COG16City of Glass 16 - (Private Eye)  210x100cms

FRIDAY 24 JAN 2014

 It's exciting when everything comes together, when a solution is found from within the painting and from outside. I have in front of me something that surprises, something I cannot yet fully explain or understand but which feels right and complete. I sat in my chair, looking at the painting, thinking of tinkering with the concentric circles at the top but worried that by strengthening them, making them more like the image of an eye, i would draw attention away from the intersection of the canvases. All sorts of thoughts appeared simultaneously: I thought of cross-hairs and targets and how, in the nove, there is a strong possibility that Quinn is a target, a set-up, a victim in a fiendish experiment, that ends in the apartment on E69th St. I thought of Giorgia O'Keefe's fantastic 'New York St with Moon' (below) that I found doing research for the recent 'Circle' workshop in Canterbury. And so the final act in the painting was to draw large concentric circles centered on the main axis, with brush, nail and string, representing both the eye and a target, creating focus and strangeness, and although faint, the perfection of the circle, pushes the map-shape of Manhattan, already fragmented, further into the background. And, of course, there is the visual link with Columbus Circle and the circles at the top. I am going to continue with this idea of 'building' tower-shaped paintings, a tower that is there but not there. In this piece the tower can be considered un-solid, transparent, made of Glass.....

 

COG16 5

 

 New York Street with Moon Georgia OKeefe 1925Giorgia O'Keefe

Nearly there - one more session I think. Bad day Yesterday, trying too hard after getting the rejection email from the John Moores. The colours are starting to work on the right, with some new purple-greys and more intense greens and the switch from red to pink. Love the reverse 'Z' towards the top. The top panel felt separate - now it's connected by the extension of the central vertical of Park Ave, ending with the concentric circles, which suggest the eye and repeat the motif of Columbus Circle. Maybe the eye is too subtle - it was more powerful and graphic earlier, more of an image of the all-seeing eye....I'll redraw tomorrow and make a decision on it's strength within the painting.

The novel is Quinn's story, the writer of detective fiction who becomes a detective. At the beginning of the story, Quinn muses on the triple meanings of the term 'Private Eye: 'I' for investigator, 'I' for the self , and 'eye' for the 'physical eye of the writer, who looks out from himself into the world and demands that the world reveals itself to him'. The intersection of the main axis is the location of the Stillman apartment on Park Ave and E69th St, where Quinn's life/role as a private eye begins and ends....

In a homage to Quinn, the painting is now called 'Private Eye'

 

COG16 4 Copy

 

COG16 2 Copy

 

Early days for the new City of Glass painting - '1 brick=1 block'- but now going through the gears with longer sessions in the studio. Still trying to establish the scale of Manhattan and position of Central Park. The only certainty is the central axis of 69th St and Park Ave, the location of the Stillman apartment, withe the vertical divide leading the eye to Grand Central Station. As it is, the painting is too fragmented, everything needs to be simplified, including the colour-scheme. The grid pattern of the streets will be extended over the entire canvas forming the bricks of the tower-shape.

Music has been been driving the painting: Neil Young's 'After the Goldrush' and 'Sleeps with Angels' with the epic, rambling 'Change Your Mind' and 'Closer' by Joy Division. 'You can't replace the fear and thrill of the chase...'  Sums up painting really

 

'The New York Trilogy' by Paul Auster