PARALLEL (cont)

The paintings bring together two different languages - vague, ghostlike texts and the geometry of vertical lines. The texts are taken from various sources - for example, photographs of DMZ signs from the end of World War Two and during the Korean War, a photograph I came across by chance by Henri Cartier-Bresson of a memorial somewhere in the United States which carries the words GOD BLESS AMERICA, Bob Dylan's album cover THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN from 1964, the poster slogan created by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1972, WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT, and, above all, Film Noir titles from the 1940s and 1950s. I love to watch these old movies, but here what interests me is the evocative nature of the titles and the stylish typography used in the title sequence at the beginning of a movie. Here are some that appear in my paintings: I WAKE UP SCREAMING, DARK PASSAGE, MINISTRY OF FEAR, HUMAN DESIRE, ACT OF VIOLENCE.

I put the original film still of the title through a digital process that erodes the clarity of the original image, rendering it more indistinct, then I paint the result quickly in monochrome so that it is even less clearly legible. On top of this, I paint straight-edged vertical parallel lines in different colours. These colours are chosen intuitively, and seem to relate to the colours of the landscape, but may also be symbolic. The parallel lines restore the two-dimensionality of the surface plane which the areas of text has dissolved.

They also bring to the paintings a level of detachment, of emotionless contemplation focused on the here-and-now, and is a conscious reference to the style of modernist geometric abstraction. This style is in stark contrast to that of the texts, which are all about unsettling memories, imagination, dreams and nightmares. The fact that the lines are parallel also alludes to the fact that I live near the 38 Parallel, which was first used to divide the two Koreas in 1945, and still more or less defines the position of the DMZ.

In my practice in general there is a convergence between visual art - especially painting - and books and other kinds of discursive, historical sources. These usually relate to aspects of twentieth century history, and are also often specifically chosen to resonate with the location of the exhibition. I'm interested in making an encounter with my work involve seeing and reading. In the texts I use, I usually work in one colour, or in very close hues and tones, so that the effect is quite different from that of normal writing, where the convention is strong contrast between the letters and the surface in order to make the text easy to read. My writing, by contrast, seems to be absorbed into the ground, or to emerge from it.

Simon Morley
Munsan, August 2018.

 

 

 

<< BACK