Final Project for First Year

This last project lasted eight weeks. I decided to focus on a new topic and really challenge myself. Hence I attempted to tackle the subject of shadows.

I have spent many years photographing shadows, being particularly captured by the abstract nature of them. Devoid of the source subject, shadows have character of their own.

Initally I worked on organic shadows from photographs. I soon realised that the nature of the shadow is complex, being translucent in essence but also full of colour and layers. Experimentation with different materials, not only on which to paint but the nature of the paint took some time with mixed results. I finished with four paintings, atmospheric, almost Japanese in format. Once comment that came my way was that they were reminiscent of cave paintings. A  good comment in my book, as the first shadow paintings were cave paintings.

From there I decided to tackle more concrete shadows in the form of a series of sculptures I made from cardboard based on the cog. The scultpures had not lasted but I had cataloged them in photograph form and these photographs provided the next stage of the project. The conclusion was a large painting in oil, based on a number of photos that were intended to highlight depth of field. These photos came out in warm orange tones, so it was these tones that I applied to the painting. The result pleased me and I would like to have gone bigger had I time. Ian McKeever's work is hugely influencial and I think I managed to capture the notion of being on the threshold of a large interior waiting to be explored such as much of McKeever's work invokes.

Last of all I allowed my imagination to play. I returned to source drawings and from these researched compositions and colour formats. I had only time to see one of these in paint but plan to experiment over the summer with bigger versions.