Near Noon, that Day
Circa 2006
Image size 46cm x 70cm
Mixed media on board
“When you look at the paintings, you notice that your eyes become activated. You are confronted by patches and areas of colour and coloured lines, splashes of paint and crosses. There's a sense of push and pull, distance and nearness.
The mark-making creates a busy surface. Your mind is taken up with reading one part and then looking at another that is different in character, and so on. The paintings do have something in common. They have a restless, agitated air about them with sometimes a predominant yellow, red or black and occasional flicks of white.
These works are not dull. They have balance and unity in spite of the variations of surface, shape, colour, line and space. They satisfy the eye and with more prolonged viewing, the need for an aesthetic experience. They are also coherent but they represent a challenge to the sensibility of the viewer as there is no narrative that might help to sidestep the issue of meaning.
Works such as these provide a satisfying aesthetic experience and are complete in themselves."
© David Phillips. Artspace May '08