| about the paintings ... by series... | black paintings Iceland paintings propaganda paintings multilateral paintings oriental paintings moire paintings fabrications and film forensic paintings chandelier paintings katagami - current research |
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Notions of the Baroque underpin the work
with particular reference to the light--dark
allegories that abound in literature
eg.
Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and the tenebrist/chiaroscuro
artists - for example Caravaggio and
Zurburan.
They also draw on the music of the
period
in particular librettos from operas
by Handel,
Rameau and Purcell. The titles of the works provide clues to some references. For example:-. "Retiros" is a word once used to describe a Baroque garden - usually a small hideaway - somewhere for an individual to escape and contemplate. "La Folie de la Vision" is a phrase coined by a French theorist to describe the madness of vision which encompasses Baroque notions of the visual experience. "Legerdemain" is usually used to describe trickery and slight of hand, but in it's literal translation means 'a light touch'."Vapourish Fancy" refers to literary sources, in particular, Daniel Defoe's ' Roxanne' in which the heroine's state of mind is described as 'vapourish fancy' - that of hysterical imagination - or the 'vapours' as they were commonly known."Acanthus" is a flower of legend that never dies. to see paintings from this series click here. |
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 All Embracing, oil on canvas, Pip Dickens The black series of paintings are a visual paradox. Though black, these paintings shimmer with refracted light in order to create their 'colour'. In a wholly perverse manner they insist on the presence of light in order to be read. It is a genuine attempt to push the boundaries of the second dimension through the interaction of surface, texture, light and spatial depth. The contradiction of dark paint interacting with exterior light gives these works a peculiar sense of transmogrification, in the sense that as the environmental light (or the viewer's position) changes, the paintings appear to move and 'breathe'. This technique results in a three dimensional, almost hologram like experience. |
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 Iceland I (detail), oil on canvas, Pip Dickens This series represents a number of paintings that were produced as result of an art travel award to Iceland in 1995. The landscape revealed many paradoxes - at once harsh and unforgiving, at other times soft and very beautiful. Stark colour contrasts abound - most particularly between the black lava soil and white snow. This phenomenon is a graphic extreme and can, at times, distort depth of vision and confuse evaluation of the true scale of the landscape. (To see a selection of research photographs click here) |
Resultant paintings played with the idea
of extremes and confusion. Some paintings as with Glacier Zebra utilize black and white paint in a free flowing application to produce a zig zag effect not unlike that observed in the landscape and within a glacier flow. In this painting three stratas can be discerned after a time. The top part of the painting representing the land, the middle the flow, the third the land again. However, all appear as if one and this is further endorsed by the method of making - a simultaneous manipulation of flowing black and white paint applied flat and then immediately tilted to and fro until the desired affect is achieved. Other paintings played with the idea of black and white within the order of application. For example taking a painting from a black ground and through many applications of translucent white layers, producing a rich, luminous whiteness - not unlike that of ice. Iceland I is an example. to see paintings from this series click here. |
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 Between Violence & Friendly Persuasion (detail), oil on canvas, Pip Dickens This series of paintings emerged as final works, whilst studying for the BA (Hons) Fine Art degree at Leeds Metropolitan University in 1996. Only two of the paintings exist - Between Violence and Friendly Persuasion and Whistleblowers & Scapegoats. The painting Reading Between the Lines is illustrated but, unfortunately, no longer exists. Notions of propaganda can be interpreted as positive- ie. aiming to spread information to new areas that previously may have been ignorant of a cause or culture. It can also be used to negative effect, for example, in spreading misinformation in order to manipulate a situation. Propaganda is a received perspective and in these paintings I was influenced by such commentators as Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and the novels of Albert Camus, in particular his novel La Peste (The Plague) in which a community is cut off from the rest of the world due to quarantine. Thus perspectives between the outer and inner communities becomes separated - alienated. The title 'Between Violence & Friendly Persuasion' is lifted from a series of essays by Albert Camus that appeared in Combat, the daily newspaper of the French Resistance, in November 1946. In it Camus warns of dangers ahead for the human race: |
....all I ask is that, in the midst of a
murderous world, we agree to reflect on murder
and to make a choice. After that, we can
distinguish those who accept the consequences
of being murderers themselves or the accomplices
of murderers, and those who refuse to do
so with all their force and being. Since
this terrible dividing line does actually
exist, it will be a gain if it be clearly
marked. Over the expanse of five continents
throughout the coming years an endless struggle
is going to be pursued between violence and
friendly persuasion, a struggle in which,
granted, the former has a thousand times
the chances of success than that of the latter.
