Over / Under / Cover / Repeat is a new body of work created for a showcase at the Bowery. It forms part of ongoing studio investigations into the qualities of everyday barrier materials. From solid hoardings, to chain-link wires and to plastic weaves, diverse material surfaces are so often part of everyday urban spaces, but are easily overlooked.
Beginning with representational reflections of repeated patterns and non-descript urban sites, the subjects are gradually distilled to reveal what I see as their abstracted, painterly qualities. Over / Under / Cover / Repeat reflects a desire to continually test out materials and to ‘think through’ ideas using painting processes. Of interest to me is the notion that when these diverse works are brought together, shared visual languages are pushed to the fore within a vibrant, abstracted and fragmented aesthetic archive.
At the core of what I create in studio is the notion of ‘thinking through practice.’ My concerns as a painter do not specifically relate to abstracted aesthetics, or simply to re-presenting patterns. Rather, I am consistently driven by a desire to try and think about that which interests me using painting as a methodological tool. In essence, as an artist, I always want to see what something looks like, and how it can be thought about, as a painting.
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Over / Under / Cover / Repeat is the culmination of a 2 year practice-based research trajectory.
Built upon investigations relating to how contemporary painting practices can be used to to explore visual relationships and interactions with physical barrier materials.
The exhibition showcases the breadth of personal studio painting processes, developed over a 2 year period, which have been tested out at group exhibitions over 2017. O/U/C/R locates these distinct visual practices as interconnected personal research activities.
The resulting body of work is positioned as a ‘thinking-through’ process, rather than simply an activity of making paintings of subjects, or creating objects.
Here, the works point toward questioning the ways in which the selected subject can be considered, challenged, used and re-imagined through the activity of painting and by using painting practice as a methodological tool.
The Bowery Gallery in Leeds is a venue of considerable standing, having showcased the work of national and international artists over the last 10 years.
