Twilight

Black star (detail) 2010 Paul Jones

Intuition cuts in when one has to make something urgently. I can’t talk for anyone else here – we all have our own ways of doing things… I never really manage to do all the thinking research and making in the same sitting. It’s more like cycles for me, times when I can’t make, I read or look at someone else’s work. But when I want to make my own, I can’t look elsewhere for months!

So working earnestly towards this show I was very much in the state described above. In some ways I wonder whether it’s a failsafe to stop criticism and doubt from creeping in - disrupting my resolve. It doesn’t make one open to in-depth critique though... Mainly I like to watch people navigate the work spatially, but the few conversations I had were useful.

Black Star 2010 (Background) Untitled Black series (foreground)

I had less preciousness about the situation; the space had its own ethos. Because it had music nights and so forth, there were many coloured lights - we didn't change them. As darkness fell we were plunged into a strange twilight, it felt rather comfortable. We spent most of the night there, some how it was like keeping the work company or maybe it was the other way around...

going the distance @ 3am

To reduce stress levels - I had decided not to make new drawings for the show, but to experiment with installation. My new drawings are developing a different character anyway, but I think this show will help to resolve them in some way. Paul was more open to the space and its dictates. I’m a bit of a worrier - I need answers and tried to have them all before I got there… Wot I didn’t tell you, is that I went all the way to Lakeside for trestles...

Yes thank you IKEA !

I chose – well not exactly - actually the bridge presented itself as the natural location for the animation. This rear projection territory was new to me. Because the projection was so small, I allowed myself to use the proper stuff Perspex vision – which usually costs around £300 for 2m x 3m sheets - obviously I didn’t spend that kinda money… Even though I had the proper stuff it wasn’t all plain sailing… There was still the hanging issue and the technical problem of ‘hot spots’ (this is when the projector creates a bright spot on the screen, which obscures the projected subject).

lets say I’ve still got some work to do, but in general I was pleased with the results…

Richie+Hawtin+-+DE9+Transitions

Finished surfaces

I’m into highly finished surfaces and other polished items, sounds etc. I’m kinda neat and that’s a part of my personality, this permeates through the work – I find myself spending a lot of time and money and looking for the ‘right thing' - exactly...

I’m trying to make a light box as part of the show. It maybe self-explanatory but the drawings featured in this blog are backlit. I’ve played with printing and encapsulation to capture this effect, but this time I would like to show the actual drawings lit in this manner. This work is very clean (the gallery rather more worn) placing the works on ‘sanitised' surfaces is the way to go. So I’m planning to show some on a table - now the question is (with financial and time constraintS) what table?

The Black Series

The Black Series an exhibition and conversation between two artists consumed by ‘blackness’ as a space, material and cultural construct. Both artists chart carefully through a dark terrain, constantly moving and searching …

Amanda Francis’ practice is preoccupied with the identity, specifically how context (external conditions and circumstances) affect identity formation. Currently she is interested in probing the stability of ‘Blackness’ as a cultural construction. Acknowledging subjectivity as an individual who inhabits it, each drawing emerges intuitively and organically on paper. Here ‘blackness’ is presented as a nebulous entity, constantly in a state of flux.

There is almost a scientific scrutiny - a pseudo clinical approach, which informs the production and installation of the work. Accordingly several different ways are provided to look at an individual piece. Some drawings require the viewer to move around the image to consider its characteristics. Others are illuminated in order to look through the surface, excavating its structure. What at first appears dark and impenetrable is subsequently revealed as complex and multifaceted. Consequently attempts to isolate and pin down the ‘black entity’ are constantly thwarted. 



Paul Jones’ work stems from questions of memory and imagination. All his work has this strong thread connecting them. Though the viewer may find a myriad of materials and media being used, his goal is to push concepts through the work, balancing the believable, observable world with the unbelievable, the unseen, the unhelmlich. 

He depicts ‘Space’ in detailed ink drawings on used envelopes. The drawings are executed in pencil, half automatic doodles which are then deciphered with ink pen to produce the finished work. 
His works continues to grow intuitively. Using state of the art digital resources, Jones has navigated his gaze within the dark dystopia of strange skull landscapes venting volcanoes, and dark space anomalies. These new works show a continued exploration into Jones’ dystopic spacescapes emanating from ‘somewhere else’. Features of this dystopic ‘space’ encroach and appear as anomalies within our own space and time, like a walking dream.