Chaos Sandwich

I’ve been trying my hand at art recently, and thought I’d post something briefly, mainly as a record of my thinking and direction.

Poor little mosquito, daring to share his thoughts with the world again.

Anyway, I’ve been influenced a bit by Clive Barker, whose fiction output has significantly diminished over the last two decades, mainly because he’s been concentrating so much on painting. This has been more than a distraction for him. It’s been a foray that has augmented his creative output across the board.

I’ve always been interested in the interplay between art, literature, music and other forms of creative outlet. It seems to me they can all feed off each other, their synergy creating something bigger. I’ve also gained a lot of insight into abstract art and creating moods from a work, particularly that of Daniel Ibbotson. Using recycled materials, his artworks are captivating and encourage multiple viewings to see different aspects. Art expresses feelings through the randomness of the mind, not necessarily through photorealistic representations.

This is all very convenient for me, of course, because I possess very little technical skill. What I do have, however, is a certain measure of boldness. Not being afraid to plaster or build something on a canvas and let it play out as it wills.

What do you see? What does it suggest to you? Perhaps nothing. Maybe you don’t connect. Nothing lost. These things don’t resonate with everyone. Perhaps a later one will.

I’m not going to explain the origins and meanings of everything I do, because I’d like people to see what they want to see and not be influenced by my own motivations. But I’ll make an exception in this case.

I started the piece by cutting out random runes and shapes from leftover cardboard boxes. Some were loosely based on Nordic or Celtic symbols, but most were simply products of my imagination. At the same time, I decided to produce this on a large piece of cardboard – first mistake! The cardboard was relatively flimsy and also didn’t respond well to holding acrylic paint — I hadn’t discovered Gesso yet. After several remedying situations involving primers and backing the cardboard with wood spars, I had something better to work on.

I was committed to working in layers — hence the sandwich part of the title. So, the first real layer was a series of bands and strokes applied with acrylic in random order, thus producing a layer of chaos. It was interesting that the strokes started to suggest things already. Many became hidden by later layers, but knowing they were lying there underneath was still significant. After repeating this a couple of times, I took some old Christmas card material and cut out semi-ordered shapes in them. I took a little time to decide which order to overlay them and then stuck them down with PVA glue, put a load of weights on top and left the thing to dry overnight.

The next morning revealed a quite pleasing effect, with random strokes beneath showing through the coloured overlays.

But I wasn’t finished.

Next, I took some mixed acrylic colours and applied several sets of stripes in an almost Eddie Van Halen guitar style. Chaos had started to take over again.

I felt some of these random stripes and circles lacked definition, so I added thinner strokes within them in an attempt to constrain the chaos. This caused a certain evolution, the overall effect being almost like geological strata. I started to see different shapes produced as a result of the way each layer interacted — a bit like my previous statement regarding the various branches of the creative arts.

Finally, I was ready to add my runes. I decided this last act would attempt to suppress the chaos underneath with a semblance of order. I found certain symbols could be organised into almost recognisable English words. But was I just seeing meaning where there was in fact further chaos? I arranged some of these combinations together, while others were placed in a manner that seemed pleasing to me. They were all stuck down with PVA glue.

Overall, the whole thing took about eleven hours, believe it or not.

In Conclusion

So, these are the notions that circulated in my mind as I put ‘Chaos Sandwich’ together. Maybe it stirs something in you — or maybe not. Perhaps it has been simply an indulgence. If so, it’s an indulgence that’s given me a smidgen of satisfaction.