Gary John Power

Artist statement

The work employs a combination of drawing, painting, and collage. The marks are initially produced quite freely as drawings with a loose and semi organised structure of marks and lines. These are then systematically cut and rearranged as horizontal strips to create an unpredicted symmetrical and asymmetrical organised grid or fragmented pattern, interspersed and interrupted by more disorderly and disjunctive elements. This method of production is used to create a process where a system of order, can be deliberately interspersed and balanced with opportunities for chance, serendipity, reflexivity and subjectivity. This construction of the drawings is neither deliberately revealed or hidden, but emphasises the materiality and haptic quality of the surface while avoiding the loss of illusionistic pictorial space. This matrix is sometimes overlaid with other geometries, by inlaying one drawing within another to create a more ambiguous spatial illusion suggesting depth. In some of the works a form may appear to be a screen obscuring the space beyond, or floating on an ambiguous plane suggesting a partial and furtive view or an evanescent threshold to another space. The serial composition of repeated marks, are never exactly replicating each other, yet there is a sense of repetition within variation. This rhythm creates a kind of notation or calligraphy that can be read as a kind of gestural visual script registering duration, movement, interdependence between things; change and mutability or the shifting patterns of light and shade. Colour supports and modulates these intentions and may be used to express a sense of place, atmosphere, experience, or denote sound.

 If you would like to see or purchase other works, or find out more about Gary’s work, you can visit the studio and gallery at Cumbria Contemporary Art, Sockbridge Mill, Sockbridge, Penrith, (by appointment) and/or visit the website debbygary.co.uk.