Philip Bodger
Re-Evaluating my Practice
This abstract landscape painting named A Falls Dawn has all the hallmarks of my working practice at this present time, gloss paint physically poured, dripped, splashed and scraped across an un-primed board. Indeed, in recent months my practice is strongly aligned and has a lot in common with the abstract artist and what is called action painting.
Action painting, sometimes called gestural abstraction, is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the identity and physical act of the artist.
I use gloss paint in my practice in view of its shine or sheen and its reflective quality, which I feel reflects back a brief glimpse of one's true identity, that for a second positions itself within my work. I am also interested in the way the capitalist machine adopts this shine or sheen as a tool that forms and markets the buying and selling of its identity.
Reflecting on this, and the direction that this type of approach has taken me, has left me wondering how my practice at Wimbledon will evolve over the next two years. Indeed, in the quest to re-evaluate my working practice I hope to discover new skills, ideas and techniques through experimentation and research, supported and guided by my lecturers, classmates and mentors within Wimbledon college.
As I start to re-evaluate my working practice and question some of my ideas and concepts in relation to my fascination with borders, forced migration, displacement and identity and difference.
The finished painting adjacent, as a result, started life as a complete experiment with no clear concept or idea.
Firstly, I decided to experiment with black and white gloss paint, as before I used an un-primed board for my canvas before pouring and dripping the paint onto this surface. There is an element of controlled chance involved within this approach or process, which I find exciting.
This chance element can be traced back to the Dadaists who embraced chance as an art-making tool in Zurich Switzerland around 1916-1917.
After the first phase, which can be seen below I decided to add a layer of yellow colored gloss paint to the work, this was scraped over and through the canvas. The idea was to develop within the painting a kind of a veiled effect that provoked a sense of mystery and depth, again this can be seen in the documentation below.
Finding this effect interesting, I then repeated this process but this time with white gloss paint, which enhanced the veil effect, giving the work the feeling of looking through a mist or a fog.
Although this painting started life with no clear concept or idea, following some reflection, I feel that it works in a number of ways, for example, the mist or fog effect gives the work a hidden depth. It could be argued that this veiled effect signifies the misrepresentation and non representation, and also the lack of transparency found in the world we live in today.
The concept of this work was to use abstraction and colour as a vehicle to symbolise the movement of different and diverse identities within pockets of different and diverse societies. This can be seen in the adjacent work wherein some of these colours or (identities) have gained access to other colours or (societies), which in-turn have produced new colours within colours, or rather have formed and merged into new identities within these societies.
This hybridity is achieved as the paint separates and becomes isolated, before coming together again as one changed form, similar to migrants who find and become marginalised in society as a result of displacement born from war, famine, slavery, borders or forced migration, before coming together again to create one new identity.
This work was created simply by pouring and dripping black gloss paint onto a primed canvas, as this expanded like a ripple across the surface I then poured white paint on top of the black then blue followed by white again and lastly red. Following on from this, I used a stick as a form of brush to apply the red gloss over and through the rest of my canvas, which gives the work its smooth un- brushed appearance.
After researching various artists Ian believed I would find interesting these included DJ Simpson, who uses a router to gouge marks within his canvases, creating imprints of swirling abstract lines. The artist Piers Secunda who developed a process for using paint as a sculptural material and Louise Nevelson known for her monumental monochromatic wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures.
I started to experiment with the idea of manipulating and cutting holes into my own canvases. The idea being when filled with paint they were supposed to represent borders, in which the contents had escaped or spilled out and over the surface of the painting. Here adjacent can be seen the resulting work of one of these experimental paintings.
The process starts in the woodwork room with two boards of MDF, one board is cut to the shape and size required, then the two boards are stuck together before attaching the supports to the reverse side.
After some reflection, I don’t think this process has worked and at this present time I find myself blocked and void of ideas!
I feel I need to stop reflect and rethink where I am in terms of my practice and where I need to be and indeed the direction I need to take to get there.
