Textured atmosphere.

People who have never met with paintings face-to-face might imagine glacially smooth surfaces.

Not so. Paints, canvas and paper all impose their mark and add to the life of painting.

Some artists exploit this effect. Some augment it.

Even noting the limitations of reproduction, take a look at this painting by Kim-Adele Fuller.

This painting stood out to me, amongst a dozen others.

Kim presents us with a beautiful image here.

It's easily imagined as a shoreline, with water flowing back and forth. There's a real sense of movement; almost a restlessness, except that the blues calm everything down. And it's a painting which invokes memory - that to-and-fro of water is just a short walk away from most of us in Worthing - and those memories add to the life of the painting. I can hear the sound of the sea.

So what has the artist done here?

Kim spends time preparing the surface of her panels. She applies layers of material - 'torn paper, gesso sand and even earth' she tells me - to achieve a textured ground. And then comes the pigment. Watercolour and inks flow across the surface, guided here and there, but largely allowed to do what they will. This is a brave approach, allowing the materials to have their head. It requires a certain amount of trust on the part of the artist. But it's also one which makes things possible: creating out of nothing almost (ex nihilo for those with a particular past). Arguably, this is at the heart of every creative act.

I suspect, though, that this carefully laid texture does more than provide contours for the paint. For a start it fragments the surface. It becomes layered and fractured, and catches our attention. It holds light in places and denies light in others. It keeps us guessing too: is it sculpting a relief of the image? I don't believe it is, but then ... It does that thing which the best art does: it defies tight description, but the work would be less without it.

Kim's work deserves to be seen on a wall.

She is also the co-manager of Montague Gallery in Worthing, so you can be fairly sure of seeing her work there.

You will also find her here:

https://www.kimadele.co.uk/

https://www.instagram.com/kimadelefuller/

Positive Space

In the world of publishing, there are people who believe that white space is to be avoided and abhorred. White space is space where nothing is happening; white space is a waste of space. It is negative space.

Watercolourists have always known what nonsense that is.

Artists who work in watercolour learn quickly how and where to apply paint. Theirs is a medium which has to be used with a certain kind of restraint. Where you don't apply the paint is as important as where you do. The unpainted surface not only frames and gives identity to the coloured surface, it has work of its own to do. Other cultures have more readily embraced this truth than our own. In Zen, the space between the snowflakes is as eloquent as the flakes themselves.

Take a look at this exquisite painting by Nicky Bell.

Nicky has created one of those paintings which rejoices in being what it is. There is no attempt at illusion here - the sense that we just might be looking through a window at a distant landscape. But we know without doubt that this is somewhere. The artist has been there and has brought us the experience.

For me, the great strength of this painting is that we think we know how she did it.

The medium doesn't hide or disguise itself. This is watery pigment brushed onto paper. And even despite that, we know that this is the experience of being there. We've stood in a field or at a roadside and watched the treelines recede. We've watched clouds as they leave us guessing what is land and what is sky. I mean, look at that break of blue. Doesn't it lift your heart, just like it does on those few occasions when we notice it above us?

But of course, we've only seen the half of it as far as this painting goes. Unless we have ever picked up a paintbrush, we probably have no idea how headstrong watercolour can be; what a mind of its own it can have. But here it is: at one moment sharply defining shade and shape, at another hinting at distance and reflection. These are not happy accidents. The artist has made this happen.

And then there is the white space. Often in watercolours, this allows the paper room to speak of reflected light. But for me, it also creates a surface of its own - somewhere immeasurable between the paper and the pigment - on which the image floats. Positive space. As vital to the image as the colouring.

Nicky Bell works from the Drift Studio on East Worthing Beach which is often open (literally) to the public. You can also find her work here:

https://nickybellartist.org/

https://www.instagram.com/nickybellartist

As red as ...

A Nice Bottle of Red

This print is the work of Two Faced Twins; more about them later.

It's a great example of how an artwork can be colourful, decorative and (yes, dammit) fun, as well as being a serious piece of art.

This is one of a limited number of prints from an original artwork.

It's not a piece of computer-generated clip art, it's not a photocopy of an existing illustration. This has been imagined, and drawn, and coloured, and printed by an artist (or in this case, two artists). One of the joys of seeing this piece in the flesh is to stand up close and realise that you're seeing the work of someone's hand.

Two Faced Twins are Stella and Gem, twin sisters who create their work together. If you ask them, they can tell you who did what but my memory isn't what it was and anyway - this is a single work, not something created by a committee.

I want to say again how joyful this piece is. The print run is limited to 100 prints and I would be surprised if they have many left.

So ... forgive me if I digress for a moment into some of the serious stuff which justifies my existence.

If you've done any art history of the 1960s and 1970s you will look at this and say "Andy Warhol!", and "The Factory!". Andy Warhol and Co famously replicated mass-produced images (and mass-produced individual images) in ways which explored some of the strangeness about image reproduction. They also raised questions about how so much becomes a commodity in capitalist societies. Just like TFT's piece here, much of Warhol's output was a lot of fun as well as something a bit deeper.

I want to add that, for me, both Warhol and TFT raise the status of commonplace objects. Items to which we wouldn't give a second glance - Heinz Tomato Ketchup here, Campbell's Soup tins from AW - are presented for detailed attention.

Who knows? We might even find them beautiful.

All well and good, but does that mean this artwork is simply Warhol revival?

Not at all. It can still carry those questions and ambiguities which The Factory produced, but there's more.

This wasn't produced by a gay man in 1970's New York. This was produced by two women living in 2020 in the UK. That would be enough to establish a difference but consider this. These two artists (TFT) have for the whole of their lives had the adjective 'identical' applied to them. I can probably say with confidence that unless you are an identical twin, you have no idea what that experience entails. And here they are producing this work which, on the face of it, appears to be a collection of identical images. Except that it's not.

Each bottle is individual and different. What does that say to us?

Okay, enough serious stuff.

Art performs so many functions. It re-presents the world to us. It asks questions of us. And it can delight us too. Three out of three for this piece, I think.

Two Faced Twins exhibit their diverse work at the Montague Gallery in Worthing.

You can also find them here:

www.twofacedtwins.com

instagram.com/two_faced_twins

facebook.com/2facedtwins

twitter.com/Two_Faced_Twins

info@twofacedtwins.com