Overwhelmed 2022
Continuing my thoughts, documenting the development of OVERWELMED 2022. A series of Oil and digital paintings on canvas.
The above images are my preliminary thoughts on a visual representation of this mash potato bombardment, depicting our lived experience. I am manifesting these scribbles in The Southern Hemisphere, where it seems nothing significant takes place in a world context…
Sorry my mistake; We do have one of the best hospitals systems, having just experienced its benefits in this last week, surrounded by the covid plague, where three members of my family have been inflicted, we had St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney Shepard us virtually, nursed and doctored kindly through fear of the dread of the unknown by an absolute world class system.
Meanwhile, The commercial stations News on the plasma, reminds us of the incompetence of our prime minister and the equal buffoonery of the opposing side. It doesn’t matter really, like a flood or a fire, when real decisions are made by the madness of real power the consequences to our lives will be handed over to pre ordained destinies.
So here we are, I’m depicting this with plasticine sculpture, oil paints and digital painting. I’ll look back in years too come, at my hieroglyphs at this moment in time of change and confusion, and it will be marked with this exciting new way of scribbling, digital and oil painting a on canvas,
For inspiration, I look to the past where Balzac, Kerouac, Daumier, the romantics, and contemporary artists like Neo Rauch find “the absurdity” in the, what can be described as the Albert Camus, Samuel Beckett “Theatre of the absurd” we are currently living. “la Comedie Humaine maintenant “ I reckon, “Today’s human comedy” is in an existential absurdity, and “Overwhelming” in a self indulgent existence.
Plenty to work with folks! Stay tuned as I will describe the various characters when they turn up in my scribbles. 18.4.2022
Is that all there is?
A question I asked myself after reading Kafka’s “The Castle”. It inspired the creation of this couple (BELOW), in my sketchbook, in a quest to find meaning in a place without steady flooring. They came to light, and manifested from a creative urge to reflect the environment surrounded by covid for the past week in a household of four where one was negative. So here they are, now what role will they play in my Overwhelmed scribbles? Lets see?
19.4.2022
Overwhelmed No 10 ”The Couple”, the digital under painting for the oil painting layer too come in the next stage, 51cm x 76cm. Without being too obvious, I produced this painting of the Scarlet robin, found in mainly in South eastern Australia and parts of West Australia. It breeds in a monogamous coexistence, and has a vulnerability which finds a valuable home in my scribbles. I will print it out on canvas and paint with oil paints on it next. I’m pleased to see a mature confident confluence of textures. The Plasticine figures from my sketchbook, with their original shadows cast upon the subtle blended fluidity of the digital painting in anticipation of another layer of texture from oil painting mark making. I will make this canvas one of my character studies, and a smaller painting. 20 April, 2022
Overwhelmed no1, 2022, 10cmx 110cm print ground on archival canvas.13.5.2022, ready to be stretched on hi Quality HD strecher bars, before the oil painting process will begin.
Overwhelmed 2022 no11. on the stretching table
4 Overwhelmed 2022 stretched prints 76cmx 110cm, ready now for the oil painting.
Now that the prints are stretched, the next process is taking some time to manifest, due to the nature of the task. I want to have a few more stretched before I start scribbling with the brush, and get some continuity throughout the series. 29.6.2022