The Way 2 - Digital (study), 2010
I’ve been working on new studies for The Way, following on from comments that came up during our Inside Out Saturday crit session. In terms of structure, I’m still working with that strong geometry which echoes the lines of the tracks themselves. In terms of content, I’m playing around with the sign/signal/indicator ideas that I’ve had right from the beginning. I’m also toying with ideas about the railway being a separate and liminal space – and these ideas are now beginning to find an echo in the structure: the geometry dividing canvases up into zones, with one set of elements visible through a cutting-apart of another set of elements.
I’m also beginning to develop a set of motifs – a language of forms pulled from my walks up and down the Oswestry stretch of the Cambrian Railway tracks. In the centre of this painting – The Way 2 – is the signal frame that stands just behind the Cambrian Studios Building; but the signal on it has been replaced with a code taken from elsewhere. Clouds and smoke are beginning to come through as well – elements I’ve used for years that are themselves signals of distant activity, either natural or human.
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