PROJECT78
 

PRESS RELEASE

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These delicate works on paper are from a new series exploring the interface between painting, drawing and collage. Central to the series is an intense engagement with oil paint and paper. This material is used as the ground for a series of paintings where texture is as important as colour in the play between the surface of the paper and the various densities of paint. With this comes an expanse of associations that push beyond simple categorisations of abstraction, figuration or scale. The information in each painting, given by gesture or mark, is reduced to a fleeting register of brush on the surface, as if each mark has to count. They contain a tension from this, enforced visually by the likes of a pillar, sphere or roundel teetering on the edge. There is a balance between expressive play and a tight control, a control which in itself is not indicative of applying a limitation but allows the image to resonate beyond the boundary of the paper. Framing is an essential aspect of the production, the internalized framing and edge of the support defining the content, yet part of it. With the works on display colours, shapes and textures are brought together as if the paint has been cut into or torn away. The interest in keeping a gestural ground on the paper draws on the ephemeral quality of Medieval wall paintings, where the paint appears to hover on the rough surface of the wall. 

 

Lloyd Durling, 2019

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