Original artwork description:

“Peon” is an acrylic study painting 20x29cms on 300gm canvas paper. It is set in an off-white card window mount 28x36cms and will fit into a standard frame made for A4 images. The painting is one of several studies made in preparation for a larger canvas painting.
Much of my work is inspired by music and the written word. I take inspiration from music which has an ‘open’ structure. Music that finds its own way through improvisation. I try use the parallel structures of such music when making paintings. There is no preconceived notion of how an image finds its way. There is no prescription. Whatever happens is built on experience, thought and memories. This study takes inspiration from an instrumental composition of the same name by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band. A ‘peon’ is a word used to describe a person who does work that does not need any particular skill, often one who is not paid well or treated well. An outsider. Outsider art is art made by self-taught, supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. Art that ignores convention and manner. I admire that.
A poem by Don Van Vliet:
The clouds are full of wine Not whiskey or rye ‘n the sky is full of bluebrains, Bluejays, mermaids Bluebrains, bluejays, bluebirds, mermaids bluejays, bluebirds, rainbows ‘n the night is full of rhinestones, Pinecones, telephones ‘n the sky is full of rhinestones, pinecones, telephones Wolfhowls, milkcows Shadows to some hows ‘n the clouds are full of wine Not whiskey or rye ‘n the sky is full of bluebrains, Baboons, rhinos, fools ‘n buffoons ‘n my eyes are full of bloodbones, Snowcones, serenaders ‘n sen-n-n-oritas ‘n so on… Melodies that go on, go on, Go on, go
I have always been inspired by the art and music of Don Van Vliet and continue to be inspired by the modernists John Hoyland, Mark Rothko, Elizabeth Frankenthaler and Gillian Ayres.
Painting is about a feeling of what it’s like looking, observing and also being there. Every mark, line, smear or smudge is part of a series of decisions which are constantly under scrutiny. ‘Peon’ as a painting represents a series of pathways. I keep thinking making artwork is about renewing yourself through change. I suppose part of a reflective search to feel closer to your true self. This series of paintings are ethereal and are derived from sources which are abstract and transcendental. The sources are lyrical and the settings lie within the aesthetics of emotions and lyrical abstraction. The images develop through a process of spontaneously creating fresh visual melodies over structured backgrounds that form the settings for the compositions. The paintings are intended as glancing episodes composed within illusionistic spaces. I try to paint as automatically as possible. It’s difficult to talk about ‘mark’ and ‘colour’ as an “idea” in a rational way, yet nothing can compare with its infinite possibilities and the multiplicity of its possible meanings. A smudge, a smear, a stroke of colour can be any number of things depending on shape, transparency, density, scale and context etc
I build my paintings in layers of thin, transparent washes of colour combined with and overworked with impasto applications. I use brushes, knives and cloths. I let the paint take its own course. I like the process of painting, so I purposefully leave in the traces of its behaviour such as the marks of knife and brush and the stream and trickle of diluted pigment. I respect and work with the nature of paint.
The painting is shipped in a reinforced card envelope/folder and is cellophane wrapped. Please see pictures.

Materials used:

Acrylic on 300gm canvas paper

Tags: