The UCA first year students were asked to exhibit in London during December 2016.The chosen exhibition space was the Menier Gallery in Southwark Street London SE1, we were to be using the lower ground floor gallery space.
The title of the show was ‘In to the Dark’. This title was trying to explore the process of the students coming out of their safe white studio space into the public art scene for the first time and also had links to the current political and cultural uncertainty surrounding us all.
I took inspiration from visiting Tate Modern and various commercial galleries in the days prior to starting my piece, I especially like Gerhard Richter’s work and the Jon Cage paintings.
I started experimenting with texture and thick impasto style paint but given the short lead time I was unable to do multiple layers of paint as Richter would do allowing one to dry before adding further. I found using PVA glue mixed with French chalk or sand would give a very thick fast drying textured based to paint upon. This is how I started my work. The idea behind my painting was the refugee and migrant crisis we are experiencing at this time. I wanted to show this in an abstract way.
The painting is formed of vertical and horizontal lines of varying thickness and colour together with differing textures. The vertical lines represent the streams of migrants fleeing their homelands, different ages, creeds, religions and races coming in such large quantities they were having to be labelled and numbered by authorities almost like a retailer would do with a large quantity of goods, like a bar code for catagorising for an inventory. The vertical lines meet the horizontal and try to mix but like oil placed into water they can not and just separate and merge with themselves in pools or camps, included but segregated.
The mixed media materials also fighting against each other with some paints cracking and splitting with differing drying times and elements, Oil, acrylic, glue chalk etc all reacting with one another. The dark base colour barely visible but still seen through the cracks could describe the under current of feeling from the authorities and governments, some smooth and accepting others hard, thick and uncompromising. The primary colours representing the primary need of the people displaced to protect themselves and their families, primal instincts to seek safety and shelter. Painted in a landscape format depicting the current landscape and divide in Europe and the middle east.
The final work is a mixed media canvas painting, 92x61cm in size.
Michael Palmer 