July 2024

Photographs of the iconic 'Get Carter' car park in Gateshead, before demolition

I came into printmaking via digital images and still use digital tools, for example to make stencils, as I have described in various posts here. When I can’t get into my studio, whether lack of time, or more recently health issues again, I also like to play with my software of choice, Paint Shop Pro, to make digital prints. These may or may not end up n the shop, my main reason for making them is simply to keep my creative eye in practice.

These are two of the latest such prints, both monochromatic, both and made from some old photos of mine of the now demolished ‘Get Carter’ shopping centre in Gateshead. The main image is one of the source files. It was pretty much abandoned when I took them, and I was vaguely aiming for the same grey dystopic feel. The first of these seems to capture that feeling quite well.

Digital print entitled Dystopia, with grainy indistinct buildings in the background and on the left a sigh saying PARKIN without the G, aligned vertically — Dystopia 1

Working on the second digital image, however, it decided to take a different path. Instead of a brutalist buildings, I saw not architecture but some sort of engineering structure, floating in space. This may have come via the TV series, ‘The Expanse’. Then I noticed a round white shape with what looked a bit like an outstretched arm, and out of that came the title, ‘Space Walk’. I’ve added a detail below in case I’m seeing things…

Digital image showing what appears to be a tangle of engineering structures in a harsh light against a dark, star-studded background with a figure in what looks like a white space suit clinging to the structure about halfway down on the left — Space Walk

detail from the previous image showing the apparent figure with helmet and outstretched arm — Space walk – detail

I love the smoky, grainy aspect of both these digital images and think they would work well as photopolymer etchings. That’s certainly something I intend to try.

After a series of recent health issues, It was sheer delight to get out and about. I chose to see this exhibition of work by Eleanor Bartlett. I had seen one piece by her before, also at the Vanner Gallery. It was by far and away the best in that show.

She paints using very utilitarian materials, metal paint and bitumen from hardware stores. The work, though, transcends the hum drum nature of the materials. The large paintings have an overpowering presence which dominates their surroundings. Even the smaller one have a physicality which transforms them from 2D painting to sculptural objects. I’ve quoted Terry Frost before, “To look at a painting which gives you the opportunity to have solitude, to be yourself and to be able to wander into reverie, is more than hedonistic, it’s spiritual” and these works have that same quality. They have a depth into which one can fall. They also seem to have a history, with a sense of millennia of accretion and erosion, all leading to the object before the eye.

I was also intrigued to hear, talking to David Christie, the gallery director, that Eleanor Bartlett holds a similar view to mine about the meaning of abstract work. I missed the artist talk, but she refuses to talk about meaning – ‘it has no meaning’. The composer John Cage apparently said, in a talk, “I have nothing to say, and I’m saying it”, cited by Gerhard Richter in the context of his ‘Cage’ series. I’m obviously in good company.

Unfortunately, you don’t have long to see the show – it closes on Saturday. I’m sorry I didn’t make it earlier, if only so that I could have gone again. If you can make it to Salisbury in time, I recommend you make the effort.

Month: July 2024

Playing with digital images again

Gallery visit – Eleanor Bartlett at the Vanner Gallery in Salisbury