Over The Wall

Has David found the answer that he was looking for?

David Chandler’s exhibition at the Round Tower, Black Swan Arts, Frome does not disappoint, each painting is an explosion of the artist’s work and each canvas is truly unique. Some paintings have a theme with their neighbour and other canvases are a cluster of paintings that are obviously related. However most of the canvases are one off pieces telling their own story, from a self portrait to a picture of a doll or still life.
This exhibition really draws you in to study every detail and every brush stroke that the artist has used; as the wall with these 100 canvases mounted on it, is unlike most exhibitions.

It requires you to really examine it and be part of the journey that has taken place. It was clear that the artist had truly let go and explored every part of himself through his work. Using different techniques and means of applying the paint and other materials he has used to create each piece, though still retaining his very specific and unmistakable style. Has David found the answer that he was looking for? It all started with a carrot and ended with a window. Not a conscious decision or process, but very poignant for the journey that has taken place. Well worth a visit to see this fascinating exhibition.

Review, courtesy Old Church School, Frome

http://www.theoldchurchschool.co.uk

Talking To My Wall

 1st edition of SEEING THINGS, my new radio series about the visual arts in Frome. Go to Programmes > Arts > Seeing Things.

Squaring The Circle

A wing, a prayer and Blu-Tack

Round Tower Gallery, Black Swan Arts.

My studio until Image Wall opens on Friday 26 November and still struggling with the same painting of Lucca.

Tuesday 16th: Painting 10.00 - 17.00

Wednesday 17th: Teach-in with Claverton Art Group 10.00 - 12.30

                                Teach-in with Acrylic Painting Class 14.00 - 16.30

Thursday 18th: Painting 14.00 - 17.00

Friday 19th: Painting 10.00 - 17.00

Saturday 20th: Painting 13.30 - 17.00

Tuesday 23rd: Interview with Ciara Nolan for 'Seeing Things' FromeFM 10.00 - 12.30

                          Painting 14.00 - 17.00

Thursday 25th: Hang show 14.00 - 17.00

Friday 26th: Hang show 10.00 - 17.00

                      Preview 18.00 - 20.30

Lucca 3

A complete re-paint was the only way to make progress.

 Common problem: it lacks the energy of the sketch.

A lighter palette adds structure to the texture (and it looks less like a doormat).

Unfinishing

Since July, adjusting the whiteness of the white. Some paintings never seem to be finished. 


Others appear when I'm cleaning my palette, late in the  afternoon, when the light is fading and I think I'm done for the day.


Looking at them again the following day, I may want to change them but I don't know how.
They remain in a state of deliberate unfinishment, which is a preposterous word but 'incompletion' is entirely unsatisfactory.

Part of the Embankment series and the 100th to come out of the box, by the way.

Playing Again

Because the last few canvases are replete with significance, I've ordered 10 more. Now I won't know which painting will be the last one.

And I can play again:

An improvisation on the instrument I used to play.

Lucca 2

Hansa Yellow and Carbon Black for the sky; Hansa Yellow, Quinacridone Magenta and Phthalo Blue for the buildings. It's telling me that it will be finished before I want it to be.

Lucca 1

Two canvases, positively loaded with moulding paste, pumice gel and three acrylic colours. The idea is to work from this sketch:

I love the double viewpoint.

Monumental buildings and shadowy streets,

where you can almost smell the centuries.

Pavane

A small exercise in grief.

Embankment Series

I called in at Tate Modern for a pee and Tate Britain for coffee and cake, but didn't look at a single painting.

I expect it shows.

Anywhere or Nowhere

An antidote to the big sky painting of Tuesday, 14 September.

But I found myself gazing at an acre of dirt with nowhere to go, so I added the road.

Roads like clouds, enable us to dream.

Mellow Fruitfulness Part 2

The real struggle doesn't take place on the canvas...

It's knowing what you want that requires so much effort.

Countdown

The last box of 10 canvases: opened today.

Famous Last Words

I spent a morning looking at it and decided I just couldn't live with those colours.

"Unless you say goodbye to the things you love and unless you travel to completely unknown destinations you can merely expect a slow wearing-away of yourself and an eventual extinction."

GEORGE DUBUFFET

Mellow Fruitfulness

Quince 1: Insouciant Hansa Yellow, Carbon Black and a little Titanium White. But it has nothing of the subject's weighty, muscularity.

Quince 2: An attempt to do things properly. But the underpainting is too wet and Carbon Black infests my colours. When I attempt to resolve the shape I lose my way. The end result is merely safe.

Quince 3: I seem intent on boring myself.

This feels a bit more like painting.

Inselaffen

The portrait is complete the moment it looks as if it might speak.

Inselaffen is a name that Germans give to the English.

It means ISLAND MONKEY.







Like all remote islanders, we love our trinkets. 

A Way A Head

Trying to make the face only as visible as the paint...

and vice versa.

Landscape

 

I soon realised I wasn't ready for wide open spaces. I had to get lost in the woods first.

A journey of several days.

The Words

LIGHTNESS, COLOURING, TRUTH

Very Raw Sienna

A lump of dirt from a hillside in La Crete, south of Siena in Tuscany, ground up and allowed to 'slake' for 24 hours in a little water and then combined with PVA.

Raw Sienna, quite literally.

The idea then, was to set my natural colour against something decidedly unnatural.

To balance the blue with the brown, I sometimes needed white.

Six little abstracts. 

Where Things Are

Concentrate on where things are, I was told, and what they are becomes apparent.

Given two colours and three or four simple shapes, where then, should things be?

I feel that to go on painting these pictures forever would be sufficient. There is such pleasure in variation.

Concealing and revealing

The intention was to create four pictures that worked on their own as well as together. They were also supposed to read any way up. My Howard Hodgkin plumbing nightmare.

After some serious editing...  

colours were rediscovered,

 new conjunctions appeared

and surprises occurred.

Now there are spaces between the colours, where the mind may wander.

Beginning and Ending

Four weeks ago, this looked like the beginning of something.

Now it looks like the end.

Minor Adjustments

Choosing to accept the limitations of this particular portrait mean that my finishing touches remain just that. Of course, there really is no such thing as a finishing touch, only the last stroke before the work is abandoned. New ideas at this point are anathema unless one has another canvas, primed and ready to go.
Fortunately, I have another 70.

An abstract, improvised over two canvases and going nowhere since early May.

Upended and smothered in Hansa Yellow and Carbon Black.