118 – Matisse needed the orange
Paper and watercolour 152mm x 229mm
A while back I had started to do a collage in homage to Matisse. It was going to be based on his “Snail” from memory not looking at any reference image. However it never got completed but some of the elements hung around together in the studio for a while. When I used the piece of orange card for something else these little pieces were bereft so i gave them the chance to express their freedom from the tyranny of that orange.
031 – aujourd’hui
Paper, watercolour and ink 229mm x 152mm
This one has to be called “aujourd’hui” simply because the word is written there – even though today is a Wednesday not Friday (again as written). I thought about “back of a blurred bus”, “missed the bus” and “stem” but in 40 years time when it is rediscovered in a pile of papers in my office the curator at the Tate would simply retitle it or at the very least put (aujourd’hui) after the real title. It would be” Back of a Blurred Bus (AUJOURD’HUI)” or even more ludicrously “Untitled (AUJOURD’HUI)”. There would be a section in the catalogue – I still call them that even though they are great intellectual tomes showing off the cleverness of the curator and his/her friends – a section that talks about the influence of French culture and art on my life and work. So to save trouble and confusion it is called “aujourd’hui” and for the avoidance of doubt the word is torn from an info sheet from the Pompidou Centre when I went to see the Matisse “Paires et Séries” show last year. That show was extremely interesting, but after seeing the rest of the work exhibited there I vowed never to complain again about the purchasing choices of the Tate!