These are some notes that I made when I was looking at 'Supercell' in the Edel Assanti Gallery on 27th October:
The painting is very large (150x200cm) and occupies the whole of the end wall of the gallery. The painting's background is stock market listings overprinted with digital images, but these are collaged in small rectangles from 3x4cm to 15x15cm in size. Some rectangles match with the surrounding ones but sometimes there is a discontinuity.
The colour is then built up with lumps and strings of multicoloured paint, in some places standing up to 6cm away from the surface. The streamers from the cowboy's saddle actually become separate from the canvas as if the paint strips had been created separately and then stuck on. There are many different textures in the paint, from broad smears to small spiky dabs that mimic the bull's hair. Other pieces of paint look like coil ribbons. The paint is sculptural.
The sky is separately collaged and then spray painted. The round suns look like separate disks that have been added. There is a horizon with what could be a sun setting over a lake but the mountains appearing above the layer of cloud turn it into something more tangible like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion with fire beneath it. The bull is walking on water, making ripples but not sinking.
Stepping back, the painting as a whole has a nightmarish, hallucinogenic quality - lost in an acid world. Ruins on the right and left of the image give the impression of a post apocalyptic world. The cloud layer definitely takes the form of a nuclear explosion. The cowboy's hand reaches out towards the viewer - in a plea?
The painting is very large (150x200cm) and occupies the whole of the end wall of the gallery. The painting's background is stock market listings overprinted with digital images, but these are collaged in small rectangles from 3x4cm to 15x15cm in size. Some rectangles match with the surrounding ones but sometimes there is a discontinuity.
The colour is then built up with lumps and strings of multicoloured paint, in some places standing up to 6cm away from the surface. The streamers from the cowboy's saddle actually become separate from the canvas as if the paint strips had been created separately and then stuck on. There are many different textures in the paint, from broad smears to small spiky dabs that mimic the bull's hair. Other pieces of paint look like coil ribbons. The paint is sculptural.
The sky is separately collaged and then spray painted. The round suns look like separate disks that have been added. There is a horizon with what could be a sun setting over a lake but the mountains appearing above the layer of cloud turn it into something more tangible like the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion with fire beneath it. The bull is walking on water, making ripples but not sinking.
Stepping back, the painting as a whole has a nightmarish, hallucinogenic quality - lost in an acid world. Ruins on the right and left of the image give the impression of a post apocalyptic world. The cloud layer definitely takes the form of a nuclear explosion. The cowboy's hand reaches out towards the viewer - in a plea?
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