Christine Stark

My concerns are with colour and the materiality of paint which means that the paintings evolve out of the physical process of this coloured ‘stuff’. How the paint lands on the surface dictates which direction the painting will go in. I will get very lost along the way, taking journeys that I hadn’t imagined. Some disappointing and exasperating, others exciting.

It’s important to identify what’s good and to try to save it. The final conclusion is often far from the original intention, which is only ever a starting point. What I search for is something that I can recognise but also be surprised by. The forms are not so important in themselves; it is about how they relate to one another and where they are placed. Unnecessary detail is removed to increase the formal impact

The paintings are not ‘finished’; rather they slowly come to a stop as they start to sing, which for the large canvases, can take weeks or months. What is left behind is a residue of encounters and choices, abandoned intentions and, of course, surprises. I hope for the end result to be alive and dancing for the viewer, to varying degrees.

The two works exhibited in POV ON PAPER are made on pieces of cardboard from the studio, which were used as tools to drag paint on to other paintings. They were also used for standing on tins of household paint to close their lids. I was struck by the marks that had been left behind. As is often the case, you can be struggling away with a particular piece of work, and there on the other side of the studio is another painting in the making, with a path that has already been marked out. However, nothing is definitive, there is always change.

Christine Stark, April 2020