The Dark Paintings

Abstraction can be a metaphor for things or happenings in our world. Through the humble simplicity of brushstroke, something of complexity is manifested that hints at the ethos of our time. The darkness in these paintings is powerful, yet also illusive. It not only swallows, but also reflects the light, making it difficult to grasp structure and form.  Forms which in themselves seem precarious, opening up unstable ground and diminishing any sense of certainty. These paintings do not reveal themselves quickly, but unfold slowly before the eye. It's like being in a situation that you think you know, only later to discover other possibilities might be true. Like if you compare a fixed Newtonian view of the universe to the relativity theories of Einstein.  The paintings however, become things in themselves - autonomous presences, Actualities, that do not seek to illustrate, neither thing nor theory.

Lisa Gascoigne (2016)

Coherence and Incoherence, Idea and Emotion in Painting

A line - hesitant, confident.   Webs - thoughts, feelings, memories, desires?   Painting the line, drawing - drawing it out.   Losing myself in it's endlessness, in the outpouring of feeling.   A contained, controlled, conscious, slow outpouring.
Idea, concept, feeling, intuition, imagination, frustration, love and pain - all bound together.
Veils, sacred and distancing. Like a waterfall or mist. Mysterious. Can you enter? Visible, invisible. Penetrable, impenetrable?
Elements exist together. Different parts – joined, not joined, disjointed, beautiful, frightful, organic. Separable, inseparable? One, but not the same. Like us.
Stacks, piled-up. Sensual strokes. Unstable, precarious, contradictions. Like spaces - solid spaces.
Substance and body, worked, overworked.
No space for  irony.
Only paintings, romantic, rendered presences.

 Lisa Gascoigne (2014)