'Memories From the Present' #15: 'Fading And Decay', 2024

• A strange thing to paint that's lit in the early stages of post-sunset twilight. This advertising hoarding stood like this for a big part of the past few years. The bright teal blue, 20th century modern look-a-like sofa, part of the French Connection collection for DFS, is faded and worn. Heavily weathered and peeled paper layers reveal previous advertising images peeking through from underneath. The rips, tears and peels are ragged, suggesting quite a long passing of time. I can't help but feel this is a symbol of something, an era of time, perhaps, having passed.

• I was in a conversation over on Facebook about this painting, at an earlier stage of this work, and we were talking about photorealism. I'm posting my response here as it feels somewhat pertinent:

"Re: photorealism there's a few points.

One is perceptual. Painting is just coloured mud on canvas when seen up close every painting falls apart but that several blobs of paint can become a door, window whatever and when seen at a distance the shift from material to illusion is fascinating. My painting has been described as surprisingly painterly which leads into human experience of creation... The way I paint is a slow process, for some this way of painting can become a meditation. For me it's a way to create meaning/ connection. Sometimes a connection can form which can become intensely personal. Three traffic lights can become symbolic for a relationship but that was only found in the slow act of painting and the deconstruction involved in making the painting and the long time of sitting with the work."

"There's also a conceptual one which sits in opposition to what I've said above. Photorealism is also seen as a dead end. A sign someone's stuck, alienated. Existentially dead. I'd say a perfect metaphor for the age we're in and a perfect reflection of how I feel with respect to this age. I don't have any answers all I can do is witness and process and paint and try and make sense of what I'm looking at."

"That may give a bit of insight as to why I do what I do. Utterly subjective but it's where I've got to."

• I'm hugely reminded of a drawing project going way back to my foundation college course at Palatine Rd, Blackpool way too many years ago now to give a date to 😳 We were asked how do you render a photograph to make it look like it is a rendering of a photograph? Not an illusionistic hyperealistic impression of something that exists, being referenced by a photograph, but a drawing of an object that is itself the photograph. I loved that time and the mental gymnastics we were posed with *happy sigh*.