I am not interested in attempting to express the ineffable but I am leaving markers along the border between the expressible and inexpressible, at openings in the border, and about the nature of the data that passes from one to the other, in both directions. I am attempting to construct a language that helps me to communicate with myself, or rather the act of attempting to construct a language that helps me to communicate with myself about myself is symptomised by object making. Object making is a by-product of language -making. But at the same time there is an awareness of the unconscious using this process as a means to communicate, even up to the point of expressing itself IN the objects.

Words roam the surface of things. They serve the material. We exist on the surface, neglecting the depths where words cant penetrate. We look for signs in named things, some configuration, some alignment. Clues. Looking for meaning in the potential of things to combine and teach us something of Value. But this is a symptom of illness. We are trying to put elements together that are already together, which means we need to seperate them first, tear things apart in the search for potential. Metaphor is an example of this, tapping nature without permission for some didactic end. Because we are no longer part-of, having chosen as modernists to step outside, like little gods, in order to look in, judging, categorising, mining and extracting value.

I nearly chucked this one – I didn’t like the untidiness – the way the oil leaked, but going back to it later I’m interested in those leaks

Before stuff coalesces into symbols before our consciousness in dreams what form does it take? And after we awake, what happens to it? Does it de-alesce? Once we exit the narrative does it dissolve? Into what? Or does it continue without us, working away, influencing?

I mixed grated compressed charcoal with vegetable oil, poured onto 120gsm tracing paper, put another sheet on top and applied a Stanley blade over the top. The stuff swirled around like a lava lamp or projector

I made a film of one swirling around and left it over night. Peacock, leopard, weasel, vase…

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I wanted to make something monolithic in an opening. I wasn’t that impressed with it at the time (tho now I think of TS eliots Sweeney ‘guarding the horned gate’ of Hades through which dreams pass) so I thought rather than waste the materials I’d print a copy off onto another sheet. The effect was exhilarating and Ive been trying to replicate it ever since without success. The startling behaviour of the paint is beautiful and sinister. The trouble is I can’t remember exactly what the paint was made of. I work quickly and spontaneously without much rigour, impatient to see the results. Around that time I think I was grating compressed charcoal into vegetable oil but I was also using carbon in fixative and I think had stated using black oil paint too.

Anyway, whilst this image lacks form and structure it does appear to me at least, to have captured the images of the type fractal shadow beasties from the unconscious realms in which I am interested.

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More lockdown introspection. Pre-COVID the term LOCKDOWN was beloved of cliched scriptwriters, lazy journalists and politicians and I hated it. Spawned in Hollywood action movies it is akin to saying “take him out” instead of “murder him”, it is pure jargon. Then suddenly the media was using it whenever it got the chance. “Oxford Street is in LOCKDOWN tonight after shots were heard…etc” when what was really usually happening was chaos, panic and fear with nothing locked down at all, whatever locked down fucking means any way. It seems to me it now means all socially minded people look out for each other and all ignorant selfish bastards carry on as usual, especially joggers. Personally I have managed ok having been practicing the avoidance of most other people all my life.

Anyway, this needs a bit more work on the left arm (Although as its a reflection its my right arm, tho my left arm is noticeably smaller from years of stone masonry, something I noticed when using my body as a temple for recent stone sculptures). The perspective is odd because I was sitting in front of the mirror (an old dresser mirror from my Dads house that was only on my work table because it needs mending) at a right angle to it. Now it has to be viewed from beneath for the proportions to work. I started by using the masking tape like clay, tearing off little bits and starting on the nose but soon got bored and worked more generally and quickly.

Turned it over and coated the back of the figure with carbon mixed with fixative. Flipped it and drew compressed carbon down over the background then rubbed in with fingers leaving slits of light like gaps between curtains. I seem to like these openings in my work, thresholds, windows, doors. They are like border crossings. Data or matter passes through. Here they seem vaginal.

Then I place thick tracing paper over the sculpture and rubbed over with compressed charcoal.

I enjoy ripping up shreds of masking tape – when using it for what it was intended there is something peculiarly irritating about it, or any type of tape, when it tears along its length instead of across.

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More drawing, here using tape discarded from previous work on MDF scarred by previous work. The form can be directly sourced back to my stone work, blocky and monolithic. The images are again snake-like. A slippery slide down into the depths where raw unconscious data swirls like atoms in a particle collider

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Clearing out Uncle Nigel’s flat I unearthed an unused pad of 53gsm A3 Typo paper, a box of compressed carbon and some rolls of masking tape. I tore a strip of tape and stuck it on the last sheet of paper, drew over it with a stick of compressed charcoal in one gesture then flipped the next sheet over and retraced. I repeated to the beginning of the pad with the form becoming less distinct page by page.

I am left with a receding form as though of a great sea monster glimpsed near the surface then slowly sinking, disappearing into the abyss.

The Abyss is of course the Unconscious. Sea monsters from myth are really messengers or messages from the Unconscious. They are symbols. What are they symbols of? That’s where it gets interesting.

But while I was making the work I was thinking of how we are all forgotten eventually.

There are 50 plus drawings. I’d love to see them all displayed one day.

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Impotent anger caused by watching the news channeled into self-portrait

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Further experimentation with materials and processes trying to increase the revelatory nature of the work by decreasing my direct hand. In some I started using carbon grated into olive oil, placed another piece of paper on top and scraped with a Stanley blade, then peeled away the paper creating marvelous effects. Here some are rather like Rorschachs ink blots but with the mirror image removed. In others I worked directly on the homemade oil paint with the blade making a square moon reflecting on black hills of the unconscious realm: The Underworld.