Chris Terrell

"Ghosts"

I am looking again at a series of paintings I started in 2000, then had to re-think following damage to some of them over one wet, wild, Welsh Winter in storage... I'm beginning to re-paint some of these and started earlier this year with a fresh approach and reinterpreting them in the light of more experience; a few of the original versions are shown, below. The working title for now is the "Ghosts Series".

In the repainting process, I am making direct studies from people who are kindly agreeing to model for me but referring to the earlier sketches and studies. The new version of "Conversation" will be uploaded when it is complete. At present other work is taking precedence, but I'll be returning to this in the Autumn.

These paintings are part of a series under development that emerged from my own drawings and notes in sketchbooks which I have carried with me over many years, through several changes in 'career' and a process of personal development. The pictures are all based on real-life observations and quick sketches, even the apparently 'abstract' and 'background' elements refer to what I recorded, experienced or recall from the original contexts. “View, in a journey” was shown in Cardiff in the Welsh Artist of the Year exhibition in 2003. They show a stage of the development of this theme and series, which I plan to re-start in 2010, following storage damage to others in the series and a decision to pause work on them and reconsider aspects of my approach.

In varying degrees they are all 'true stories'. In all of them I was observing, perhaps participating in the situation to some extent, even if only by my presence. I was at or near the 'edge' of the situation, I felt more or less engaged in what was going on, simultaneously invited and excluded. During the painting process, each image evolved and I was aware of a feeling of revisiting each 'story', finding new responses both between elements of the pictures and between myself and the whole image. I felt a new and fresh sense of engagement and interest that I had sometimes not noticed at the time I originally made the sketches.

“...edges are places of dynamic flux, a constant shifting, now this/now that, air/water, light/dark, exciting, frightening, alive, ... the interface where reactions occur... the separate/together union of two states ... that brings into being a third; ... edges are also places of exile, loneliness, despair, a hunger for inclusion that excavates the soul, desire for immersion, jealousy for the greener grass on the other side , illusion, hope... edges are a place of hungry ghosts...” Notes from sketchbook #17 (2001).

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Selections from "Ghosts Series"


"View in a Journey" 18" x 24" Acrylic Exhibited in Wales Artist of the Year Exhibition, Cardiff 2003

"Conversation" 18" x 24" Acrylic - version ii in progress.

"The Lilac Suitcase" 18" x 24" Acrylic

"Red Corner" 18" x 24" Acrylic