Muzni's Musings

2013-01-22T21:31:00.000+00:00

Formulating my intentions in words is somewhat of a revelation. To be instinctual and rational I find contradictory to the process of painting yet, I strive for a path, a logic a meaning. Working from the life model / perceptual painting makes one aware that this practice is more about subjectivity than the subject. If one is creating a set of rules to assimilate what one perceives then this idea can be pushed to the extreme. My aim is to create a sensory experience using colour as a visual element. The figure presented emanates through the interaction of the colours, through the push and pull of the elements. A connection is sought after that is not only seen but felt.

2012-10-24T18:47:00.000+01:00

This is a painting by Kristin Baker, thought I'd share it with the world. I love her colour palette for this and her unusual marks. Almost like a landscape in another dimension. I like the thought of this image striking a chord with ones sensory memory, unlocking a layer.

colour dynamics

2012-10-13T18:32:00.002+01:00

Silence for some time. Im not much of a talker so this business is still some what foreign to me.
So, the paintings have been flowing and I will be flooding the blogg with my findings.
This painting is an attempt to control the visual dynamics caused by the colours. One obstacle is that I want the figure to be constructed through colour relationships though simultaneously be seen as a whole entity/presence. My solution was to keep the space around the figure in one colour then forcing the figure to hold together.
This is something I saw in a painting by Matisse called the 'red room'. In this painting Matisse held his drawings-the objects described, in a space glued together by the red ground. Unity was obtained.

stolen photos!

2011-07-07T22:33:00.001+01:00

This is a painting by Keith Vaughan I found in the Tate Gallery last week. The rhythms of repeating shapes are great - how the blue drape continues the downward motion started from the raised leg of the seated figure. The drape then echoes the curves of the figure lying and the figure in the background creating a pyramid composition. He also seems to have created a visual device in the foreground that mirrors the negative space made by the raised leg of the lying figure.

Push and Pull

2011-06-20T12:57:00.004+01:00

Following on from a drawing I did last week I ve decided to use it as a basis for some experimental work. I am trying to use colour as the force that defines the form through its interaction with its neighbour, creating a push and pull of energies. So far the painting is existing as such...

New Skies

2011-06-19T15:06:00.005+01:00

Apologies for my infrequency at updating this however I am in the middle of a solo show at the Rendezvous Gallery in Aberdeen, which is proving to be successful spurring me onwards to paint. Some times when the paintings start to stack up before a show doubt creeps in.

So, I have just finished two more sky scapes, the aim being to capture the excitement of light breaking through the atmosphere. The sky scapes form a body of paintings that are simply made for enjoyment-mine in the making and hopefully in the viewers eye. These two paintings are quite heavily painted as I try and experiment with marks, glazes and scraping back revealing areas.

Looking into the sky

2011-04-07T12:13:00.004+01:00

Contrary to the obvious, although I have not been writing any blogs I have been quite busy painting. The first area of interest is the sky, well the ever changing light conditions and all those bizarre happenings that streak across our field of vision when looking toward the heaven for answers. In itself this is interesting - looking up...questions...when really these paintings are about providing answers to those visual occurrences.

looking in through my eyes!

2010-08-08T13:26:00.004+01:00

Paradoxically I stood there staring at it and found that It felt as though I was looking inside my head,heart...consciousness. I had this tremble in my soul first when I was in my early 20s,long ago and at the same time I remember it all clearly. The painting then was by De Kooning, it was his retrospective at the Tate(even before the Tate Modern existed). Each room dedicated to different decades, the paintings of the late 70s were my culprits. I think they were painted from a visual source,a view perhaps then abstracted as the paint seemed to embody an energy of a moment.

So back to it then, if you find yourself in Edinburgh for this August go to the Talbot Rice Gallery. There are some beautiful paintings by the late Craigie Aitchison that slow the world down to arrangements of colours delicately painted yet possessing a force that cannot be ignored. There is a painting entitled 'holy island', If you want to feel what colour can do then please stand in front of this painting and just breathe.

Island get away

2010-06-29T10:59:00.005+01:00

I have just returned from a visit to the Isle of Lewis which proved most relaxing-escaping from city living but also most inspiring as I tried to make sense of the changing light and those allusive clouds. During one of our drives round the island we happened across a gallery and painter, that of Willie Fulton. A Glasgow born artist who has resided in Harris for 30 years with his wife and painter Moira. After a tour of his studio and discussing practices we agreed on a painting swap, so now a lovely piece of the Isles hang upon my wall.

Following my stint on the islands I popped into Edinburgh's Modern Art Gallery and low and behold some fantastic little paintings by S J Peploe of the islands, if you are in the capital please go see they are little gems.

A treasure

2010-05-19T20:00:00.004+01:00

On a recent pilgrimage to the holiest of all places-The National Gallery in London I found a fantastic painting that I had not seen before by Monet. Unlike his large water lilly paintings this is a small more personal experience. Standing before it one realises that questions of surface and illusion are being explored as the viewer goes between realities. Does one focus on the floating lilly's or the sky in the illusionary distance?

As you can see my photograph was taken in secret so apologies for the quality. It's one of my habits, stressing out security by standing too close to paintings. I usually get followed around by them, especially in Berlin where however I still managed to take some photos.

Tension

2010-04-17T17:06:00.002+01:00

My latest interest is with a painter called Carol Rhodes. For me Rhodes' paintings have that fantastic tension between surface and illusion, where a painting can be seen for its composition, brushmarks, colour and at the same time for its illusionary description. Her paintings are incredibly economical with colour and marks, so much so that one feels as tho the paintings actually exist in a no mans land between knowing and remembering.

