'Kiss Me Deadly'
Gallery Baton, Seoul, March 11 - April 11, 2015
The title for this exhibition comes from a Film Noir from the
fifties, based on a Mickey Spillaine novel. My new series brings film,
literature and monochrome painting into uneasy
contact. The
initial visual experience is of an undifferentiated field of
colour. Gradually, images and words emerge from the chromatic envelope.
The images derive from stills sourced from my favourite movies, and the
words come from the indexes or contents pages of my collection of
books. There is no obvious connection between the words and the images,
nor between these and the colours, though it is natural to seek such
connections. I have chosen staged and artificial images,
fragments of fictional narratives. These narratives in one way or
another concern the subject of ‘love’. The film images, from
a
variety of sources, show couples kissing. They are reduced to a simple
contrast of tone outline, and the eye organizes what is an
initially random-seeming jumble of splotches into patterns, linking
only a subset together in order that an image can emerge from its
camouflage in the background. The texts evoke an intellectual world
characterised by detached reflection, and the quest
for
meaning and value. They are painted in relief, so they cast shadows and
respond to the sense of touch, and are tangible and real. The
colours of my works are sensual but subdued. Perhaps they care nothing
for the images and texts they support.
