The Voyeur Painting

Rainford, England 1960The young are judged on their potential, the old on the quality of their productivity; art is one of those subjects where experience counts. What did I know when I left art college at the age of 22, other than I wanted to go to London, the Mecca of the Art World? However two things prevented me: Firstly it was too expensive and secondly it would have been too easy. I realised that if I was to do anything I would need complete isolation in order to develop my own voice, so I got a part time job and three years later I went to Berlin which, at that time, was an island-city behind the Iron Curtain. Not knowing a single soul and even less of the language I spent a year in splendid isolation. I was free from both the fetters of obligation and the expectations of others, it was ideal for me: the new start I felt I needed. At the time I even toyed with living in East Berlin but the bureaucracy and my limited school German made it impossible - plus the fact that nobody ever went to live in the East. I was learning more than the rules of perspective; I was putting myself in perspective and learning about life outside of my previous narrow academic life: school, college, teaching. A chance encounter in Berlin led me to move to the south of France. From there I moved to Holland, Italy and then to Barcelona. It was in Berlin that I really started to work on irregular shapes because I wanted to use more than one view point in order to give a better representation of my surroundings, a direction which I have followed ever since. Whilst breaking away from the constraints of square and rectangular canvases may be liberating irregular shapes also impose limitations, especially on spontaneity. When one works within a square or rectangle one has scant concern for the edge, one is as free as the clouds in the sky to go wherever, do whatever and change whenever. Whatever mark, colour or shape that one puts down on the canvas is totally independent of the border. The border is there because it is and not for any deliberate reason. When painting on a blank square or rectangular canvas everything is open and one can do what one likes - both liberating and terrifying. A shaped canvas on the other hand is deliberate; there is a reason for it, it sets the parameters for whatever happens within. Every event has to be accountable to the preconceived form, accidents rarely occur because the objective has been clear from the outset.