HEADS
Paintings by VIC BATEMAN
PAUL McPHERSON GALLERY
77, LASSELL STREET
GREENWICH SE10 9PJ
20th. APRIL - 3rd. MAY
PRIVATE VIEW - THURS. 23rd. APRIL 6-30 - 9.00
Mon. - Fri. 11.00 - 6.00
Friday 27 March 2009
Friday 20 March 2009
Heads
I have an exhibition at Paul McPherson Gallery, Lassell Street Greenwich SE10 from 20th. April - 3rd. May. I will be showing a series of small paintings on canvas called 'Heads'. These paintings all feature pixillated heads, some recognisable some sbstracted into fields of colour. They were made by responding to various images from the media, some directly from life.
I have always been interested in pixilation as a means of disguising the identity of people as used in the media. I often make paintings using squares of colour to allow the imagery to create itself, I adhere to a process, making decisions only relating from one square to the next. I cover the whole surface in this way and the painting appears at the end. This method frees me from imagery. The painting is an object. The pictorial plane offers the eye illusory space and conjures up it's own imagery within the work.
Using heads is a departure from this method in that I look at an image while I am making the work. I am not trying to depict the head, just be aware of it. Heads and faces are the parts of the body we as humans use most to identify each other and portraiture is one of the oldest traditions in painting. Photography has become increasingly important to portaiture over the last 150 years and my process of working these paintings relates to digital imagery. As a printer prints digital images, I paint these digital paintings, but where the printer simply copies information, I allow each square to have its own life, making the image dance or spread or bleed over the surface; they will, however, always be heads, they have eyes, there is always a mouth and nose, and even the oval shape will always say "head"
I have always been interested in pixilation as a means of disguising the identity of people as used in the media. I often make paintings using squares of colour to allow the imagery to create itself, I adhere to a process, making decisions only relating from one square to the next. I cover the whole surface in this way and the painting appears at the end. This method frees me from imagery. The painting is an object. The pictorial plane offers the eye illusory space and conjures up it's own imagery within the work.
Using heads is a departure from this method in that I look at an image while I am making the work. I am not trying to depict the head, just be aware of it. Heads and faces are the parts of the body we as humans use most to identify each other and portraiture is one of the oldest traditions in painting. Photography has become increasingly important to portaiture over the last 150 years and my process of working these paintings relates to digital imagery. As a printer prints digital images, I paint these digital paintings, but where the printer simply copies information, I allow each square to have its own life, making the image dance or spread or bleed over the surface; they will, however, always be heads, they have eyes, there is always a mouth and nose, and even the oval shape will always say "head"
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