Spring is here! And I have been busy making new works for an upcoming exhibit called Warwickshire Open Studios. It’s based on my hometown here at Coventry where artists open up their studios for some ‘art fix’ for everyone. This is my first time joining, so I am anticipating it with equal measures of positive excitement and trepidation. Any art show is a bearing of the soul, and the bigger it gets, the more anxiety-provoking it is.
But, I have channeled all my misgivings into a positive ball of energy. I have decided to experiment with my watercolours and various ‘papers’ to come up with what I can only call “paper ballet”. I have been manipulating paper for so many years now. This time I wanted things to be more unplanned and spontaneous. I am surprised how such a looser approach creates moments of little, lovely accidents.
So this picture is one of my efforts. I am calling it ‘New Directions’ as it is a marker, in a way, of a new preoccupation in my practice – best summed up as paper manipulations mixed with mark making. I kinda like the messiness and the chaos.
What seems to be emerging is an intermingling of brushwork and superimposed paper patterns. I just tried to fill the space with what I felt would be harmonious shapes, each occupying space (but not in a competitive way). There are more experiments to follow.
The Art of Jeff Ting 