Gavin Hogg MA

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Roscommon
2011

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Artist's Statement
September 2011

My work uses processes that celebrate the sensuality and immediacy of the physical surface but which also creates a shallow space that can be visually contradictory.

There is the intent in the work to achieve something elemental, something intrinsic to painting and the evolving language that I use. The integral nature of the individual mark and the visual interaction of different elements, coming about through an intuitive process of exploration of the orchestrated elements’ ability to articulate emotion and to create an arena of imaginative conjecture.

It is this play, this oscillation, between the physical reality of the work and the ephemeral imaginative space that it creates, which I find particularly fascinating.

A further play occurs between the abstract and the representational, the varying degrees of each. Elements which are readily readable as what they are and/or reference, create a certain pictorial logic which can be contradicted with other, possibly, incongruous elements   

The recognisable elements can come from any source but decorative patterning such as floral wallpaper, mythological alchemical symbols such as the dragon and the moon, street art and pieces of collage, collected and invented, influence and form the majority of the vocabulary.       

The content of each individual work varies. There is an element of narrative at play in most of the work, a narrative that talks about the nature of my own interior landscape, my relationship with contemporary society and my dialogue with painting as a tradition and craft.

The ultimate realisation of the work takes place when the aesthetic and narrative elements combine to form the creative event that is the work, which simultaneously unfolds in front of the viewer and through their own imaginative space.