I started to look at a number of works I created at various times to see if I could discern a pattern, starting with my most recent work.  It’s difficult to understand the creative process, but maybe just describing it may help.

My latest paintings have been a series of ever increasing blow ups of a study I made.

The study was in turn one of a series of works I made as part of a project depicting the bombing and subsequent destruction of cities and towns in the Middle East arising from the conflicts in Syria and the Yemen.

I chose this original picture from many posted on the internet because it dramatically portrayed the scale of the destruction and resilience of the population in the face of it, which was the theme of my project.  I guess this was also the motivation behind the photograph itself, although there may have been other deeper factors such as commercialism or propaganda.

The idea for the blow up came just by noticing an interesting structure of some of the damaged buildings in the corner of the picture. (If the term ‘blow up’ and its relation to the subject of study it was based on had any influence initially it was on a subconscious level, although the connection did become clear to me later.)

The structure vaguely resembled two heads, which probably helped me to notice it.  The ability of our minds to see fairly abstract shapes and interpret them as something else is primeval, particularly where they relate to humans and animals.

 

I cropped and blew up this portion of the image in Photoshop, changed the aspect ratio to a square format, and so produced the image template.  I then initially painted a study of this freehand predominantly in black and white using charcoal and oil paint.  I then redid the image using projection on to canvas.  Although originally in black and white I added subdued colours.  I made slight amendments to the images to subtly accentuate the likeness of the two abstract forms to suggest representations of heads.

The interest in the image is because we can relate to the shapes, even if we do not immediately recognise them as heads (which they aren’t anyway). Our need to see sense and structure in abstract forms gives the image meaning, and the ambiguity of abstraction versus representation makes it a puzzle to be deciphered.