stream of consciousness
In this exhibition Mark Titmarsh explores the strong connections between conceptualization and the painterly surface. The ten large paintings and set of smaller works present a rich layering of colours. The paint in opulent luminescent reds, greens and purples, flows and congeals over the surfaces of the canvas. The layers of paint are rendered inelastic in time by a brilliant gloss lacquer, the effect of which is reminiscent of museum exhibits of beetles captured in a clear barrier of resin. The works radiate and reflect light like the drifts of colour within the glass marbles we held to the sunlight in awe as young children. lt was not surprising that the opening night crowd moved in and away from the works tilting their heads as if to move the flows of colour into different light.
The works adopt a postmodernist stance while looking like modernist icons and grids melting away in the intensity of the lights. Flowing surfaces merge and drag. The works strive for a new language, making hyphens and connections between thoughts and surfaces. This new language is challenging for the reader. The works explore the connection between the position of viewer as reader and the irony based in visual communication that is in one instance both incredibly accessible while being totally alien to a logical discourse. On the perceptual level, the works transfer vividness of colour, form and surface that, like molten toffee, entice the viewer sensually to experience and taste. On another level the works are neither figurative nor abstract. Within their layers lurk landscapes and faces, which exist not in the permanence of paint but in the transient thoughts of the viewers.
This is painting not as