Earlier this year, after a studio hiatus, I returned to continue
with a body of work that I had been focusing on for the past five
years. I had ended 2004 having resolved a number of issues with this
work, most particularly of a technical nature.
I did not know it then but the delicate 'veil' paintings that
were characteristic of this period, particularly since mid 2002, had
reached a natural conclusion.
Whilst the 'veil' works clarified a clear and ongoing
theoretical position for me, the balance had begun to shift
increasingly towards addressing problems of technique and aesthetic
concern. I learned much from these visually spare, elegant paintings
but eventually a consistency of form and process brought about a sense
of restlessness.
Painting has the potential to embody so much more than the sum
of its visible parts and I realized that I needed to reintroduce chance
and uncertainty as essential elements of my working methodology, if I
wanted to communicate anything of my concerns.
For some years I have been most interested in the complexities of the
human condition and in the various levels of cerebral consciousness and
sensation that strike such a delicate balance in order for us to exist
and co-exist with one another.
More importantly I am of course searching for a metaphorical
interpretation and translation of these concerns through visual means.
I like to believe I am embracing Rudolf Arnheim's "Truly productive
thinking takes place in the realms of imagery".
This has resulted in a return once again to a working
methodology that engages in the extremes of impulse and deliberation
(or unconscious and conscious drives), where the unknown quantity is
seen as essential to the development of each individual painting.
So, I began to 'pull' imagery from my mind in a series of small
works on archival matt board. Over a month I produced fifty mixed media
works that I then culled back to comprise the Re-Form series 1-28.
Each of these works was approached using pencil or charcoal;
somewhat rapidly at first to avoid over-analysis and then with
increasing deliberation as vinyl tempera, watercolour or oilstick was
incorporated. I am never sure of the result, what it represents exactly
or how it came to be as it is. The process throws up a never-ending
plethora of images; some that recall or remind and some that just are.
They always surprise me. The larger works come from the same premise
and are not directly informed by the smaller ones. It is a momentarily tense introduction as I begin each piece,
for I am painting blind and am unsure of what will follow. Each work
begins as a tabula rasa (clear slate) and then over time an image and
form appears. It is only when the work is nearing completion that I
come anywhere near being able to title it, prompted by the forms and
sensations revealed by the process.
Painting for me is not a way to describe or illustrate, at
least not necessarily in any specific sense; I see it as a way of
encouraging metaphorical and unknown images to materialize and thus as
a potential carrier for our personal and collective unconscious
histories.
Matthew Browne October 2005
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