But I have always held that, if he who bases
his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who
gives up in the face of circumstances is
a coward. And henceforth, the only honorable
course will be to stake everything on a formidable
gamble: that words are more powerful than
munitions. Albert Camus - Neither Victims nor Executioners, (1946)
These influences were interpreted in the
utilization of an ellipse motif which, in
short, represents the individual. The ellipse
shape could be interpreted as the lens of
an eye - how we see, or how we are seen.
As in the painting Between Violence and Friendly Persuasion the motifs appear to tumble and fall. Each
motif appearing at differing positions or
angles. The painting's overall impact is
the combination of many, many layers of semi
transparency thus some areas are dense and
seem to cover up any history; others make
transparent that history.Three of these paintings were selected for shortlist in the NatWest Art prize in 1997. to see paintings from this series click here. |
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 Bilateral transparency, oil on canvas, Pip Dickens These paintings were the result of experimentation with transparent mediums. The idea of transparency within a painting allows the viewer to see the complete history of the work, right back to the fabric of the canvas. Transparency also alludes to the 'political'. These paintings were made between 1998 to 2000 when the word 'transparency' had become a popular political buzzword in the UK. In this respect the paintings became an (albeit cynical) proposal about contradiction - that an image that was transparent (seemingly honest) could also be complex, disturbing and confusing. |
The resultant paintings Bilateral Transparency and Trilateral Transparency are examples. The compositional element
of these paintings is very strongly influenced
by classical music, in particular Bach's
preludes and fugues (The Well Tempered Clavier). The issue of counterpoint being fundamental,
in particular the repetition and interweaving
of various strands of sound. Bach's fugues
seem pure and simple and yet they are deceptively
complex structures. As a result, these paintings do appear visually transparent but are also blatantly 'transparent' in terms of the events of their making. They can be optically seductive and yet, at the same time, disturbing. They have no beginning, no end, no horizon and no particular area of focus. One could say they are a banal kind of Mannerism. The titles 'bilateral' and 'trilateral' were selected for their political flavour but also - again in a mundanely cynical way - are evidence of the painting's making:- 'bilateral' being the utilization of two hues and 'trilateral' of three. to see paintings from this series click here |
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 Heaven & Earth, oil on canvas, 85 cm x 85cm, , Pip Dickens “In the process of colouring (painting) the surface of the canvas (the picture plane) should receive the greatest possible richness in light-emanation-effect and, at the same time, it should retain the transparency of a jewel. The light and form should control illusory oscillation into space and out of space…The pictorially decorative effect is achieved through musical contrasts and rhythmic relations conditioned in space…for every medium contains its own rhythmic laws and thus its strict limitations through which it is distinguished as the specific way of expression that it is." Hans Hoffman on ‘The Aims Of Art’, 1932 The series of ‘Oriental’ paintings are partly influenced by motifs, shapes and forms from Chinese and Japanese culture. They are ‘extractions’ rather than direct ‘lifts’ of these elements. In so doing they are not comments on Oriental culture but arbitrary forms that develop and change through the application of a variety of painting mediums. They are observed details that have been amplified to produce a new ‘language’. |
One intention is to convey a sense of celebration
of the source material – kimonos, priests
robes, fans, kites and ceramics for example. The paintings develop this idea of celebration
in that they are playful, colourful, over-the-top
decoration. Thus the issue of a painting as a decorative
object is taken to its extreme – they are
all about decoration; they are foppish; they
are over-the-top. Their second intention, or gravitas, lies in the painting methodology- of exploring, devising and applying contrasting (and novel) ways of using paint and other mediums to produce the overall character of each painting. For example, the melding of flat, patterned, transparent, layers of coloured varnish with dense, textured paint forms. Formal divisions within the painting mark changes in tempo and acknowledge formal design issues that one might observe in decorative objects, for example the panels of a kimono. Roundels, fan shapes, blossom and wave shapes are examples of motifs.The fundamental laws of a medium having its own limitation (as expressed by Hans Hoffman) is played out in these works; of testing mediums and their application; pushing for new ways of creating illusion, contrast and light; of creating ‘jewel-like’ areas that reveal the value of a pure colour for what it is – a beautiful colour. to see paintings from this series click here |
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 Venus Freak, oil on canvas, Pip Dickens Formal aspects of Op Art - colour and movement - are given an uncomfortable 'nudge' in order to produce paintings that are not quite the perfect geometrical constructs demanded of the genre. These constructs are in the process of shifting, or re-arranging themselves. They teeter on the verge of a satisfactory final visual 'conclusion' or appear interrupted - frozen in motion - not quite at their optimum position. Elements are discordant which, in turn, suggests motion. I want the viewer to be compelled to have 'closure', to want, or try to, 'rectify' the image themselves. |
