My recent untitled painting all started with this rug.
The luminosity of this magenta rug reminds me of the saturated colours of my India. It is important to say I have a weird relationship with India. At times it feels like home, and I draw inspiration, usually colours from there, but other times, I feel so alien to it. It was as though the way I was brought up in India, was to be present in a Western land.
I am pretty sure this is a Morrocan rug, I have a 'rug' page in my Pinterest account, where I collate images of rugs (not specifically related to practice but yet here we are)
The luminosity of the magenta, the velvety shades have me weak in the knees!
I also really love the idea that my work is like a tapestry. I am very fond of narrative and storytelling. the elongated scale fo the canvas reminded me of a carpet or a tapestry in that sense; weaving in my story, drawing events of the past and present in a compost-like understanding.
Another inspiration was the diamond shapes or criss-cross patterns running through the rug, a shape that I have been noticing everywhere in my vernacular life.
The mesh, in the Timothy Morton sense, is a non-hierarchical interconnected web structure. It draws similar conclusions to co-existent realities of all entities that live on the earth, human and non-human.
In a literal sense, this mesh structure is something I have noticed from time to time in the city, suburbia and at home.
I find the structure itself fascinating and while it may be cut off by its edges, it only seems to reappear in another structure, in another space. It is captured traditional and contemporary patterns and thus surpasses time.
I have been referencing this structure; it's like referencing deep time.
Working directly from this mesh pattern on my curtain mesh, I incorporated fragments of shapes, and structures into my painting.
On the left image above is an example of the mesh pattern being incorporated into the painting.
Parts of figurations in my work are recognisable, others melted into the background, others in seamless corporation with the background. Like a compost, these figurations break down in their own time, some faster than others.
While talking with Jeena recently, I told her that I was working with my immediate enviroment. The cherry tree outside my window has captured me. It's autumn as you can see and the leaves have turned a beautiful orange-brown. During the golden hour, these leaves look like tongues of flame. Its a season of change.
Hence there is not only a layering of objects but subjective time woven into the painting; the present time is locked as past in the field of the canvas.
I also incorporated a past experience of my friends and myself at a local beach.
Hence one could draw that elements of compost include time- because past and present are composted within the field and well as the materiality of the figurations, some disintegrating, others more unripe and unready to blend into the background.
Revisiting this painting over the course of 3 weeks, or so, has been really interesting. In light of the idea that time is a hearty element within a compost. Similarly, when using the 'compost' as a methodology in my painting practice, I have been slowing down the process, taking time to observe, to collaborate with the pigment and I am trying to make instinctive decisions but at the same time, interact with the paint. By this I mean, I don't want to force a gesture, but with careful observation painting feelings like a facilitatory-like practice rather than working autonomously onto the canvas.
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