Archives for category: charcoal

I’ve been working directly on to the walls of my studio space in Cathedral Studios. It has been a liberating and exciting process. I’ve continued the marks on to the floor and the ceiling, which encourages the viewer to feel that they are ‘in’ the work; to relate to the scale of the work with the size of their own body. The work has gradually grown over the past few weeks. Part of the feeling of freedom comes from the awareness that the piece can only be transitory. Ultimately it will be painted over, only to exist in photographs and memory.

This makes documentation especially important, though it is wholly inadequate in terms of experiencing the work. I have often thought this when looking at installation or performance art. Immediacy, sensory stimulation and interaction cannot be translated into a two dimensional image or video.

Walls:

wall piece 1

wall piece 2

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Ceiling

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Floor

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bones

This ‘difficult’ work was one of those that I gave up on and turned around to face the wall for about a month. When I came to look at it again I found I was more favourably disposed to it. The central image is a battleship. The dinosaur skulls were added later.

grey granite morning

Here is one of a series of large scale images of Belfast buildings I made using compressed charcoal on cardboard around 2001. An art college tutor interpreted them as being akin to Western sets, appearing somehow hollow and unpopulated. This piece is around 6×5 foot in size.

My friend just pointed outed that the title refers to a line from “on your own again” by Scott Walker, from the incredible Scott 4 album. The haunting lyrics must have been floating round in my head when I titled this piece.

 

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