Fissure (A1)

Fissure (A1) is the largest of a series of 7 paintings, focusing on one of the grade 2 listed walls surrounding Trellick Tower that is due to be demolished. The hyper-real 3D acrylic paintings of damaged and neglected sections of the wall contrast with the immaculately painted panels, each of which conform to the dimensions of A paper sizes – A1 to A7. The panels’ colours represent the fresh optimism of the time in which Trellick Tower was built; A3, A4, A5, A6 & A7 are painted using colours from Le Corbusier’s Polychromie Architecturale. The textures, diminishing dimensions and carefully chosen colours are designed to create a group of paintings that, when shown together play with the architectural tropes of surface, scale and proportion.

From a painterly perspective, the Deconstruction series explores the potential to push past the limitations of two dimensional painting with conventional materials. Using only acrylic paint and artists pigments to create three-dimensional slabs of paint, which are attached to, or hung alongside their supports, these pieces straddle the disciplines of painting and sculpture. Their profound faithfulness to subject matter, born from deep research of the building’s materials and processes make for uncanny hyper-realism presented in formal, abstract terms.

The pink graffiti wave squiggle was added after the Covid-19 lockdown. The cream bean is a self-portrait of my bald noggin.