Original
Synthetic polymer paint on paper and ply
51 x 40 cm
The artist discusses the process... "Collage. A word I kept repeating to describe the look and process of the paintings that went on show as part of my solo exhibition at Jealous Gallery a while back. The interlocking shapes made of different colours, textures and mediums felt very collage-like to me.
I've always been a big fan of collage and decollage work. Artists like Matisse, Max Ernst, Jacques Villeglé and Peter Blake fuelling my creative fire for a long time. And so I've been thinking a lot about how I should be leaning into that more moving forward. Is there scope to combine my stencil, paper-cutting and more recent abstract works all into one unified direction? Seems like collage could be the answer.
When the nice folk at Paxton Glew gallery recently invited me to create something new for their upcoming group show 'Cats, Bats & Tatts', I thought it was a good opportunity to play. The Bat is a collage made from various sheets of painted papers (a combination of Arches watercolour paper and Yupo), hand-cut and glued to panel. Once the paper was glued down I applied two coats of a glossy self-leveling gel to level everything. That was then sanded back a little before applying a couple of coats of cold wax medium to create a more matte finish, a look I haven't tried before but has worked nicely and actually makes the piece look a little like it's been carved from wood which is lovely."