That my motifs have potential to generate, procreate, spawning new ideas, shapes meanings and metaphors.
I watched a program on ‘Trading’ two days ago. How people can easily become a trader on-line with a bit of trial and error and practice. Seems not that different to gambling really, stimulates the same part of the brain, I imagine. Perhaps it’s more predictable than gambling? The people on the documentary discussed how trading is simply knowing when to buy and when to sell. Predicting uptrends and down trends. That they can ‘jump’ from different company’s shares on the stock market, sometimes multiple times in one day! So to keep on an up trend and in some profit. This got me thinking about the computer game ‘Rainbow Island’ that I used to play in the late eighties. A character jumping from platform to platform, fighting to stay within the walls of the screen, as the water rises from the depths to ingulf him. It was a bright colourful computer game with catchy tunes, created in Japan I think. I like the idea of legs and feet ready to spring into action, in the jumping posture ready for elevation. Coiled with potential energy, seeking a better reward or just ‘jumping’ ship. Like on-line trading, like ‘Rainbow island.’ Like changing homes or nomadic, like embarking on a new painting…
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I would say my work is abstract in that I paint with spontaneity. (Pollock, Hoyland, Rae, )I like the paint to take on a life of it’s own. Drips, reactions, accidents, suprises, I block over, I add. Adding and subtracting, I build up layers, texture. I think of the composition as I go. I don’t start with a plan, though I have many small paintings on paper that I have in mind. This might dictate where the painting go’s. The finished painting might have had many incarnations previously. They disappear forever, like footprints in sand. Sometimes I regret, though the finished painting is only finished if I’m satisfied. Some paintings will take weeks. Some are complete in two hours. Some it seems will take an eternity. I know they are complete when the canvass seems to come alive.
I like my paintings to seem alive. Quick, expressive brush strokes can do this. A Painterly gesture records a moment in time. An imprint that is left Reverberating on the canvass. I add thick glossy lines. I paint shapes. Big looming skyscrapers . I paint big thick black lines, roads, traffic lights. Shapes and sillohuettes that litter the visual urban scenery that we take for granted. I resort back to references of a journey undertaken by someone? myself? Footprints, hands, a presence. A document, or proof of our exsistence on our ever shrinking blue and green ball of rock. Or are people getting bigger? My work conjures up for me, archaeology and pre history. I would say my work is abstract though I like to splay images of real things into the mix. I like to achieve the raw feeling of an abstract, yet I like to have elements, readable easily decipherable. Feet, hands, buildings, figures, clouds, sun, moon. I present these like pieces of a jigsaw perhaps in a four cornered arena. I like them to fit. My battle is making them fit into a good solid composition. In this respect I ally myself to Alan Davie. How many motifs or symbols did he have? Lots! He created his own parallel world. A never ending source of ideas. I have mine for now, a few motifs. They all mean something to me. I like the idea of the pagan green man being ever present in our day to day society in the guise of traffic lights, watching over us, guiding us through the endless stream of traffic. This is one that has got me thinking... |
AuthorSam Weldon - Artist |