Bone is phosphate and calcium. It makes fruits sweeter/
On a short residency[1] that insisted on the use of charcoal solely, I was forced to get to grips with it- I found it messy, crumbly and unruly. It also gave you away, breaking and being broken was part of playing with it. Structural and vulnerable, like bone. In one exercise we were asked to copy a black and white print out of an old master, with charcoal. Then, after a break, draw from memory. The first marks were proportional plotting, how the image was separated. Thirds, horizons, planes. Next the angles, then the light. None of my recall was figurative.
The folding possible in drawing allowing convolutions and complex permutations is, for me, its magic in contrast to linguistic attempts to capture and communicate. Weight is implicit in drawing, and relay can be managed lightly if wanted. In charcoal, the negative space can become the form or the void, and this oscillation allows an improv that jostles the idea and finding the feeling around. Shape and line also become possible to interchange.
“One of the most extraordinary widespread sounds of the undersea is the crackling sizzling sound, like dry twigs burning or fat frying. Biologists heard ‘high pitched resonant whistles and squeals, varied with the tickling and clucking sounds slightly reminiscent of a string orchestra tuning up.”[2]
My squeaking snapping charcoal when I am drawing, lost in it and following its line like a trusting animal relates.
Sometimes the charcoal blocked textured shape seems to be attending, as if waiting. In gardening, the gaps are space themselves, frames of a sort. Planting schemes include aerial and cross elevations, indicating what will take up space vertically and horizontally simultaneously, mapping neighbours and what is seen through and underneath. The experience of scale has to do with perspective. Tectonics was discovered in 1960. The land we stand on, that above and below us, is in constant motion and transformation. It makes the painting attempt less absurd.
@niruratnamgallery last few weeks. Open weds-sat 12-6.
![Bone is phosphate and calcium. It makes fruits sweeter/On a short residency[1] that insisted on the use of charcoal solely, I was forced to get to grips with it- I found it messy, crumbly and unruly. It also gave you away, breaking and being broken was part of playing with it. Structural and vulnerable, like bone. In one exercise we were asked to copy a black and white print out of an old master, with charcoal. Then, after a break, draw from memory. The first marks were proportional plotting, how the image was separated. Thirds, horizons, planes. Next the angles, then the light. None of my recall was figurative.The folding possible in drawing allowing convolutions and complex permutations is, for me, its magic in contrast to linguistic attempts to capture and communicate. Weight is implicit in drawing, and relay can be managed lightly if wanted. In charcoal, the negative space can become the form or the void, and this oscillation allows an improv that jostles the idea and finding the feeling around. Shape and line also become possible to interchange.“One of the most extraordinary widespread sounds of the undersea is the crackling sizzling sound, like dry twigs burning or fat frying. Biologists heard ‘high pitched resonant whistles and squeals, varied with the tickling and clucking sounds slightly reminiscent of a string orchestra tuning up.”[2]My squeaking snapping charcoal when I am drawing, lost in it and following its line like a trusting animal relates.Sometimes the charcoal blocked textured shape seems to be attending, as if waiting. In gardening, the gaps are space themselves, frames of a sort. Planting schemes include aerial and cross elevations, indicating what will take up space vertically and horizontally simultaneously, mapping neighbours and what is seen through and underneath. The experience of scale has to do with perspective. Tectonics was discovered in 1960. The land we stand on, that above and below us, is in constant motion and transformation. It makes the painting attempt less absurd.@niruratnamgallery last few weeks. Open weds-sat 12-6.](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6727293025475743436540_0_fef109ba8278a4d7bd24d017c5606d6c.jpg?o=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&h=4f52024609360eb4e526cbba0d064ae6)
![In this movie everything would start with a roux,Butter flour and water;The white sauce of creamy beige,A magnolia glue for the rest of it.This movie would be hot hot hot:Sunsets and Shepheard’s warnings.Our bowels would be brilliant blues and baked brick redsFunction colours, electric, on fire, in-edible coloursIn this movie, everyone would carry toads to remind them of the groundAnd no-one would wish they could fly.Gravity would be different,About the weight of colour and heavy would feel good, like gold or snow.The future is based on a different building device, a mapping of things known as facsimile and things not yet known, ‘opening up paradigms of knowledge by the maps edges, and how a map is read, made and re made together.’[1]Taking consciousness beyond cartography can be a journey to visualise space that pans map, instruction, diagram.Painting cross sections in all orientations I experimented with space finding and organizing, testing cosmic and heat tones. There is literally a folded landscape, with its history convoluted in on itself, time folded in and air and stratified layers each representing a different texture and process. A painting is a jigsaw, taking something apart and putting it back together. The paintings fossilise this, they become an archeological record of this mapping process and the veins through them connect the multiple themes. The hues relate to the thing inside the thing, the projectile spectrum, the imagined subterranean and anatomical and medical and mapping diagram palettes. And of course, this puts the paintings under pressure – to perform all this, in the present tense.[1] The word for world: The Maps of Ursula K Le Quin. Edited by So Mayer and Sarah Shin.Extract from some writing for the show Blood Fish and Bone. Now open @niruratnamgalleryThanks to Niru and Georgia. And John, David and Damien.Photo credit Damien GriffithsImage: cross country. Oil on and acrylic on canvas. 2026.](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6739623742651649736669_0_16348b5cf44c25b858d7a0f44eb1edc6.jpg?o=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&h=d7c4d84eb65e97c26d2986aedf599013)
