PHILIP COLE
A Peripheral Vision
PRESS RELEASE 07/02/15
Draft titles?:
'incidentals'
'peripheral work'
'superficial'
I distinctly remember buying a secondhand record called Debut from a boot sale. It had a gatefold sleeve that had become unstuck to reveal
the CMYK shapes along the inside glued tab. The colours, shapes and patterns were simple but compelling. Around the same time I started
collecting the tabs from cereal boxes. I have always had a tendency to inspect and read the box whilst eating my cereal and had noticed these
'peripherals' before. They had always delighted me visually and like anything that is collected and observed regularly, small differences are
soon observed and enjoyed. I had planned a while ago to use these 'peripherals' or 'incidentals' as a springboard for some new paintings and am currently doing just that. Having had a science background, my artistic practice has often featured an overlap between science and art. Experimental by nature, I have tended to place an emphasis on the possibilities inherent in a material. Predominantly I have used polyester resins and oil based derivatives. The versatility of these materials has often sparked off ideas to be developed further. In the act of production, the work provides a possible container for my ideas, experiments and feelings.
This work is sometimes characterised by process, it may raise questions about the act of painting, the choice of subject matter as well as the finished object itself. I have often focussed on the peripheral or overlooked and this is very much the case for the work featured in this exhibition. I labour on a piece as if it were a construction, sometimes producing individual parts separately to add to, a piece or a layer at a time and all the while, the work lays horizontally at waist height or on the floor. Decisions about when a piece is finished are sometimes arbitrary. Many of my paintings have a very flat, smooth surface which may allude to photographic or digital production processes. They directly contrast the notion of a hand crafted or painterly piece of work with evidence of the artists handiwork almost absent.
Philip Cole