Paintings – Page 2 – Christopher Madden

Abstract paintings and mirror art

Abstract paintings and mirror art

Solo show, Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, 2022

Some of my work on display in my solo show at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Cornwall, in 2022.

The abstract paintings are from a series of gouache and acrylic works on paper featuring simple geometric forms in flat colours. The works are all linked by, amongst other things, the use of the curved shapes with bulbous ends that exhibit an unusual organic quality.

The three works displayed below the paintings are all sculptural works that feature mirrors.
Environmental art – black flower sketch

Environmental art. Black flower sketch.

Acrylic and watercolour on paper. 2023.

An acrylic and watercolour painting of a black flower.
This painting is an example of my work relating to environmental issues, a subject with which I’ve been involved since the late 1960s. In this painting the flower’s petals are black, the flower’s stem is black, and the grass is black. The flower’s petals are shrivelled and misshapen and the stem is crooked. It’s an image of foreboding.
In contrast to all this blackness the centre of the flower is reflective gold. But it’s a dull gold, which may act to reinforce the bleakness of the black rather than creating a glimmer of brightness. It’s ambiguous.
The gold centre to the flower and the spiky petals give a hint of a dying sun or star, with the accompanying implications for life on earth (such as the flower). It’s a dying sunflower.
Abstract in acrylic and gouache

Stripes with smoke

Acrylic and gouache on paper, collage. 14x14cm. September 2020

An acrylic and gouache abstract painting composed of a square of brightly coloured stripes embedded within a smoke-like form in gouache. The coloured square is revealed through a hole in the paper on which the smoke is painted.
Geometric abstract painting on paper of coloured rectangles

Stacks. Geometric abstract painting.

Acrylic on paper 26x61cm. July 2020

A geometrical acrylic abstract painting composed of two separate rectangular areas each with a stack of smaller coloured rectangles embedded within it. The rectangles in the upper area form a ladder while those in the lower area are more brightly coloured.
The amount of white paper on which the shapes are placed is important, as the forms seem to float on the surface rather than the surface simply being the base onto which the image is painted.
Geometrical abstract acrylic painting on paper

Geometrical abstract acrylic painting – yellow square blue diagonal

Acrylic on paper 8.5×8.5cm on a 21x29cm sheet. July 2020

An acrylic minimalist geometric abstract of a yellow square on a black background, with a blue diagonal. The interior of the square is very dark grey, not black.
The paint is high viscosity acrylic, so it has a slight texture. The edges of the forms in the painting are generally sharp due to the use of masking film. A very small amount of bleed under the film was allowed in places (by not pressing the film too firmly onto the paper) so that a few imperfections could occur, thus preventing the forms being too clinically precise.
3D wall mounted artwork

Wall mounted assemblage and abstract painting

Gouache, plastic drain cover, paper. 15x15cm. 2020

A hybrid painting/assemblage artwork composed of an abstract gouache painting behind a contemporary plastic gulley grid (outdoor drain cover). The painting and the grid are both symmetrical, resulting in a square symmetrical artwork.

The brightness of the colours of the gouache painting are visually heightened by the matt black lines of the grid, creating an effect that has some allusions to stained glass windows. The contrast between the elevating qualities of a stained glass window and the more utilitarian qualities of a drain cover are noteworthy.

The work viewed from an angle.
Using household paint on a stage backcloth

Lavender fields – stage backcloth.

Household paint on canvas. 10x12ft January 2019

At work on a stylised, semi-abstract landscape painting of lavender fields and sunflower fields as a stage backdrop, Zennor, Cornwall, UK.
Environmental art – a leaf changes colour in autumn

A Leaf Changes Colour in Autumn

Leaf, acrylic paint. September 2018

A maple leaf painted blue with red polka dots.
The leaf had fallen from the tree in autumn.
The inspiration for this work came partly from the fact that the leaves on the trees were changing colour in the autumn, prompting me to think of changing their colours in other ways.
In previous years I’ve painted acorns and suchlike in unusual colours.
Like a lot of my work, this work involved interacting with and responding to the natural environment.
Unlike a lot of environmental art, my own environmenntal art often involves interventions of a deliberately unnatural nature, such as here where I’ve painted a perfectly nice autumn leaf in unnatural paint (acrylic) and in a design generated from human esthetics. This is partly to convey the way that we impose our tastes and our values on the natural world.

A detail of the painted leaf.
Gallery wall mural visualisation

Wall mural on an art gallery wall – visualisation

A visualisation of an image applied directly to the wall of an art gallery. July 2018

A photomontage showing what an image from my series of smoking squares would look like if applied directly to an art gallery wall as a mural.
Minimalist abstract – black square with circle removed

Black Square with Circle Removed

Gouache on paper. 30x30cm. June 2018

Part of a series of abstract minimalist paintings of black squares with a circle missing from a corner, in this case along with the part of the square that is separated from the main body of the square by the circle.
This painting is a study of presence and absence. The black square has the quality of a solid, impactful entity while the white circle and top left corner give the impression of absence or negative space.
In other images the black square itself conveys a quality of negative space, suggesting a black void in the centre of the image.
Watercolour study: stability and uncertainty

Stability and uncertainty: watercolour study

Watercolour on paper. 20 x 20cm. 2018

A watercolour painting created as part of a series exploring the depiction of simple, precise geometric forms (such as the triangle here) using techniques that introduce imprecision to the geometry of the image.
A study of order, stability, uncertainty and potential disintegration.
The Scream

The Scream

Gouache on watercolour paper 24 x 23cm July 2018

A gouache painting featuring a head with giant screaming mouth. The head has no body, and is situated in a desolate landscape.

