The secret gallery’s blog

Detail of a painting leaning against a window, oil on canvas

Paintings are in transit, and as I walked out of the emerging gallery space this painting caught my eye. One of the things I am fascinated in my art practice is by making or doing things that are fleeting. I have returned to painting after years of making work that is long gone even many of the photographs of that work have long gone too! I still like to make ephemeral work as well. I think the two ways of working help each other when things get too permanent, I go and do something impermanent and vice versa. James has been really encouraging and that has helped me a lot to make both permanent and transient art. Once you leave college it is hard to keep going on your own without support, sugar I have no excuses! 

This is a darker version of the same painting. I liked that it looked quite dramatic! An oil painting is thought of as an unchangeable, permanent thing, I find it interesting to play around with that notion, even of the actual painting does not change, how we see it can be very different. One of the paintings I remember changing most was one I painted many years ago, I used oil and mixed media, the surface was smooth in places and gritty in others and has many different textures so depending where you stand or what light you see it in it looks completely different even though the whole painting is blue. I like the idea of paintings being lit from the back, it reveals different marks, such as where the paint is thinner or there have been paint taken away like the words I wrote by using the back of the paint brush. This painting is called Love.