For as long as I can remember I have been captivated and awestruck by natures resilience and ability to survive and thrive even in the face of greatest adversity.
I find solace in coming across these occasions of juxtaposition, we’re the natural meets, disrupts and with enough time even engulfs the man made or artificial. I find these occurrences of particular interest when the vibrancy of street art or graffiti are present which is fairly prevalent with urban situations. In some way I see definite similarities between the two quite paradoxically opposed entities as both the natural growth of plants and weeds and the vibrant street art seem to be acts of defiance to the conformity and mundanity of urban and industrial landscapes in some way.
At some point I began documenting these occurrences, either by taken photographic documentation, making drawings or even just taking in conscious recognition. This coupled with my recent foray and interest into the possibilities of paint and painting as a practice, sparked an idea that I feel compelled to pursue.
Since the painting material project with James in the first term had sparked my interest in the subject of painting, I have made an effort to regularly explore the potential application and possibilities of painting and have ensured that I’ve used the medium, even if only as a precursor to all of my projects since. The last material project ‘an introduction to performance’ with Davida was no exception and although the two practices do not always coincide with one another, I decided to construct a series of paintings that explored the same ideas and conceptual narratives as the material explored within my performances which were tribal traditions, symbolism, contemporary means of communication and psychedelia. This then led me to some interesting outcomes that took me beyond my usual painterly repertoire and had me amalgamating cross disciplinary practices such as film, performance, sculpture and painting in an attempt to create unexpected outcomes that pushed my usual artistic boundaries.
As we were now asked to now construct work as a self directed project I decided to use the aforementioned ideas as a starting point with the intention of creating a small series of painterly sculptural hybrids that would amalgamate my affinity for nature, addiction to adopting reduced and sad looking plants and love for recycling and reusing unwanted materials with my new found interest in painting and particularly spray painting and it’s applications within a fine art context.
JAMIE WALTON 