Working with Images

Studies: ‘Photopainting’

Above, I have used pre-existing photographic prints from various sources and altered them with paint or collage to convey a distinct sense of exploration and play that gives the work a new physicality, while enhancing perceptions of form and structure. Here, I transform the images with an interdisciplinary disposition made possible by photographic experimentation. The uncanny result enables for layered interpretations by combining the photographic image with the whimsical mix of colours and paint textures. Understanding the value of persistent experimentation among the methodical and time-consuming discipline of oil painting is at the foundation of my practise.

As a result, I hope the works offer a dialogue between the current exchanges, with collage and paint being just some of the tools I use to enhance or subvert images. In the photographs below, I have staged each one with a background colour as reference to a frame that may accompany the image as a painting. Some of the images are over inlaid with sheets of coloured acetate in reference to transparent plastics that break up the space of the image. With these works I intend for the picture plane not to be confined to the four corners of the frame, but an extension of it that allows for sculptural compositions, returning to the smaller experiments like sketches and using them as springboards for future compositions.

Going to see a man about a dog, oil on canvas, painted frame, 21 x 29.7 cm (A4, unframed) 24 x 32.5 x 5.5 cm (framed)

As demonstrated in the photographs below, I put the painting in the frame whilst also allowing the painting to be removed later for cleaning and varnishing, using a 2.5mm MDF backing board and a tab driver with flexible tabs. This will also protect the back of the stretcher and hopefully prevent any warping that could be caused by external factors, such as temperature and humidity preserving the longevity of the painting. To use the tab driver, I had to first insert the flexible tabs in the tab driver, then align the tabs on the frame with the holes in the driver, and press down firmly to secure the frame in place. The flexible tabs can easily be pushed back to allow for removal of the painting and backing board.

Finished Painting

I decided to name the piece, ‘Going to see a man about a dog’ not only for its imagery of a man and a dog, but also as it is an English idiom. The idea of using idioms and phrases in my work, I hope may offer a witty inversion of culture, while also suggesting an equally distanced and critical approach to the continuously changing mediascape.

CMYK

To make the transition from digital image to the empirical world, I draw on the work of Chuck Close as inspiration. Chuck Close’s oeuvre has consisted of paintings that are an ongoing series of works inspired by colour separations of CMYK. In these pieces, the artist exhibits a mastery of paint and colour developed over decades of study of both the virtuoso techniques of painting and the advancements in digital photography and pigment print technology. With the use of carefully incremental layers of dynamic brushwork as well as the methodical grid and CMYK pigmentation, Close crafts stunning vivid portraits.

Drawing on inspirations from Closes’ remarkable oeuvre as a product of years of investigating CMYK and my ongoing pursuit to subvert the way we look at images by building on the tangible tenets of images, I have ambitions to suspend layers of plexi-glass, each demonstrating one of four subtractive primaries used in the CMYK process to build a sculptural image. To demonstrate whether this could be successful as a sculptural image, I have printed the four subtractive separations onto acetate paper as shown in the video below.

How Green Was My Valley, risograph print, painted frame, 21 x 29.7 cm (unframed) 24 x 32.5 x 5.5 cm (framed)

When old mine pumps were made redundant, water pollutes and stains the riverbeds in bright orange which is caused by the red ochre residue, known as ferric oxy hydroxide. Artist and Research student, Onya McCausland from UCL Slade School of Fine Art led a project to develop a sustainable paint. Since I have written a detailed reflection on this through my context page, I shall put it succinctly here. McCausland's artists’ practice of making paint integrates its site of formation, drawing on the cultural heritage as an original and innovative approach to the role of the art object, distributed to the public and community shaped by the mining landscape. As an artist from Abertillery, with a family history closely routed to the cultural heritage of the mining industry of Six Bells, I am excited at the prospects of using this Six Bells Red Ochre pigment to create works, whilst acknowledging the art as an embodied experience; the symbiotic relationship with materials and objects exemplified by their use in ritual and cultural practises; and the powerful social and cultural effects of colour.

The Photo above is of my Grandfather, Leslie Cooper, whom unfortunately died from the effects of working in a coal mine when my Mother was just four years old. The image appears like a glamorous analogue headshot with anonymity, yet for me the image is loaded with sentiment. Symbiotic of the rich cultural heritage and a legacy of the coal mining industry, I wanted to continue my exploration with colour and image-making to reproduce the image in shades of green with reference to the film titled, How Green is My Valley. Using a risograph printer, I layered the image in shades of yellow and blue to create a bright green hue. I am not entirely sure if I can consider the work to be fully resolved or resolute in conception. However, it has created a broad-brush investigation that I hope to continue, perhaps by using a play of materials and techniques, experimenting with silkscreen and coal dust.