Paul Greenhalgh

Acrylic, pastel, collage, gesso on board
42cm x 30cm
Title: All outsides are impermanent

In Buddhism everything is subject to change. The abstract painting explores relationship, identity, and persona as subject to the changing pulls of positive and negative energies. Inspired by the work of Val Hudson who seeks to ‘engage with the insubstantial, transient nature of existence’, the work represents an impermanence with unfinished edges, moving textures, and flowing brush marks. Two yellow circles represent relationship, blue rectangles the layers of identities, collage the potentially changing personas of what we present to the world. Colours symbolise positive (gold/yellow) and negative (black/grey) energies, whether psychological or spiritual.

There is a dynamic relationship between multiple layers of forms; symbolic use of complementary colours; tone, texture and the use of collage creates depth; the eye is helped to move around the image; and there is some sense of intrigue.

I have learned about working with the emergence of forms, rather than feeling the need to controllingly ‘compose’ them, and I wish to further explore the creativity of this process.

“I’d now like to develop various strands from the OFCAD year, particularly exploring the potential of combining collage and paint and of creating more of a sense of mystery in both landscape and abstract work.”

STUDENT SHOWS

Paul Greenhalgh