|
|
Ice
Paintings
In
late 2004 whilst studying Fine Art Painting at Bath Spa University,
inspired by Andy Goldsworthy’s Ice & Snow Drawings, along with John
Cages Minimalist, chance compositions and his long standing obsession
with Francis Bacon, Paul Ditch started painting with ice to explore
the relationships between chance and control which are present in the
creation of artwork. These explorations led to over 50 original pieces
between December 04 and May 05, which cover a wide range of
permutations within the new technique, whilst developing a deeper
understanding of this unique medium.
After
leaving University, and a successful show in Brick Lane in the late
summer of 2005, Paul’s work came to the attention of Turkish Architect
Kerem Turker who quickly placed it into the new contemporary art fair
in Ankara, Turkey, ANKART 2006. Meanwhile, without the limitations of
a university course, Paul began to experiment with new pigments, and
swapped from watercolour to liquid acrylics to achieve a new intensity
and consistency of colour. It was becoming clear that the relationship
between chance and control within this technique was leaning heavily
towards control, with all the conscious decisions of the artist being
critical to the works unique aesthetic, but ultimately the ice decides
how a piece happens.
The
unusual composition, ignoring the golden mean for the center of the
paper, and the strong almost overpowering colours draw an intense
point of focus which can be very active and arresting, or when time is
taken to explore the surface qualities one is immersed in a restful
macro-environment, where the level of detail parallels that of the
natural world. Paul’s reasons for making the work concentrate more on
the aspects of time and the space in which the colours interact,
whilst keeping the unpredictability of the finished result. The ‘2
Separate Events’ series combine 2 colours, thawed at different times,
but which interact on the same sheet of paper, in the same space.
With
the development of the ideas of manipulating space/time within the
scope of his visual experiments and the continued organic process of
thawing ice adding extra dimensions to the work Paul drew parallels
with quantum physics, and the way in which experiments are under taken
in a laboratory. The new work which resulted, ‘Variables’ Series 1&2
took its unusual paper scale size from Glass Microscope slides, and by
using the exact same colour and positioning for each of the 8 pieces
within the series clearly emphasized the fact that everything is
dependent on its situation and surroundings, and any given event can
never happen quite the same way twice.
In
late 2006, after completing the ‘Variables’ series Paul began to align
his working technique with the precision of a scientific experiment.
Colours are now conceived, taken from either his imagination and
understanding of colour, or from various outside sources or simply the
inks themselves. The quantities for predefined intensities are
recorded and used as a standard for each new piece. Each piece is
created equal, as the role of chance dictates the finished result, and
Paul sees his role as an artist as decision maker. Whereas this role
is usually employed with each brush stroke, which guides a work
towards success or failure Paul uses his aesthetic sense and eye for
composition to choose the correct pieces for the purpose. A kind of
artificial selection.
Being
neither abstract nor figurative, these works actively embrace change
whilst keeping a tight hold over the accurate execution, because of
this, process painting is closely related, but they hold up under the
comparison to traditional painting. Paul says; “In making these
pieces, I have found the perfect balance for my personal intentions
for what a work of art should be. Primarily they make you look and
think differently about the world around you. Also, the depth of
colour, texture and sense of movement that you get from the greatest
handling of a brush are present, as well as the infinite variety
within the natural world. Something I could never achieve through
figurative, traditional painting”.
Notes on Quantum Theory and the Multi-verse and Variables Series 2007
The
original intentions for my Variables Series was to explore how,
through chance operations, no two pieces would ever be exactly the
same. Through much deeper research and more experiments, it is now
clear that firstly, there is chance involved, but not in the
traditional sense that it is used in art, specifically that each event
in the making of the work is not arbitrary or random but informed
either from an aesthetic viewpoint, experience or interactions at the
molecular and sub-atomic levels which are all linked together.
Secondly in a quantum system it is possible for a piece to repeat
itself but it is massively unlikely, the whole situation must be taken
into account, such as the specific state of all the elements involved
in creating the work, at the specific times at which they occurred,
when you consider this down to the sub-atomic level, you see that the
chance of these states reoccurring identically, and in the same order
in which they originally happened is astronomically unlikely. Each
piece is unique as it is linked with the time and space in which it
was made. To repeat any piece identically would be practically
impossible, trying to repeat it would mean you change the outcome
through your interaction.
In the
multi-verse each time an interaction takes place, instead of just
either A or B happening, both happen and each time this split occurs
new courses or universes are created, this all comes back to chance,
that there is a certain probability which governs the outcome of all
interactions, and we live through these effects and only observe the
particular outcomes of our own universe.
|
