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This was made towards the end of the line of works for a show in the Temple Bar Studios gallery. Actually it was completed after the exhibition and for me became something of a closing statement for the period. Maybe for that reason I took the unusual decision of photographing it. In those days I just didn´t photograph things - one, because I didn´t have a camera and anyway it seemed all so messy (and expensive) having slides processed - and two, because generally I was just too concerned with wanting to move onto the next thing.

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The square format of some of the found wooden panels I find generally unsettling, was usually a challenge. When employing the square I have the impression of it somehow focusing inward, not being expansive, and additionally calling for a simplified language with symmetry playing a dominant role. The end result I think is that a suitably interesting resolution is often difficult to achieve.
I also decided to turn up the volume in terms of colour with these smaller works. I was interested in them as exercises and remember spending many weeks quietly in that old hospital paintedly (I know that´s not really a word) scratching away on those boards.

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One piece of advice I was told in artschool was to avoid black. Instead of utilizing Lamp Black or Ivory Black straight from the tube, better to mix up a black by combining other colours together such as Prussian Blue, Burnt Umber, Alizarin Crimson etc. The reason for this I was told that real black punches a hole in the canvas, but by mixing your own allows one to create a black with a warmth that will sit well with other colours.
An artist friend once told me that the sign of a true painter is one who can use, in their pure forms, black and white. She cited Manet as the supreme example of who could paint with black and make it sing on the canvas, and Chagall as the master of white.
Not sure why I´m saying this, maybe it´s because of the picture title. Anyway, you can bet I ended up taking the art professor´s counsel.