Philip Cole

Armed with clear rules of engagement and a highly particular approach and a technique, I add and subtract material in order to make a painting object. The approach could be characterised by process, it raises questions about the act of making and painting, the choice of subject matter as well as the finished object itself … It is physical! I may labour on a piece as if it were a construction, sometimes producing individual parts separately, sometimes pouring and sometimes painting with a brush to add, a component to the composition one by one. I have been concerned with how to combine a limited number of elements; clear regions of colour of different tints and tone in order to generate a rich and diverse encyclopaedic experience of possibilities.

In the act of production, the work provides a possible container for my ideas, experiments and feelings.

Neither wholly abstract or figurative the paintings are anchored in the concrete experience of production. They directly contrast the notion of a hand crafted or painterly piece of work with evidence of the artists handiwork almost absent.