Artist Statement
I never get it right the first time. In fact never getting it right (or getting it wrong) is beside the point. These are just two elements that contribute to the mix, and the mix is what matters. It is the determinate, the mechanism which materializes an idea into empirical phenomena as art.
This mix and its ingredients are distinct in the paradigm of abstract painting. It incorporates devices and methodologies not conventionally associated with painting and only recently made available; this is what gives the work currency. For without precise and considered ingredients, it would become a mere derivative of a type of exhausted and romanticised abstract classicism.
Specific to this work is the presentation of imagery on a clear PVC substrate, fixed away from the wall and hung freely like drapery. Upon its surface are transparent overlapping gestural layers. These dissipate into the gallery wall and in turn the wall is integrated into the work as negative space. The gloss surface and irregular folds of the clear PVC maintain a degree of separation quite different from a traditional canvas support or wall-painting.
The wall and its relationship to the work have another important function. Its presence is a blunt reminder of the illusory condition of all visual experience, as after all it is literally just a wall. However, for it to function within the work a shift in perception is required, a shift between seeing through, rather than with one’s eyes. For it is with the mind that we see and not the eyes, as they are just another factor in the mix. This perceptual shift is a key element amongst the conundrums of abstraction, a core quality at its essence yet also responsible for its ultimate failure to obtain ongoing mass appeal. To perceive de-materialization is part of the mystery and inherent difficulty of abstract painting.
The work is not off but of the wall. Its fluctuating signals and veiled gestures have become part of a Ghost World.
To see it requires insight into the medium and its processes.
David Hawley
March 2013