A poor neighbourhood

A poor neighbourhood, oil on card, 11.7 / 14 cm   SOLD

Painted behind the Havan store, Sao Jose.

As far as painting goes, these poorer areas are considerably more interesting than middle-class condo-land. There's a variety of buildings, in a range of colours, some of which seem to be ever in a state of construction and addition and people can be seen to be doing things, their lives not shut away behind doors.

There can still be found in Brazil considerable areas of cities taken up by the sort of repair shops, little restaurants, pubs, and stores that are the subject of some of Atget's photo series. In Brazil these are always at least slightly askew and brightly coloured. I think it would be fascinating for a child to grow up in such an environment. I feel dismay when I see emerge the new Brasil of identikit shopping malls and insipid ready made condominiums.

I feel nervous painting in such neighbourhoods though, sensing a close potential for disorder (I feel much the same about Brixton in London) - although the people who approached me were pleasant (much as they have been to me when painting in Brixton too) one kindly advising me that I had left my car lights on. Some of that nervousness is present in the picture, I think.

Working from the car, observing, painting seems voyeuristic and impolite but it is safer and more comfortable: if I'd known someone in the neighbourhood to introduce me it would have been better.

Nocturne- shop window

Nocturne- shop window, oil on card, 9.6 x 7.1 cm - discarded

Painted on Madre Benevenuta, part of both the nascent "shop windows" series and the "nocturnes". 


I often find myself unconsciously connecting with Atget's work- he did a whole run of shop window displays- realising after producing a picture that he was there before me: he was there at the start of the modern age ready to record urban architectural archetypes, and he had an eye for subtle strangnessess that makes him more than a documentarist.

Sapling on a riverbank; David Sylvian; tourist pictures; getting into my stride

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Sapling on a riverbank, oil on card, 7 x 9.4 cm  - available

 

 

 

The creek cuts through from bridge to bridge at the back of Itacorubi, and I've found a little path, much overgrown. I went along it, passing a couple of fishermen. 

It`s a great place to work- tranquil. I might think of myself there working as John Crome, great Norfolk painter of discreet places. A thread connects all the artwork I've done, regardless of style or medium: the revealing of secrets. Finding and depicting obscure or hidden parts of Florianopolis is a way of revealing secrets, showing an intimate and private relationship with a hidden or un-noticed place. 

This is a theme that connects many artists I love- photographers such as Atget and painters such as Utrillo or Morandi. I first became aware of my attraction to this theme through music, specifically songs by John Foxx, or David Sylvian: 

  Once again I'm hiding in backwaters Running this way and that Trying so very hard to please (beware of hidden snares) Rushing to bite the hand that feeds me Running this way and that (there are always other possibilities) This way and that 

Backwaters, David Sylvian, 1984 

 Given the themes of secretness, hidden-ness and exploration so animate my work, I wonder if the idea of making the London Tourist paintings, and, in November, the Italian and Maltese ones is such a good idea? 

Such pictures of monuments and given views are surely against my every instinct. But perhaps it is good to oppose ones known instincts from time to time. 

 

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Above are some pieces of card being prepared for paintings. I'm very happy with this small format, which suits my working speed and also keys nicely into the idea of "revealing secrets", as outlined above. It took me a couple of years, however, of fairly steady work to get into my stride- to locate myself in the aesthetic- the first little pictures were generally underworked and to my eyes now, sloppily crafted, sometimes painted on badly primed supports. 

As I have worked steadily, I've managed to develop critical axioms, and raise the general level of my work. I'd say of every five pictures (a usual week), one is an outright failure, two are mediocre, and two good. Usually in twenty there is one which I love.

 But I have good patches and bad: now is a good one, though I scarely dare admit that for fear of jinxing it. 

 

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Yard

A choice between two images. The former (black and white) is too relentless, as if a specific interpretation of the scene -that it is a depressing place- is the necessary response to it.

I'm happier with the coloured one. Such places are not classically beautiful (classicism = the beauty of order) but they aren't without aesthetic interest or curiosity. I guess they show the private lives of cities. I did not enter the yard and explore it because I saw a policeman there and I didn't want to have to explain myself (actually, the police here are rather laid back and pleasant -at least, in my experience- but nonetheless...).

And I suppose such photos are part of a tradition through Bernd and Hilla Becher and Stephen Shore, to Sickert to Eugene Atget, going back to the Dutch painters of the 17th century. They remain incredibly unpopular with viewers, however, receiving very few "hits".

Two points about the photo:

1. To the right of the white police car is a flatbed truck. Behind the truck is a grey building. This is connected to the fawn building by means of a funny little sloping corridor.

2.If the tree beside the telegraph post is not cut soon, the telegraph post will fall.

3. The picture was taken on a Sunday, which probably explains its peacefulness.