Life, Art, Murder & Weather

One freezing cold, Saturday morning in January, 2016, I alighted a number 23 bus and made my way to Debbie's house, where four artists gathered to discuss a forthcoming show for the Summer; over a cup of tea, I asked friend, artist & gallery owner Colin Jellicoe how it was possible to get a solo show at his gallery?

“You want to paint smaller and be more commercial” was the blunt yet informative reply; it went against my recent practice of painting big and painting exactly what I felt like. However, I was desperate to keep my artistic ball rolling so I took his advice on board, quickly adjusted my approach to my own work, and taking three strands of artistic direction from my previous body of work, as well as making sure that all weekends for as far as I could see were available for myself to paint, I began work on commercial artworks, aiming for the stated prize.

I could see that what I was doing was working, especially on both the monochrome and coloured artworks, which came as a surprise to myself as I was deliberately trying to get away from the minimalistic palette & colour tone involved; I was also happy with the finished content too as there appeared to myself a distinct lack of emotional involvement, something to which I’d really wanted to achieve, given that the previous body of work had presented more than it’s fair share of that very quality. There were also a couple of pieces which had picked up on a sense of other-worldliness, a sense of something else involved  - something else which I gave scant attention to at that time.

However, I was also hitting a very hard brick wall in my attempt to create a sense of commerciality within my works - it went right against my grain; I’d always painted what I felt to be natural for myself and that approach had worked, but deliberately planning to create works of a more accessible nature was causing difficulties & headaches for myself in developing the themes - I was struggling.

As the "3 Painters" gallery show opened in the Summer of 2016 featuring myself, Colin and Debbie Hill, I switched to concentrate solely on the monochrome work - which provided myself with a sense of relief as that style & approach was in my DNA and far easier for me to achieve, yet other things had started to make their presence felt; outside influences began to play a more immediate and prominent part within the core of the new and bigger works, in particular, my relationship with my neighbour. I couldn’t make any sense of these influences, though I persisted with each new painting as it came to me, causing artistic confusion & bewilderment as to the direction I was taking within every work throughout the late Summer, continuing into the Autumn of 2016.

Around that time, after looking at the works I’d painted throughout that period and not being able to understand what I’d been painting, being thoroughly frustrated as to the direction I had as an artist - if I had ANY direction at all - I decided to give myself another 18 months and pack it all in, wind the works down, put my brushes away and curate my past. It was the only decision that I felt made sense at that time, it took the headache away; I didn’t realise, and had absolutely no idea that what I’d been painting, had been influenced by events that went beyond anything I’d ever dealt with before.

Beyond.

Colin Jellicoe outside 82 Portland St, Manchester, Spring 1988; Photo - pers.archive