Oriel x Origine / summer Peony print / EPC 28
I’ve been working on a new piece for the Experimental Print Club, I hope you like it when you see it. There’s a continuing interest in the idea of combining the maths and geometry of nature and the wider world with my print work. It’s an ongoing thought process about how to make work both inside and outside the studio, and see if the garden can directly influence what happens here on the system. In many ways the garden can be seen as a kind of miniature eden, albeit a chaotic one, but perhaps that is the point. As you’ll know, I don’t have any particular faith in a specific religion, but there is something absolutely magical about what happens here each year as the seasons pass, and the plants grow, flower and fade back.
My tree peony, Shimano Fuji, is a very particular part of that growth, and for this print I wanted to capture an image of it’s full glory, in some kind of mash up with another geometry, Oriel, that speaks about growth but in a far more rigid way. I’ve been enjoying and studying the works of Sonia Delaunay and Henri Matisse amongst many others over the years, and wonder continuously if it could be possible to bring some of the life, colour and joy they have enmeshed in their works into my own practice.
I like the idea of joy as a response to the idea of being alive in this moment, in part to counter the almost overwhelming global news events that surround us each day. I was amazed when I visited Monet’s garden at Giverny to learn that he continued painting with the sound of the guns on the front line just a few miles away. He saw it as his patriotic duty to keep working. I don’t feel much patriotism I’m afraid, I’m not convinced that our national borders are a particularly useful construct in an ever more multicultutral world, but I do like the idea of continuing to make work and spark joy as I move forward, as much as is possible.
I often get tied up in the minutiae of geometric details, and work for days on a particular rhythm or pattern that may well deliver something amazing, but equally well is often discarded, so for this piece I decided I wanted to make something faster, something far less considered, and as a result I feel this final piece falls back on a number of ways of seeing that I know are deep in my DNA. There’s a love of the simple circular geometries, and the colour work is just done on the day as it were, intuitively.
I suspect this is how a lot of people work, making snap decisions and trusting their judgement. I am going to continue to see if this faster way of working suits me. I have a tendency to over complicate things, and without the extra time required to strip back and minimise the piece, what is created is a lively but perhaps over designed piece of work. As with all the work, I will live with it for a while and let it settle. There are influences here from Indian temple art that I keep around the house from trips to India and Sri Lanka, as well as some sense of a very graphic approach, less art, more design perhaps. I’m ok with that I think, but I would like to try and build in more haptic mark making, so maybe that will be the next thing.
I was up in London for three nights at the weekend, and really enjoyed a first visit to the Freud house and museum, really interesting to see the way he lived and what he kept and collected in his home. You can buy a cutting from one of his Begonias, which I think is a rather fabulous idea, and another way in which plants can function as holders and perhaps even narrators of ideas.
We also went to see Death of England, a fantastic set of three plays which directly confront issues around race and identity in the current moment. The episode of the trilogy we saw starred Paapa Essiedu who gave an amazing performance, highly recommended if you get the chance to see it.
https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/whats-on/death-of-england-the-plays/
We also had a chance to see the fabulous photography galleries at the V&A, and the Judy Chicago show at Serpentine North, as well as the summer pavilion, and Yinka Shonibare at Serpentine South. All good to see, perhaps especially Judy Chicago who’s work evokes a past era of second wave feminism, that in her deft hands is both hugely entertaining and extremely thought provoking.
https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/judy-chicago-revelations/
In the meantime, I hope you like this piece. It has a bold late summer clash of colours, not unlike the riot of Dahlias that I have here right now. For art historical context, there’s a Freudian nod to Courbet, and to April Greiman of course, as ever.
Chuck Elliott
If you’d like to receive three or four exclusive new editions in the post each year, alongside personal news and views from the studio, and invitations to shows and fairs, please do consider becoming a member of my Experimental Print Club. You can join or leave the club at any time, with absolutely no obligation to stay any longer than you want to.
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I hope the club presents a more personal and intriguing way to connect with the studio, by creating a platform for collecting engaging new works for your home. The club is hosted online here, and I send out fairly regular blog posts and emails about the work too. I’d like to think that it’s an interesting proposition!
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