Painting on Rocks and St Ives Visit.

Following on from my work using paint derived from rocks I made some further works using the same paint though now painting onto rocks. There is a certain irony in the idea of effectively covering rocks in more rock (the rock paint), which was something I found interesting to explore as most of my previous work has been quite serious. This almost humorous nature to the work shows similarities to some of Richard Long’s, such as ‘1449 Stones at 1449 Feet’, which is quite literally 1449 stones in a pile at 1449 feet of altitude.

This idea also links to the work of Susan Collis who makes installations of what appears to be everyday items, though with details made of precious or quite bespoke materials. An example is her piece ‘Love is a Charm of Powerful Trouble’ (2008) which looks like a broom with flecks of paint splattered on it from distance, however in reality the ‘paint’ splatters are actually opals and diamonds. The humour in Collis’ work is that, similarly to Richard Long’s outdoor sculptures, the work may go unnoticed as art and may be mistaken for what it appears to be; here, a dirty broom left over after cleaning and that the objects she makes are essentially useless.

Love is a Charm of Powerful Trouble, Susan Collis (2008)

After exploring the effects of painting some rocks I took them back out into the landscape that they were sourced from – the beach – and arranged them amongst other ‘normal’, unpainted rocks. It was quite surprising how well the painted rocks blended into the background of ordinary pebbles, the opacity of the rock paint was not very high and some of the original colour and lines of the actual rock showed through the brown tones of the paint, adding to the illusion of them just being regular untreated rocks. I photographed the painted rocks in the beach setting in order to document this work, highlighting the elusivity and transience of such a short term performance-like installation piece.

I revisited last week’s video work with an almost slideshow-esque film containing six ten second clips of my half painted rock on different surfaces found on Gylly beach. However I feel that this piece would have still worked had the clips just been photographs of the rock in each setting as they as the camera was held relatively still over the still object of the rock in the same position for the ten seconds, the film ended up having the effect of a slideshow of photographs.

This week I also visited St Ives to go to the Tate gallery for primary artist research and to experience an alternative landscape to those found in my immediate vicinity in Falmouth as inspiration for my project.

‘Space and Matter’ (1959) by Sandra Blow was a piece of particular note during my visit due to its textured, visceral nature. Like myself, Blow also uses natural materials within her works, charcoal and chaff being involved in ‘Space and Matter’, which helps to give them a stronger connection to the landscapes they are inspired by, in a similar manner to my use of rock paint. The earthy colour palette and visual texture of this piece hugely tie it to the landscape, giving it the appearance that mud and earth has been thrown at the canvas.

Space and Matter, Sandra Blow (1959)

Walking around the headland to the right of Porthmeor beach gave me further inspiration in terms of a colour palette and the feelings it evokes. I took close up photographs of particularly interesting colours and textures during this walk which I will refer back to when making future works, perhaps introducing new shades of brown, green and grey into my practice.