In 2016, I created a series of small word collection paintings on calico, primarily using acrylic paint.
I’ve begun creating paper out of waste paper from a studio clear out to create the surface for a series of word collection paintings, this time using German words as the starting point for each painting.
Soaked paper ready for pulping
Word collection is an experimental series of paintings emerging from an exploration of the intersections between image and word, using language as a kind of primer to generate paintings.
A newly formed sheet
I’ve chosen over 300 words. I am now finishing off forming all the sheets of paper from the pulp. I already have a few sheets of dry paper and so I soon get to the stage with painting I haven’t been at for ages of putting paint to surface and seeing what emerges.
I’ve been diving into the work of painters recently, currently it’s Mali Morris, and I am enjoying a re-engagement with the world of painting. Painting has a strong hold with me and so does language/knowing/not knowing. Recognising this massive pull back to painting I have signed up for the Turps Banana painting correspondence course, starting in September. I am particularly interested in this slow form of writing and sharing images of my work in the slow and deeply reflective nature of writing about painting.
In this series, I harvest words from dictionaries, Google Street view and from my everyday reading. They are kept in bottles, poured into a sieve and the first one sifted is used as my starting point for a painting. This almost alchemic process allows me to explore free-flowing associations between colour, gesture, form, and my instinctive response to the original word stimulus.
The current German collection of words were harvested from a dictionary and so at the outset of the project I have actively chosen the words for their interesting meaning, yet by the time they are sifted I am likely to have almost totally forgotten the meaning, and I wonder what trace of meaning might be visible in the resulting paintings?
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