With reference to the work above in another experimental painting I used the same processes, but this time I used one larger black circle.
My concept was by adopting Lacan's theory and indeed the
reflective quality of black gloss paint within a circle I could form a pool or a mirror, in which one would see or glimpse their distorted reflection, triggering a physical reaction that establishes one's spiritual identity.
(See image to the right)
After filling the circle with the black gloss paint, I left the work to dry for five days giving the paint a chance to form a skin on its outer layer, however, this would leave the bottom layer still wet and submissive to manipulation. The idea being, when hung gravity would pull the wet paint to the bottom of the circle forming a ridge, this ridge would protrude out and away from the canvas distorting any reflection.
As can be seen from the pictures and documentation the ridge did form but after a couple of minutes, the weight of the wet paint forming the ridge became too heavy, bursting out of its outer skin and spilling its contents out and down the canvas.
This, as it turns out, was not a bad thing, in fact it gave me a lot of new ideas. For instance, as a result, I have become very interested in the reactions and movement of the paint as it moves and leaves the canvas and will experiment with this technique and process further.
Maybe I can move or manipulate the paint from one board to another giving the paint license to become a performance piece during an exhibition.
This work was created following a conversation I had about identity and difference, who told me a story about their black friend who said and I quote, you may empathise with me but you will never walk in my shoes.
I can relate to this story, having Irish and English roots and not really being or feeling accepted in either country.
After some thought I came up with the idea to cast a pair of my own trainer in green plaster, on which I could attach a tag or a label that reads made in the UK. (See image to the right)
The concept being, the green trainers signified my Irish roots and the tag or label represented the place I was born. Hence the phrase, you may empathise but you will never walk in my shoes.
As can be seen from the documentation and pictures below, there was a number of difficult processes involved in the making of this work.
Firstly, I fill-in any holes or cracks that were visible in the trainers before applying the first of five layers of silicone, each layer took one day to apply and two days to dry. (See first and second images below)
Following on from this I built a dividing wall made from clay, which ran down the middle of each silicone cast, before applying wet plaster to each of these sides. (See third and fourth images below)
When set, this plaster formed two jackets and their job was to hold the silicone casts in place during the final stages of poring.
After the plaster jackets were dry, which again took two days, they were cut open, allowing me to remove the trainers from each jacket and silicone cast. (See image five below)
I then wash the silicone casts in soapy water before inserting them back into the plaster jackets, then the plaster was mixing and the casts were filled. (See image six below)
Finally, after the plaster was set I removed the finished plaster trainers from their jackets and casts, before sanding any additional plaster, which had formed around the bottom edges of the work.
Reflecting back on this process, as there was so many stages involved I found it quite difficult and time consuming, but I have also learned a great deal by exploring the casting workshop and what it can offers me as an artist.
Following some discussion and thought related to the Northern Ireland, Ireland and England border issues and my own intermingling identity blended within these countries. I found myself thinking about making a work which somehow unearthed the border, the six counties involved and the friction which exists between these two countries.
I aimed to achieve this by working on six painting, all painted with gloss paint, all on canvas, all red, white and blue and all with green backgrounds.
The idea being, each canvas represented one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, the colors red, white and blue signifies the colors of the Union Jack, and the green color surrounding these colors signifies Ireland's’ identity.
I also wanted to accommodate within the work in some way the border issues between the two countries. I have tried to bring this about by using lengths of steel as steel has been used to builds fences and borders around the world as a way of keeping in or out, what the state deems to be desirable or undesirable.
To do this, I cut and welded steel in the metalwork room to shape and size, which allowing the paintings to spill out of each of these dimensions.
This spilling out signifies the issues and leakage in terms of how and where exactly this border may lie, or if enforced, can be policed or managed.
Reflecting back on the making of this piece, I feel this work and its process has opened-up a whole new world and skills in welding and metal-work, giving me the opportunity to explore my thoughts and ideas within and through a different context.
