AN exhibition of recent paintings at the Friday Gallery - 3 Nov 2017 by Mark Stammers www.stamms.co.uk
1 The
painting on the left hand side are from a time when I went on a residency at
Warwick University, at first I painted in the ancient wood land, at Tocil wood,
and working for two weeks madding oil paintings on the site, beneath the tree
canopy in the open air, working beneath a large parasol. The sense of movement
colour and light directly respond to the place.
Some of the
drawing works and photos led to a dream image, and this led to making some
painting in the swimming baths. Making painting about bodily movement in the
water. And this in turn led to making painting in the Universities painting
Studio spaces, - paintings on the right hand side, reflecting on the college,
and the sense of movement and light colour and sight led to my response to the
universities scientific sense of things and culminated the residency with a
painting that I called the ‘Philosophers Dream,’ that referred to the sense of
sight, space outside the head and the volume of space inside the head and our
consciousness of the universe. This may have stirred up some interest as soon
after Edward Burne Jones’s similarly titled romantic painting was exhibited in
Birmingham. All these academic inspirations were back in 2002 when 1.9 mp might
still seem advanced; reference:
2 Here I
have shown more recent work from my studio painting in the centre of Coventry where
I have responded to the history of Coventry at the location, the destruction in
WW2 and the current destruction in Syria, that reminds of the past. There are
yet more connections since, whilst painting here, there have been many building
going up on the sky line, and the building that I am working from painting and
showing here is due in a few years’ time to be demolished to make way for a new
city precinct.
Family history also connects me to the past devastation in Cassino, so the decimated brick and concrete buildings and sense of place, the atrocities to people, are all part of this figurative painting.
Family history also connects me to the past devastation in Cassino, so the decimated brick and concrete buildings and sense of place, the atrocities to people, are all part of this figurative painting.
Since the
vote to leave the EU my time in the studio has been dense with reflection and
thinking has slowed my painting, these have centred on the figure of the
soldier in the foreground, here I find the decision to make the figure camouflaged
or to stand out fractured, and there is so much thought or text burning off the
issues that occur so that I have reserved the consideration to a new book of
images and text called – Language, image, reality and myth. To return to
soon.
The issues
surrounding the events that have occurred are something everyone wants to comment
on, but I too find it so difficult not to find this a telling point in history.
That 12m people can be dishomed, and the government still retain any
credibility is terrible. Now leaders reserve comment in the expectation of a
speedy outcome, but earlier everyone was shocked by the extent of destruction
to the people and the country. Everyone knows that it was and is unacceptable,
so I am thrown back to the term “Bureaucratic Indifference,” and it is this
that is unacceptable on behalf of the people involved, in part of my discussion
on painting in my pending blog those issues are brought to again, but in this
exhibition my response of transition is to return to abstract painting and
working more quickly with water colour I have developed in the third section to
the exhibition, my response to those issues.
Some of the
recent history since starting to paint at this studio space: David Cameron
going around the EU for diplomatic tools to slow the migration that many people
thought was dangerously overheating, the EU’s refusal to acknowledge the difficulties
thrown up and allow any controls - even whilst he made his trek, the refugee
crisis was exploding, his return with the ‘Damp Swib’ and the subsequent attempted
mass refugee exodus to the EU from Syria, all so tempting to refer to, to say,
karma returning…now the EU have stuffed money into the pockets of Turkish
leaders to abate the flood of refugees…these are sad reflections, and a failure
of reason or diplomacy over man made events…
If not 12m at least six million
people from Syria are forced to be live their lives in make shift tents and
camps and have been doing so for more years than is reasonable….it is difficult
not to believe the UN ought to have acted
long ago to intervene, if so those that prevented that are really culpable for
this extreme distress….. In the long run
the populations that support those leaders can only realise that they have helped
make the disaster. Who is going to
rebuild their homes, which president will, I wander and when? “Bureaucratic
Indifference,” could again here be a boundary that ought to have informed the
leaders that their actions were outside of reason. For what purpose? - For the
purpose of establishing a military port in the Mediterranean?
3 To the
right of the figure painting is an abstract landscape painting in water colour,
that may have a transitory effect leading away from things to language,
and further round the second larger painting beside it, this painting imagery moves even further from the object so it can relate directly to language, and thence build more understanding across
languages, because of the above mentioned discoveries, revealing that what my abstract painting may very well be based on is in fact the lost foreign language known in my childhood years. So in good faith the balance of forms inform the facts that are needed in the discourses between languages.
and further round the second larger painting beside it, this painting imagery moves even further from the object so it can relate directly to language, and thence build more understanding across
languages, because of the above mentioned discoveries, revealing that what my abstract painting may very well be based on is in fact the lost foreign language known in my childhood years. So in good faith the balance of forms inform the facts that are needed in the discourses between languages.
Between these
the first of the smaller watercolours relates directly to the sense of difference
and feel of a foreign language,
and the second smaller figure painting may show some kind of language envelope.
The last
image shows something of the sense to my English version of language.
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