Wednesday 19 February 2014

Horizontals, verticals and decisions. Yellow, white and black lines, Feb 2014 Acrylics on canvas, 50cm x 75cm


Directions matters in an image, they guide the eyes and give a rhythm to our associations. Most of my work assumes a horizontal narrative. Verticals I find entirely different in nature, less forgiving but also more powerful. The energy given out by verticals is higher, the image gains urgency but there is little peace to be had. Horizontals are still, calm but has less to do with life. Perhaps this is why I prefer horizontals. It is a peculiar fact in my mind that were I to paint but two straight lines across the canvas, regardless of uneven positioning, they'll always work horizontally. Vertically the same two stripes would seriously corrupt the composition were they unevenly placed. Activity versus passivity, doing versus being and many similar analogies. I engineered a meeting between the two aspects in this work, and as you can see negotiations are in full swing. Unusually I used a brush here, a tool I rarely find employable.


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