The first in a new series of paintings focusing specifically on corners. All were created during the outbreak of Covid-19 and the intense period of isolation, and self-introspection, that ensued....
The first in a new series of paintings focusing specifically on corners. All were created during the outbreak of Covid-19 and the intense period of isolation, and self-introspection, that ensued. The new series is based almost exclusively on the premise that duality is a fact of human nature: as Jung said, "Every good quality has its bad side, and nothing that is good can come into the world without directly producing a corresponding evil. This is a painful fact." One example of this duality is that wholeness cannot be achieved without integrating the dark side of the self, which Jung referred to as the 'shadow self.' This process of integration is another key consideration throughout the work.
The corner paintings are a visual representation of this duality. Consisting of three simple planes, two walls and a floor converge to create a corner. The life it hides is the life happening in the immediate space of the experiencer, hidden from the outside world, on the other side of the corner. Transversely we also have to consider the life that the outside world is prevented from seeing, the life of the experiencer themselves. As the French Philosopher Gaston Bachelard wrote in his seminal work on the phenomenology of architecture The Poetics of Space: "the corner becomes a negation of the universe." A place of comfort and shelter, and at the same time a place of entrapment and restriction, these interior spaces can of course be considered psychological interiors.
The physical application of the paint in these corner paintings also alludes to the duality of human nature. The paintings have two distinct applications of paint: the upper part, the walls, are thickly applied with a squeegee in multiple layers, and then paint is thrown, flicked, catapulted and launched in an act of semi-controlled chaos. The lower part, the floor, is applied in a very controlled and methodical way that is pre-determined and considered - in direct opposition to the treatment of the walls. This is consistent throughout all of the corner paintings.