Either you get Rigden or you don't. If you don't , you need to think again about your take on Art, because Geoff was bang on the line, the point at which Art gets made. His work bears this out - it's watertight , never leaks.
Read MoreThe Cut Gallery Halesworth, Jan-Feb 2016
....A painter moves from a mode of philosopher to sportsman, from cerebral to physical. I never plan or even try to predict the outcome of a painting or even an instance of paint application. Instead I commit with intensity to each instance and believe it to the point that it should not only take care of itself but hopefully set up a momentum which will be maintained with every subsequent instance. This approach reassures me that I always gave it my best shot.
Read MoreA memory of Clement Greenberg
.....“I saw those recently in London for the first time in the flesh” I said. “In the flesh,” he reiterated my phrase; “correct terminology, good for you young man."
Read MoreSeeing and Responding
You have to work really hard to get to the “hum” of art, or you can chose not to try, but you’ll end up with silence and will have to rely on providing the noise after the fact.
Read MoreDrawings →
I have been making large sized ink drawings over the past few months. Although I have several on smaller sizes, it is when I am working on 8ft x5ft that I feel I am getting the maximum out of the physicality of the drawing.
Read MoreApproach Work
Drawn, Hung and Cornered - showing new drawings with John Bunker at Unit 3 Projects, Empson St, London
I have long considered the word drawing to mean ‘making’ in the fullest sense of the word.
Read MoreHomage Limitations →
I want to believe that abstract painting can be as great as figuration, but this is a battle that must be fought on abstract art’s terms and not figuration’s.
Read MoreNanteos Exhibition
I am looking forward to exhibiting in my homeland next month. I will be showing paintings from my "Roll series" , made in the mid nineties alongside figurative Lino prints which are new. I have chosen to work figuratively for several reasons : as an interesting counterpoint to the completely abstract rolls; as monotone works to contrast with the full chroma rolls; to get me moving rapidly into print - I have been making lino prints very quickly and spontaneously . This has proved to be immensely rewarding, in terms of decision making (the figuration somehow neutralises the decisions and makes them more pragmatic ) and also in terms of letting me work anyway I chose . It is liberating to know you can do this and mean it . I will post images next month when the show opens.
Matisse - The Cut Outs at Tate Modern 2014
Making Painting: Turner and Frankenthaler
Words
NEW EXHIBITION: "Room for Manoeuvre" . As part of the Critical Forum , The Brancaster Chronicles.
"ROOM FOR MANOEUVRE" An joint exhibition of new work: Emyr Williams and John Bunker
Unit 3 Project Space- Empson Street Studios , Empson St, London, E3 3LT
...a chance to open up and make some space for the scrutiny of self-conscious conventions which are often surreptitiously adopted in the guise of making ambitious art. In our different ways we hope to do this by placing greater importance upon the visually tactile and engaging dynamism that painting is unique in possessing.
By taking a transformative and questioning approach to abstract painting, we hope to celebrate and interrogate the dynamic , if tangled, histories within the modernist approach to practice. This visually rich and highly contested legacy continues to exude a magnetic negative/ positive charge in contemporary art and discourse. At a time when theory can turn from liberator to jailer, it may be worth remembering there's always room for manoeuvre.
"Oiler" acrylic on canvas 2013 - 51cm x 51cm
PRIVATE VIEW: SEPTEMBER 12TH 2013 : 6:30PM onwards
Work and transcripts of this show will be featured on the Abstract Critical website: www.abstractcritical.com
Reality and realisation
Studio wall featuring some charcoal studies
Starting to develop some drawings in charcoal and I have been making some copies of other artists in this medium also.
Tones and colours
I am beginning to discover that figuration is best suited to tonal relationships, whereas colour is at it's most emphatic and far- reaching when it is abstract. Picasso's draughtsmanship was best realised in his drawings and prints and compromised somewhat in his paintings. I do not think that abstract art necessarily means an end to figuration either. The terms may need redefining anyway. It is about getting the most of out the medium - whatever medium you are working in.