Taken hostage

2010-03-30T10:17:00.002+01:00

Contrary to the apparent nature of this image, my model -Mandy was in fact free to move at any time (well every 45mins or so). It represents a conscious effort to try and free up my compulsive control while applying the paint.

The studies that i do such as these are an attempt to be aware of the marks I make which in turn feeds into images such as in the previous blog. Learning what kind of marks are out there, that are my own.

In search of the divine

2010-03-25T10:15:00.005+00:00

My last 'chit chat' was about Katy Moran and her wonderfully ambiguous paintings. Well searching for the invisible that tantalises the senses, engaging paint and colour-that is what I am aiming for. I was first profoundly moved by painting when i visited the De Kooning retrospective in the early 1990s, I was seriously affected by his work (mostly 1970s work) and realised then that it was possible to affect the viewer in a sensory way that seemed to bypass the intellect. Since then with my training at the Slade and the want to keep my images visually connected to my subject, I have been side tracked from my core wish. The attached paintings are from yesterday and hopefully exhibit some sort of subject but yet allowing the work to be about the colour and marks used.

Gestures and Sensation

2010-03-18T13:07:00.005+00:00

Leafing through my new art book-'New Elements in Abstract Painting' I found an artist that has shown a light on a path that interests me greatly. The images attached are wonderful, like forgetting and knowing/experiencing something in the same instant. I find Katy Moran succeeds in fulfilling her intentions on painting: reading of her inspirations, originating from Francis Bacon, Moran clearly states what I have been trying to formulate myself.

‘They’re finished when I can see a figurative element in them ... through the paint I’m searching for the thing it reminded me of, or suggested to me, and trying to get close to that thing.’ The exuberant spontaneity of the gesture is genuine rather than contrived, Moran comments, ‘When I’m making a painting, I get quite excited by how close to awful I can push it, while getting something quite lovely from it as well’.

As a reference for her conviction that ‘somehow unintentional paintmarks convey a more convincing reality,’ she cites painter Francis Bacon’s comment during an interview with art historian David Sylvester, ‘An illustrational form tells you through the intelligence immediately what the form is about, whereas non-illustrational form works first on sensation and then slowly leads back into the fact.’-"Starting with sensation..." - great stuff!

Creating/recreating

2010-03-05T19:14:00.006+00:00

In an attempt to know, learn more about colours I have been working on the painting above. I am using a drawing of Natalie I feel has a strong structure as a basis, then building up the colour relationships with colours I found/witnessed (whilst painting 'Extended darkness'). I split the painting into two halves with the figure being affected by three different sources: the pink band on the right, the dark on the left and the light source that hits the breast plate of the figure. I am trying to be responsible for every coloured area of the painting as each part affects the other. The painting is not finished so I shall keep my progress posted-the face is my next hurdle!

The Dogs and Gauguin

2010-03-02T21:06:00.006+00:00

An inspirational man I was fortunate to work with called David Ramsden, opened up a restaurant called 'The Dogs'. My gift to him, a moving in present was this painting. The composition is from a painting by Paul Gauguin that hangs in the National Gallery at the Mound in Edinburgh. His painting has two angels wrestling, surrounded by peasant onlookers. My painting changes the forest clearing by Gauguin for a table and the figures into dogs, creating havoc and being involved in some congregation of sorts. The actual dogs featured are from photos David sent me, of his beloved companions present and past. They are slightly abstracted as the paint and energy is allowed to be seen.

Icarus

2010-03-02T20:25:00.007+00:00

Ok, so one of my paintings I'd like to show you is called 'Icarus'1995. To look at, one is led to believe a figure stands, hunched over, weighted down. Upon closer inspection, the viewer sees that the figure is actually a wing and a drawing (of a head) laid on top of each other. The two objects having been scaled up to a size comparable to a person and the space implied by a triangle of dark red at the right. If you are ever in Edinburgh, an eatery with the name of 'Amore Dogs' has this painting.

Ambiguity

2010-03-02T20:00:00.006+00:00

Ambiguity - I've done quite a few paintings with this word in mind. I suppose it started with the question of how important is it for the viewer to understand fully, the reasons behind a painting. When I realised that people will always find their own connections or symbols within a piece of work I decided to play with the notion of ambiguity. Purposely using elements that were heavily weighted with symbolic power, and at the same time, possessing their own simple identity. Kind of giving the viewer enough rope to hang themselves with. It's a great device for slowing time, allowing brush marks to take on their own presence. Anyhoo, someone I looked at a long time ago when I studied at Grays, was a painter called Ansel Krut, a fellow originally from South Africa, now a Londoner working at the RCA. To get to the point please see the attach painting of his - something with ambiguity

Muzni's Mewses

2010-03-02T07:30:00.001+00:00

Ok, so the photos of the cats are there to enlighten you on who i live with , feed and generally stop fighting . They do take part when i paint , however this does consist of either or both of them running,sitting or hiding behind wet paintings and my model - whom thankfully isn't allergic to cats. I haven't painted either of them yet but i do have a vacant space in a painting that may well get inhabited.

Photos: Muzni's Mewses

2010-03-01T23:11:00.001+00:00

In the beginning

2010-03-01T21:32:00.001+00:00

So so here we go as my life/thoughts join the matrix!! . The following collection of words and happenings will hopefully be of some interest to you as i navigate my way through my life of paint.