Faucet Repair

17 April 2025

1957 Brooklyn Dodgers:

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15 April 2025

There's an interview BOMB Magazine did with Sedrick Chisom in May of 2024 where he talks about how, for him, “there has to be a site of disaster in the work” when making a painting that steers it away from the directionless world of endless hypothetical outcomes. That has been on my mind a lot this week as I've worked through a couple new ideas. The first came from seeing a solar flare on a walk to the studio—I painted a version of what it lingered as in my memory and it ended up solidifying a bit in paint, its rainbow rings taking on a kind of chainlink feeling. But it was completely lifeless on the canvas, floating there with no apparent context or reason to exist, so I took it off the wall to put aside. But as I did, I noticed that it felt a little like a figure lying supine when it was oriented horizontally instead of vertically. That presented a more interesting mix of instincts to unpack. It's a bit of a contradiction to try to remain open to wherever the painting wants to go while seeking concrete problems to solve, especially because you can't manufacture those problems intentionally. Or, you can, but then something disingenuous could lodge itself in the paint.

Anyway, that painting has enjoyed a fruitfully frustrating journey. But I've had another one going at the same time of a blanket in grass (based on visiting Hampstead Heath with Yena last week) that has not yet revealed a good disaster. The whole thing has appeared in decadent brushstrokes over well-planned early layers and has settled neatly into the confines of the canvas, which is to say it has no angle. I have given it a couple days to sit though, so we'll see how it feels when I go back in tomorrow.

If you're reading this, listen to Walt McClements's new album On a Painted Ocean.

13 April 2025

I think I'm going to spend a while making paintings of the things I see on the ground while walking around. I'm usually averse to that kind of declaration, but I re-titled the aforementioned Uvula by calling it Bag, and something about that choice clicked. I have a few paintings in this vein on the go right now, and I am enjoying the process of using humble, discarded objects as starting points for paintings that aren't beholden to observation but still maintain a place-specific character—it feels good to let paint expand these objects until their realities are stretched while keeping the title grounded in the real places I notice them in. I'm with Toby in that I don't want my work to simply clarify reality, and this feels like a way to walk that line between looking with care while fragmenting freely.

The ground under my feet also has rich potential in its relationship to the concept of the painting ground, which will be interesting to unpack as I get more acquainted with the language hiding behind this impulse. I also think there's something to the fact that in 2025 everyone on their phones is looking at the ground and yet not looking at it at all.

11 April 2025

A little reflection on making music with Calvin now that a few days have passed. Have been thinking about how the afternoon we spent in sound felt like such a literal flow; a drift down a river together, taking turns gently suggesting ways to shape the wind. What I so enjoyed about that process was the freedom we both felt to follow intuitive impulses towards contrasts: humble and giant, human error and programmed machine. And if one of our offerings became a rock in the current, we would only get stuck on it for a moment before eventually floating around it. That relaxed neutrality elevated the whole experience—friction lost any negative connotation. Instead it was just a color to observe and move through, or maybe mix with another to see what would happen. When I showed what we made to Yena, she said it reminded her of a recurring dream she used to have as a child where she fell down a black hole.

9 April 2025

About to start a new painting that arose from my recent trip to see Toby in Brighton just before I boarded the Thameslink from Blackfriars—saw another person's silhouette heading towards mine in the window of the arriving train in strobe-like movements. Felt almost like stop motion, little lines struggling to outline its form as it moved. A similar effect filled the rest of the mirrored surface as the glinting river (윤슬) and the buildings on the horizon (they reminded me of an ECG graph) all glitched and strayed from their optical anchors until the train squeaked to a stop. Maybe a painting that circles a similar sensation.

7 April 2025

In my studio looking at a possibly resolved painting that I'm calling Bag for now. Started from seeing a plastic bag on the street in Camberwell as an inviting void. I like how Yena described the piece's core contrast as “filling in versus filling out”—that feels true. Think it is also about solidity coexisting with thinness and transparency and warm against cool; the little asteroid shape is darting into the cold dark space from the angle that the sun fell on the bag. Like Lying in bed, there's something about concealment and enclosure too, the expansive view of the optically small. And its composition feels like it wiggles within the container of the canvas without being overly aware of its edges. Kind of looks like a uvula too.

5 April 2025

Start. An ongoing list...

Teachers

Joe Brainard, Aubrey Levinthal, Seth Becker, Co Westerik, Merlin James, Piero, George Tooker, Catherine Murphy is in the house, Paula Rego, Morris Graves, Sargent, Lois Dodd, Alex Katz, Wilhelm Sasnal, Paul Cadmus, Raymond Saunders, Thomas Hart Benton, Hannah Höch, Frank Moore, Chronis Botsoglou, Sibylle Ruppert, Henry Taylor, Sophie Calle, Carroll Dunham, Ruba Nadar, Daumier, Carol Rhodes, Serge Charchoune, Jack Whitten, Jessie Homer French, James Castle, Jasper Johns, Samuel Hindolo, Toby Rainbird, Rosemarie Trockel, Degas, Ingres is in the house, Munch, Rita Fernández, R. B. Kitaj, Grant Wood, Scarlett Budden, Tristan Unrau, Dominick Di Meo, Justin John Greene, Eric Fischl, Luchita Hurtado, Jennifer Packer, Noah Davis, Nicholas Bierk, Todd Bienvenu, Katherine Bradford, Sigmar Polke, Georgia O’Keeffe, Forrest Bess, Gabe Duarte, Goya, Ray Johnson, Ivan Seal, Kerry James Marshall, Gareth Cadwallader, Ana Mendieta, Jared Buckhiester, Dash Snow, Anya Rosen, Matthew Wong, Wayne Thiebaud, Jane Dickson, Andrew Cranston, Raina Seung Eun Jung, Neo Rauch, Paul Landacre, Danny Leyland, Alice Neel, Clarence Holbrook Carter, David Hammons, Mamma Andersson, David Byrd, Shannon Cartier Lucy, Adrian Morris, Robert Pollard, Charles Blackman, Ken Price, Peter Doig, Vija Celmins, Matthew Gilbert, Josef Albers, Eric Timothy Carlson is in the house yeah, Ken Kiff, Duchamp, Graham Sutherland, Hockney, Velázquez, Jonathan Tignor, Antoni Tàpies, Leroy Winter, Shel Silverstein, Max Ernst, Clara Nulty, Lee Lozano, Martin Wong, Jack Hilton, Philip Guston, Leonardo, Marisol, Enrico David, Gregory Gillespie, Cézanne, Samantha Jackson, Kent O’Connor, Joel Seow, Ben Shahn, Brett Bigbee, Félix Vallotton…