and pulled by the artist’s own hand.

Add Broken Line (Snapped Noose), 2010,Alexis Harding, oil and gloss paint on panel, 244 x 122cm

Painting with loose paint scraped from palatte

Experiment with oil, acrylic and varnish on canvas.

At the beginning of term I felt like I was in a transitional period. I needed to play around with paint more so than before. I have been making big oil paintings but often felt like there was something missing. I often troubled myself with issues of colour but looking back now, it may have actually been composition which was confusing me.

Add captionExperiment with oil, acrylic and varnish on canvas.

'Untitled' paintings in show at the beginning of stage 2.

Scrapings of paint from palette purposefully  dropped to the floor.

Each time I clean my palette I am fascinated with the colours and the mass of paint that is randomly placed on the palette, I carefully scrape it clean, trying to keep the scrapings as intact as possible.  These paintings are an attempt to make paintings from random placement of colour. I allowed the paint to merge with varnish the pushed and pulled the paint through the varnish. I left the paintings in an up right position, to allow the paint to drip and fall without my control.