The paintings (oil) are made up of layers
of individual colour stripes. One layer is
placed over the other. As a result, each
layer negates, or enhances, the colour or
shapes that precede them. Even though there
is the possibility to predict what will happen
between each layer during the painting's
facture, in reality the slightest differentiation
of a line's articulation, or hue resulted
in a quite marked shift. In short, this is an exercise in negotiation: individual layers reacting harmoniously or discordantly with historical layers. The notion of prescribed, predetermined outcomes is negated in favor of exploiting a process that would reveal its own surprises dependent on what lay beneath it. The series of paintings is a comment about how contemporary perceptions can never quite divorce, or override, themselves from history. Elements of history may be overwritten but shifts in perception often bring them back to the surface at different times and in different ways. to see paintings from this series click here |
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 KING KONG, oil on canvas, Pip Dickens |
Based on memory, motifs and metaphors from
film and literature. This series of paintings and drawings initially developed from a response to books and films that utilise fabric, or apparel, as a key motif within the storyline. Apparel has been a device in folk tales and fiction down the centuries - characters use clothes to conceal, or create, alternative identities. This theme expanded into the dark realm of Film Noir and the dramatic Technicolor technology surrounding epic widescreen vistas - techniques that heighten drama and atmosphere. The 'letterbox' format is combined with disturbing, almost forensic, aspects of the 'close up' or film still. There is a dedicated page outlining themes of the fabrications project...which is an ongoing project... and also a page listing references from fictional and factual literature. |
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 To Mock the Invisible World with its own Shadows, oil on canvas, Pip Dickens The Chandelier series of paintings derive from initial research undertaken whilst in residence with Bradford Museums and Galleries. Paintings and sketches of chandeliers developed into allegorical works that depict chandeliers as ‘ships’ listing in a dark ocean – suggestive of outmoded orders/empires. Some chandeliers are depicted as if upturned atom bomb shapes, others are reminiscent of jelly fish. Immortal Medusa I and II depict chandeliers like jelly fish (upturned) – the Immortal Medusa is the only living thing known to man that can replicate its cells – and so is truly immortal. Some chandeliers allude to Englightenment/Science and Science Fiction – ie. Captain Nemo Mobilis in mobili referring to Jules Verne’s “20,000 leagues Under the Sea” – Captain Nemo was a cultured yet eccentric anti-hero who kept moving through the seas and disliked Land of any kind unless it was uninhabited. His vessel ‘The Nautilus’ contained a substantial gallery of art and other collections…an ostentatious and private underworld. To Mock the Invisible World with its Shadows is a painting that alludes to Shelley’s gothic novel ‘Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus’ – the novel discussed the ‘new’ science of electricity/galvanism and Dr Frankenstein is both drawn to, and unsure of, these new ideas. The title of this painting is a direct quotation from the novel. The painting shows a chandelier seemingly charged with electricity or lightning in contradiction to traditional candle power. It is symbolic of the radical change that electricity (and light) brought to society. This idea connects with the essay about the light bulb verusus the warm drama of the candle in Jun'ichiro Tanizaki’s book ‘In Praise of Shadows’. |
Atomic Playboy refers to the Cold War - and threat of atomic
bombs. Admiral Blandy, commader of Operation
Crossroads (undertook nuclear testing on
the island of bikini) he stated that he was
“not an atomic playboy” and was photographed
celebrating the end of the operation with
his wife and Admiral Lowry cutting an atomic
bomb styled cake, together with Blandy’s
wife sporting a similar confection as a hat.
Constellation Draco – This painting appears to be the study of a candlestick on its elaborate curved chandelier ‘arm’ smoking away with chandelier prisms glistening like tear drops – the painting could be ‘read’ as an astral constellation…named after the constellation ‘Draco’ because of the chandelier arm’s dragon like curves. It ould also be interpreted as a Victorian opium den with its green sulphure-like fumes…connections can be made with other works such as The Elephant Man and the poisonous greens in Madame Bovary and Mrs Danvers. A Single Thought – is a response to how man can, from his imagination, create astonishing new ideas and inventions – but whether they are morally, or ethically, sound is another matter. The image looks like a brain shaped cloud (or atom bomb) with a pink ribbon suspended almost like a nerve running down a spinal cord. The nerves in the brain appear not unlike electrical charges. Yet another painting with connotations associated with Dr Frankenstein.  Atomic Playboy, oil on canvas, Pip Dickens |
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 Harvest of the Bees, oil on paper, 2009, Pip Dickens |
New work influenced by a broad range of elements
from Japanese craft such as Kimonos and the
production of opulent textiles including
katagami stencils, auspicious motifs, ribbons
and stripes can be found on the following
pages. Further research is to be undertaken within Leverhulme Trust Award Artist in Residence at the University of Huddersfield and in Kyoto, Japan 2010-2011. Go to Work in Progress or Katagami |
| home all images copyright Pip Dickens This page updated on 22 August 2010 |