martinrchurch.com MARTIN R CHURCH SKETCHES FROM THE METROPOLITAN LINE AND OTHER THINGS Exhibition at the Islington Arts Factory April - May 2018 http://www.islingtonartsfactory.org/ In every situation there is an emotional charge and one begins. There are the things that we see, and the things that we feel, and both are equally important in the process of recording and processing the information and exercising the emotional charge. The work is based on traditional, observational, figurative sketching and drawing. The practice is to look at the object and make marks. Until the ink is sprayed onto the paper, the work is not manifest and cannot be assessed, but once printed, it's real and can be reflected upon and decisions made about that particular effort of mark making. In 2015 I began using a smart phone with sketching apps to record my commute across London. The train journey from Clapton to Liverpool Street station takes about ten minutes which is enough time to make a quick sketch. The following tube journey from Liverpool Street to Harrow takes about thirty-five minutes which allows more time for information to appear. The early sketches tend to be fairly abstract landscapes looking down the carriages and were always completed in one sitting. The later sketches sometimes take several journeys to reach a conclusion. Trying to create an image of any worth is not like putting up a shelf; it cannot be made to order. Concentration and will power don't seem to be part of the process. The practice is to look at the object and to make marks and to keep making marks. Sometimes images start to appear and sometimes they don't but they come into existence by themselves. One can easily become seduced by the details but that's not the point because the details don't really count in the end. The work was triggered and inspired by an exhibition at the Annely Juda galleries in London by Leon Kossoff in 2013 called 'London Landscapes'. This exhibition contained many charcoal studies for oil paintings. In particular there was a series of very scribbly drawings called 'Train by Night' which I found extremely beautiful and moving. Although initially they appear very dark, as you get closer, one begins to recognise the space, air movement and indeed light in them. They seem to evoke a beautiful inertia and there is something uniquely moving about the spirit in this work. They make you feel the speed and the rush and the light and the darkness all at once. There is no pretence about this work whatsoever. They are images of expressions of human life and so in the end are not really about a train at night in the literal sense. One thing therefore leads to another. The practice is to make the marks and the images which seem acceptable are printed and reviewed. If you make a hundred sketches, out of these there will be stronger and weaker images and the work will develop and change. The process is not about making the image perfect or in proportion or anatomically correct or like what you see. The intellect is not part of the equation. It's about a feeling, a vibration. It's about a piece of work evoking a feeling; an emotional response. The exhibition displays the printed images in chronological order from 10.16am, 18th January 2016 to 8.57am, 19th January 2018. |