Rylie Blogs Rarely ／ blog.ryliejamesthomas.net

These are the last two paintings I’ve made. For lack of things to paint on, my dislike of waste, and experimenting in ways to make work, I’ve been going over old paintings, that are either ‘finished’, or at a point I do not want to resolve. These two also happen to feel particularly exciting, to me, at the moment: technically, aesthetically, and conceptually.

Beginning a painting, or a drawing (or collage, or sculpture, or…)—perhaps particularly, but not necessarily exclusively with abstract work—one first has to make sense of the space in front of them. Typically that’s a blank piece of canvas, or paper. This can be done in the head, by pouring paint, by making preparatory sketches, and so on. Always it is a response. When this response is to, not white page, or to an arbitrary shape, but to an image, and one of my own creation—and a failed one at that—that is, conceptualy, a pretty damn interesting starting point. In effect it could be just the same as pouring paint, and maybe that’s all I’ve done with it. But I’m excited about the potential.