This was the first completed painting utilising this ‘process’. Essentially though it is more than just an extension of what I had been drawing for a number of years. This was a very fluid medium so that extreme care was taken in following the planned line drawing that exists underneath. The greatest danger inherent here was remaining a ‘slave’ to the essential basic drawing but still wanting to retain a spontaneity with a painted image that would not look rushed or incoherent.
In trying to retain a valid consistency it is especially interesting to look back at the original drawings. The use of the spiral is usually in an anti clockwise direction. Many people over the years have quizzed me on this point. I often reply…’go to the northern hemisphere of the Earth and look at the direction the water flows when you pull the plug out of the bath!’…But it is more than this. I liken it to a weather system moving across the surface of the painting. There is a definite direction established here of ‘left to right’ – or if you like from west to east’. As well as this each of the spirals ‘carries’ (as with spirally ascending DNA strands) with it a blue print of ..things to come!
In this sense each of the spirals seeds the subject of the composition that is to come. The busy and robust activity of what is being created below the ‘surface’ in this painting is the precursor to ‘Fatality’ as at this stage there are NO ‘funnel chains’ ‘sucking machines’ or other machines or contrivances…. perhaps just the creation of a view of the ‘crust’ that has been created and left pure as nature intended it to be so.
In that sense it is reasonably easy to see why I called this ..’In the beginning’… and why it remains untouched and undisturbed by the interference of man and HIS/HER (From this time forward gender NON-specific) rape and pillage of the earth/womb’s crust with abominable machines and destructive acts.
In retrospect the fluid action of the medium gives an added fluidity to the composition. The separation sequence combined with the eruption of a new life form in this composition leaves both ‘ends’ with a certain amount of tension that is seen more clearly in ‘The Exchange’.
