I have always had a love of buildings. These photos of mini shrine type structures are work from my degree show back in 1994 and were based on the architectural forms I spotted on travels. My degree was in ceramics and I was drawn to fragile buildings, textures, small windows and doors, archways and chimneys. I loved the pale colours, roughness, preciousness. These were meant to be shrine like, they were lit with candles from the insides.
After this show, I stopped my own work and focused teaching art and starting a family. No time for anything really. I didn’t start my own art again for many years but remained attracted to similar textures and architectural forms. I had collated a small number of photos that I taken on trips abroad and these were my starting points. You can see how much more relaxed my drawing style was a few years back, I have no explanation of why it has changed and I find this quite annoying. In some paintings I would layer the canvas in different papers to create a base, never used a ruler and it didn’t seem to matter.
This went on and on really.
Then one day I came across the following https://www.pechakucha.com/presentations/brutalism
Pecakucha is a way of presenting 20 slides in 20 minutes. It is a great way to share interesting information quickly. I watched this presentation by Emma Brooke and was instantly hooked on concrete – Brutalism. I started to appreciate my Coventry surroundings and the smoother shapes and concrete forms. I read books, researched architects, discovered places I had ignored. We are literally surrounded in Coventry by concrete. This new passion formed a big corner in the direction of my work and interests in general, an absolute new found appreciation for something that had surround me my entire life. As social medias grew I started to discover other contemporary artists who were drawn to the same sorts of places places.
This has slowly led to a fascination with urban areas and modernism in general; shopping centres, housing estates and urban landmarks. Influenced by the works of George Shaw, Mandy Payne, Jen Orpin, Michelle Heron and Reuben Colley. Rather than rough texture, now I am drawn to reflections and achieving accuracy. I love to try to paint chipboard, signage, graffiti, curtains in windows. I quite like to capture signs of life, without people so much, like a photograph but different. I would like to try to bring back some of the looser painting techniques from the 90’s an involve some texture but then find myself doing the complete opposite. It’s an ongoing battle.
Current work is a derelict Livingstone Baths and I’m already obsessed with achieving the last standing swimming pool tiles as accurately as I can. Gah!
sumourbanpainting.uk 