Monday, April 26, 2010

Works on paper and some merciless self promotion

It all seems to be about working on paper at the moment. I say this with some authority because I have just just read Phil Allen's interview on Articulated Artists and Emma Talbot's new 'drawing' show at Transition shows her work taking a very exciting, new direction. I also know that there is an upcoming works on paper show at the Saatchi Gallery called The Power of Paper and I find myself working more and more on paper.

It is a well documented point that a lovingly stretched and primed canvas can stymie spontaneity - it has just taken too long to prepare and the slightest wrong move could ruin its minimal perfection. Paper is cheap and disposable - it doesn't have such a weight of responsibility behind it. With this in mind last year I started working on a Film Diary series. I note down each film that I watch and then make a painting from it, naming the painting after a description of the action taking place and the date I watched the film. I wrote a bit about it way back in November and there are some images from it here. A few of these paintings are going to be in a new show at Charlie Smith called Papyrophilia which opens on 6 May and also includes Andy Warhol and Chris Ofili! The image here is one of the ones that will be in the Charlie Smith show and is called 21.08.09 He tried to look cool but felt ill at ease.