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| Endymion, 2022 Acrylic and emulsion on re purposed fabric, 138x97 cm |
I live in a coastal town.
I am a latecomer to painting.
I work with the grid.
I work on and off stretcher.
I use canvas and cardboard to paint on and more recently fabrics such as bedding and curtains.
Recently my work has been led by a loose concept ‘outro’. It is a simple idea that requires me to use all existing materials in my studio.
I have started with using up all the paint.
I use a broad range of acrylics from good quality artist acrylics (Lascaux studio) to a variety of acrylic based paints including household paint. (Used on the cardboard and repurposed fabrics)
I use a lot of white. For a period I also used a lot of gesso.
I keep an evolving palette storing unused paint in sealed containers.
The diary of this work is not entirely eventful.
Started late October 2021 and completed in early March this year (2022).
It was made in three stages and in-between lay dormant, first stapled to the wall and then rolled up for a period.
Around the same time I was reading a collection of Donald Judd writings, in the latter part the book Chromophobia by David Batchelor.
The fabric I used for this piece was originally a floral patterned duvet cover that I unstitched and split into two large panels.
My process started by mixing up colours matched to the floral design. The floral pattern included Latin names of different flowers.
I painted four horizontal bands of colour on each panel following the folds left in the fabric from where it had been folded previously.
I use sellotape to mask the lines and apply the paint quickly using both brushes and roller.
The first application of paint pretty much covered over the original design.
I work on many pieces at the same time, enabling me to keep active in the studio.
At this time I was in a routine where each day I would visit a charity shop near the studio and look for a new piece of fabric to work with. I was accumulating quite a group of varying sizes and had …
…lots of musicians live in this area and there are several good community radio stations that I listen to when working, I prefer the non talk variety, and most days I am able to find music I like by flitting between three or four stations…
…I live in an area called poet’s corner, many of the roads are named after poets and each day I walk to and from the studio as it is nearby. The studio is in an industrial area opposite a bus garage and there are two neighbouring construction sites…
In early Feb I took out the two panels again and after some consideration I cut them in half, this was stage two complete. So now I had four two colour panels. For a day or two these stayed on the studio wall and then I rolled them up and left them again.
Several weeks later I brought the panels out again. Now, deep into the ‘outro’ series there was a smaller group of colours in the remaining paints. I had continued with two of the other panels the previous week, they felt almost done.
I returned to this one and marked out four equal squares in the top section of the panel, then preceded to paint one colour area at a time, in effect circling the squares, adding four new colours in one hit. Soon after I painted over two of the areas again and it was done.
Rupert Hartley
