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'Near Ms' (detail) mixed media on scaffolding wood This is a photo of an early version of the painting in question. I really liked it when it was like this, but I knew it wasn't finished, and now it looks completely different, and still isn't finished. It's buried somewhere behind a load of other stuff, I'm going to dig it out again and maybe use the colours from this photo to get it done.., you know that kind of a way, like? |
How I started making Assemblages:
For a good few years I worked on and off as a cycle courier. I began to notice a lot of different- shaped washers on the road whenever I was stopped at traffic lights (I'm not talking about people who wash car windscreens - what ever happened to them anyway?)
Because I was, and still am, fixated by outer-space, I thought if I collected some of these metal circles, I could use them to represent planets/stars/galaxies in montage -type paintings.
This was the beginning of my obsession with collecting eclectic clutter from around the place.
The junk on the sidewalk is sometimes more than just litter, I believe- I have on occasion been hypnotised (in a good way) by things that I see on the ground, something like a broken child's toy or the keyboard of a smashed phone can tell a story, be a sign or symbol, or create a picture right there where it fell, if you allow it to.
I was profoundly moved by an exhibition of Aboriginal art I saw about 20 years ago in a gallery in Belfast.
Aboriginal art is all about journeys, going walkabout, down by the Murrumbidgee river, to get some raw ochre to grind into pigment, and use it to paint the river spirit and some of the animals encountered along the way.
That's what I'm talking about.
Because I was, and still am, fixated by outer-space, I thought if I collected some of these metal circles, I could use them to represent planets/stars/galaxies in montage -type paintings.
This was the beginning of my obsession with collecting eclectic clutter from around the place.
The junk on the sidewalk is sometimes more than just litter, I believe- I have on occasion been hypnotised (in a good way) by things that I see on the ground, something like a broken child's toy or the keyboard of a smashed phone can tell a story, be a sign or symbol, or create a picture right there where it fell, if you allow it to.
I was profoundly moved by an exhibition of Aboriginal art I saw about 20 years ago in a gallery in Belfast.
Aboriginal art is all about journeys, going walkabout, down by the Murrumbidgee river, to get some raw ochre to grind into pigment, and use it to paint the river spirit and some of the animals encountered along the way.
That's what I'm talking about.