Pascal Hervey

In many ways my painting practise couldn’t be simpler. I start each work by placing a random selection of paint into a dispensing gun. With this I distribute blended dots of colour across the painting surface until the field is covered. The painting is then finished. There is no editing; I only get one chance. This constraint is very liberating: the latent potential of the paint in the gun could describe near infinite worlds but ultimately a single image will emerge. I no longer have to consider when a painting is finished. This process has been fairly consistent over the years. What has changed is the way that I consider the slowly evolving trail of paint and the ways that it might equate to the visual world.

In the past year I have also started working on some paintings using more traditional methods. Working very close to the canvas I fill in the area using lines and colour fills. Only then do I step back to see the composition. Rotating the canvas I will edit the image, sometimes erasing or combining areas until it feels resolved. As with the pixelated work I want to land on an image by chance.

I've been a practising artist for over 25 years and my work has been featured in various publications, notably Frieze magazine (Greg ...

BA(Hons) Fine Art. 1st Class. Slade School of Art. London 1989-1993
MA(Hons) Fine Art. Chelsea School of Art. London 1993-1994