The scream is an existential scream, no doubt indebted to The Scream by Edvard Munch.

The person in this particular Scream has no body, only a head. This is possibly to show physical impotence in the face of something terrible: the person can’t even try to run away.

The barren and desolate landscape in the painting could be a metaphor for the existence in which the figure finds itself. Maybe an existential crisis in the face of an overwhelming but possibly meaningless universe (as in Much’s scream). I don’t actually believe in a meaningless universe, by the way, because I believe meaning is automatically generated by the existence of the universe. No religion needed.

The painting probably reflects aspects of existential environmental anxiety, as the destruction of the environment has been a concern of mine for almost sixty years.

It’s definitely a work of psychological art
Contemporary art and climate change: Stranded Object

Contemporary art and climate change: Stranded Object

Ink, gouache, digital, paper. 28x19cm. July 2018

A work about climate change and global warming.
The work contains definite ominous overtones. These are probably linked to the general atmosphere of foreboding that permiated society when the artwork was created in 2018 and that still permeate society today, chief amongst which was the phenomenon of global warming or climate change, which more and more threatens to disrupt the earth’s entire ecosystem and to turn civilisation as we know it upside down. And this is just the beginning.
I’ve been interested in environmental issues since the 1960s when environmentalism was chiefly concerned with the various threats to wildlife as a result of human activity. Climate change or global warming were not generally in people’s awareness back then.
Whatever the object is in this painting, it is abandoned or marooned on a featureless landscape that probably represents the devastated earth following the ravages of climate change and environmental destruction. The fact that the object looks very large is probably symbolic of the enormity of the threat that climate change represents.
The imaginary object in the image bears some resemblance to an organic form, possibly a part of an animal’s anatomy – perhaps a horn or a jawbone. The slender forms that protrude from what may be the teeth of a jawbone or could possibly be legs, turning the form into something like an upturned crustacean. Whatever it is, the object has the feel of a decaying life-form. The object also has something of the feel of an unnatural artefact – perhaps a piece of rubble following the destruction of a building (with the slender forms representing metal rods in reinforced concrete).

Having said all that, the work was not created with any particular symbolism or meaning consciously in mind. I’ve worked backwards from the finished image to find its possible meaning. I’m sure that it also has meanings that are purely to do with the workings of my own brain.
Stone eye: surrealist sketch

Stone eye

Ink, gouache, digital. July 2018

A surrealist sketch of a gigantic stone eye resting on the ground. A mysterious pipe-like cylinder extends upwards from the eye. A similar eye in the distance shows the pipe-like structure extending unfeasibly high into the air.
The image is almost definitely influenced by surrealist art, including the surrealism of Max Ernst and Rene Magritte.
Square and circles : gouache and watercolour

Composition in black, red and white

Gouache and watercolour, watercolour paper. 24 x 21cm. July 2018

This is a composition from a series that explores the dynamics of stability and instability.
The black square in the image suggests stability, while the red circles, with their lack of roundedness and their off-kilted positioning, suggest instability. The smoke effect adds to the sense of disequilibrium, as does the white “ghost” circle.

The painting has no specific right way up, which all helps with the feeling of precariousness that the work generates.
Abstract monochrome watercolour painting incorporating a plastic found object

An abstract monochrome watercolour painting incorporating a found object

Mixed media (watercolour and plastic). July 2018.

An abstract monochrome watercolour painting in which the watercolour resembles smoke eminating from a white circle.
The found object in the artwork is visible through a hole that is cut in the painting. The object is the mixing palette that was used for mixing the paint in the painting.
There’s a certain amount of humour in this (to me at least), as the found object was an incredibly convenient object to find. I just had to reach over and pick it up.
I like the way that the palette isn’t obviously a palette, as an obvious palette in an artwork is a bit self-referential and solipsistic.
Abstract watercolour painting: White Circle

White Circle

Watercolour on watercolour paper. 30x20cm. May, 2018.

An abstract watercolour painting that plays with the tension between the absolute stable state of a circle and the chaotic state of the rest of the image.
The perforations along the edge of the paper are an integral component of the composition, being part of the disruptive tension the work.
Pop Art inspired print design

Pop Art print design

Digital. May 2017

A Pop Art influenced design for a print.
I’ve been creating geometrical designs for many years, partly because I was a teenager in the late 1960s when Pop Art and Op Art were very popular.
This particular design was created quite shortly after I’d visited an exhibition by Brian Rice, so I’m sure that there are a few Brian Rice inspired influences in there.
The use of digital technology has revolutionised the creation of geometrical art and op art, not only because it is now so much easier to create perfect geometrical shapes, straight lines and flat colours, but it’s also much easier to modify and alter designs. In the design here for instance any of the elements in the composition can be changed almost instantaneously, from the thickness of the yellow line to the colours that are used. Imagine doing that with paint.
Spontaneous watercolour sketch from the subconscious

Watercolour sketch from the subconscious

Watercolour, gouache and ink on paper, with collage. 2017

This painting was an exercise in creating something from the subconscious without any preconceived idea about what I was about to create.
It turns out to be a slightly sinister landscape, in the centre of which there is something that may or may not be a living entity. Early on in the development of this sketch this object looked more like a strangely shaped rock, but the addition of colour to it removed it from the rest of the landscape and turned it into something separate from the landscape. The blue dot in the image, which is a collaged circle of coloured paper, gives the possibly living entity an air of sentience, as it seems to be contemplating a strange sun or moon in the sky.