Edited by Sandra Crisp LG
Sandra Crisp LG: “During 2023, Benjamin Rhodes Arts presented the solo exhibition ‘Moment Fields 2019-2023’. The following describes the large mixed media paintings included in the show: ‘The space of the painting becomes a mapping site, the raw canvas accrues evidence, like the way a tablecloth, a sheet, or a wall collects stains, or the skin we live in rides its years.’ Also, ‘Materials chosen are “of the earth,” (charcoal, graphite, pastel) elemental like dust, pollen or sediment. While the works evolve, through touch, scribble, dustings of pigment, words, images and erasures, they construct and deconstruct themselves, mirroring the emergence and the dissolving of thoughts, feelings and sensations as they unfold simultaneously within the mind and the container of the medium.’ And, your 2022 series of collages, including ‘Mirror 1’ (36.5 x 25cms) re-use text and layered fragments are built up into sculptural reliefs.
“I’m really interested to hear more about the diverse and eclectic materials and processes employed in your practice.”
In ‘Moment Field’ series of work I was looking for a stripping back, a meditative, internalising, slowing down in my relationship with making, thinking and being. I needed to lose my bag of tricks, my habitual skills of 30 odd years to allow in a ‘beginner’s mind’. I was searching for a rudimentary, tentative, humble openness. I chose to work on raw unprimed canvas or cotton duck which felt like ‘naked’ canvas and to touch and scratch, press and dust it with explorative, unemphatic materials-unassuming, basic. Hence the use of simple tools: pencils, pastels, rubbers and not much else. These materials felt elemental, “of the earth,” (charcoal, graphite, grated pastel) like dust, pollen or sediment.
Bridging 2, 2021, 187 x 101 cm, charcoal, pencil, pastel and acrylic paint on canvas
I wanted materials, structures and processes to harness and embody moment-to-moment consciousness, mapping movements of awareness as directly as I could perceive and process them.
So, these materials and processes were chosen to set up a kind of butterfly net that might scoop up the passing moment as directly and openly as possible….
The aim was to record the fleeting experience of thinking, sensing, feeling and remembering—documenting as directly as possible, our conscious awareness, as each present moment emerges, focuses and melts away.
The space of the painting became a mapping site, the raw canvas accruing evidence, like the way a tablecloth, a sheet, or a wall collects stains, or the skin we live in rides its years.
While the works evolved, through touch, scribble, dustings of pigment, words, images and erasures, they constructed and deconstructed themselves, mirroring the emergence and the dissolving of thoughts, feelings and sensations as they unfolded simultaneously within the mind and the container of the medium.
The ephemeral nature of the materials-pigment as dust, allows thoughts and felt sense to surrender to the moment, through continual fluid response and adjustment…No hiding or dressing up. One thing leads to another, one thing obscures and another reveals…. a time-based record of our being consciously here, now.
Since making the ‘Moment Fields’ exhibition in February 2023 I have been interested in finding ways to move from the surface ‘skin’ of the canvas, through and into an internal space, as though peeling back the layers of the onion to progressively reveal half-seen glimpses of felt sense awareness-the life beneath the surface. I am seeking to make the invisible visible, hence the transparent veils (the use of muslin instead of cotton duck) making evident the semi-obscured or half-seen latent reverberations.
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Bare Bones 2, 2023, 64 x 67 cm, pastel, pencil, card, muslin, canvas
The materials, process and structural shifts are for me are always driven by content – hence, in the case of Bare Bones series, the appearance of the usually hidden stretcher bars and the use of see-through muslin. In addition to the ‘layers beneath’, more layers have been appearing on the surface too, in the form of a build-up of collaged canvas, working almost like a patchwork of cameos, forming tiny pictures within pictures, like snatches of experiential awareness or discrete inter-linked moments. The materials and structures focus our attention on the opposition between surface/beneath, above/below, external/internal: contrasting the physicality and tactility of the surface with the slippery and ephemeral glimpses below. The materials and processes evolve to mirror these pictorial and psychological needs.
Mirror 1 2022 Collage 36.5 x 25cm
The photo of my special collection of small objects is a record of things picked up on my morning walk, precious ordinaryness, daily things which being lifted from the realm of rubbish/ephemera, become like time-moment-jewels. These ‘characters’ appear and re-appear in the work in one form or another.
Drawing Discussion with Tricia Gillman and R & F Mo – Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020
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Tricia Gilman LG 2024
www.triciagillman.co.uk
Upcoming exhibition:
40 Years of the Future
Castlefield Gallery 40-year anniversary,
2 Hewitt Street Manchester,
Lancashire M15 4GB UK,
24 March – 23 June 2024