The Keyhole Paintings 2014 - 2018

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These keyhole-shaped paintings arise out of my setting up for making narrower pourings, and rather than embracing the rectangle, I became intrigued by the character of the sarcophagi or keyhole shape. Their size makes for associations with a swaddled human figure, and suggest an iconic or symbolic presence that holds my interest.  

These canvases, when dry, are shaped on the wall, and refined over several days, weeks or months, before being placed on a custom plywood stretcher. They are then hung and worked on periodically, adding illusionistic shading by making colour adjustments, which bring each work to its conclusion.

More about my painting process can be found here.

The high contrast palettes in these works is rooted in the 'Early Crazed Paintings', and the modeling and shading from the illusionistic paintings that I began around 2000.

The time taken in my interpreting the results of the initial pourings and dried compositional crazed formations, from pouring, shaping and stretching, is a slow process, which the 2014 to 2018 dating of these works reflects.

These 'Keyhole' paintings also have connections with the simplified shaping in the 'Circularity,' 'Glitter' and 'Colour and Dimension' paintings.

I think there will be more such paintings to come.

Graham Peacock, 14 Febuary 2019