Set 5 Painting

While ground-breaking Op-Art artists of the 1960's and 70's may have given artists of the present day licence to paint in abstract geometrical ways, this series of paintings carries a different intention. These paintings are about the border between precision and humanity, and how that manifests itself in something which cannot be 'known' at once by the eye. They are not intended to have psycho-visual effects embedded in them, rather to let the viewer's eye have agency, and wander the surface with natural curiosity. This is one of a series of hand-painted watercolours in a development stretching back to an Instagram project I created in 2017. In working with hand-drawn lines of colour close together, I found that I'd created something that I could look at and lose myself in. My eye would roam over the surface, a little like watching the flames in a log fire. My goals then were to work on a larger scale, on heavy quality paper, but most importantly with watercolour, which gives a unique luminosity and vibrancy, even in pale washes. For something so apparently minimal, the paintings in this series can be lived with on a daily basis, as, depending on time of day, type of light and distance and angle of view, they look subtly different, just catching the eye afresh. To paint these delicate lines of colour, this evenly and consistently, has taken a lot of research and practise. The mark making also requires that I control my environment and use a lot of mental focus, as even a distracting thought can affect a line through varying muscle tension. The result is that these paintings, with lines painted top to bottom and left to right become a kind of data stream, or recording of my process, balancing precision against informality, concentration against fluidity, all within some very tight constraints. I had to actually weigh the brush for each stroke so that the paint load fell within a few tenths of a gram. Each mark then requires a full body Tai Chi-like move. I start laid at full stretch across the paper and then draw the brush back in one action, until my body is leaning over backwards. It was fun for all those reasons! There's even some inspiration in these marks from one of my art teachers at school, the ceramicist David Wakefield. He had already then studied under ceramic masters in Japan. He told us how, when the potters there decorated a pot, they might use a single flowing brush stroke to imply a blade of grass. One stroke, one chance. That concept stays with me to this day. If you choose to buy this painting, I think you will enjoy many peaceful moments with it. If you go to my profile page and click the little Instagram icon below my photo, you'll find plenty of interesting images of my other work, plus an Art Noir photo-story!

Painting:Watercolor on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:29.3 W x 43.9 H x 0 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.