I chose to work from ‘Elephant’ by David Jones. I was drawn to the soft pinks and fluid dark outlines that highlighted the elephant, although it offered some questions debating conservation or animals in captivity, it seemed relatively open. My knowledge of David Jones was limited so it seemed at first to offer a clean slate.

On visiting the National Museum of Wales I meandered around the many familiar images that once fed my curiosity towards painting. As an art student in Cardiff I often used the museum like some old boys club. Somewhere I could pretend to be some kind of pseudo connoisseur away from the then prevalent debate “is painting dead?”

Since then I’ve moved away from this masochistic loyalty towards painting.  As a child I never managed to follow one football team instead I’d always back the favourite to win. However saying this the stuff of paint has maintained within my practice, no longer about loyalty more about an open discourse with art, although still relying on my hands own sense of memory. I now find my relationship to painting far more diplomatic.

 

I had visited the museum many times as a young man, I found this recent visit had no guttural response to any of the surrounding works. Unable to hone in on any particular image instead I felt like a tourist been guided around some ambiguous classical ruin. I aimed to focus on a piece by Rene Magritte due to my recent toying with Surrealism, however the piece seemed unwilling to partake in a dialogue, feeling brushed off I moved away from this non satisfying encounter. Instead I was welcomed with open arms by an elephant, finding myself cooing at it like a child with a kitten. The piece seemed more than willing to engage in a conversation, its delicate surface seemed far less abrupt to that of the Magritte. Instead this small object leaning against the wall was asking me questions like “why are you so heavy on the paint? Ease off, be more like me” Unlike my own work the application to the surface of this piece was relatively thin, not caked and lumpy like my own handling. It invigorated a need to change my own approach to the canvas. With this in mind on returning to my studio I went about emulating ‘Elephant’ by David Jones but this quickly became unsatisfying, finding my hand having its own mind the surface became caked once again.

 

I found myself staring at the mark which made up the mouth in Jones’ elephant, watching it move but unable to hear anything I found this new found friendship was running its course. Realizing we had little in common and resentful of the things we did have in common the piece was now picking apart my own practice, pinning me down like a judo black belt. This kitten had transformed into something far more feral. Desperately I started looking elsewhere for guidance; googling stills from Alejandro Jodorowsky films to indulging in a bit of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Still the elephant kept coming back like an uninvited guest at a party. I thought maybe it had been confined in David Jones’ zoo enclosure for too long so I tried to set it free by depicting the creature in its natural habitat, however this came to no resolve. The harder I tried to get away from the animal the more he appeared, an arm turned into a trunk, a tavern turned into its enclosure and so on. I questioned why I was drawn to the piece in the first place, was it because this exotic beast filled a subconscious need to obtain the other? Was this due to my own state of unsettled displacement?

 

Once I gave in and allowed the animal to come and go as it wished the process became far more rewarding. I learnt to give the elephant some distance, I would simply offer it some food in the garden and watch it from the kitchen at a safe distance. I learnt quickly that a aggressive response to my practice was not plausible, although I envied Jones’ economy I had to allow a more familiar application of paint to take shape. I maintained an investigation into his line/mark making through my own pieces but tried to allow my own more familiar handling of paint to co-exist or develop through this strange new friendship.