18/07/10
I have developed a new site for current work and ideas.
This will subsume the role of this blog page, and I would
encourage anyone who is interested in my work to look directly
at the new site. This is the link
Rod McRae: Current painting.

Remember to bookmark the new page!

I will leave this page here as a record.

15/07/10
Its approaching the time for my next show (September 29).
Looking back since that last entry, I realise that I have
been moving in a more steady trajectory than I had realised.
What I have been doing on paper over the last two or three
years is finally seeping into the paintings on canvas.
 
For me, this is all about the process. I know that in that
process things happen which are of interest when the work is
realised, some of which I'm aware of when I'm working, and
some of which I'm not. But I rarely start anything with a
clear conception of where it is going to end. In fact, I try
deliberately to create a situation that was unpredictable so
that I'm as surprised as anyone else at the result. Maybe
MORE surprised, given than noone else knows how little goes
into the preparation for these events.

It is certainly no foregone conclusion that any particular
work will be satisfying in any way, but overall I am happy
with the results. There was something about how I was
working before which has been bugging me for years and
years, though I found it very hard to be clear about how
this was affecting the work. Indeed, the work seemed OK. But
the way that I got to those paintings did not feel
absolutely right.

It does still feel like just the beginning. I am laying out
some boundaries and markers that define a field of activity
that I have only begun to explore. In this respect I feel
frustrated, because I am constantly becoming aware of
potential areas for development, in each of which I can
imagine a sustained body of work, but I haven't been able to
achieve this yet in any one of them. Instead I have to be
satisfied as an explorer is who has made a few dents in
approaching and mapping out a new continent. There is much,
much more to be done.

Below are a few of the works that are emerging. The
photographs are quick studio ones that I take as I go along.
Once I have decided what will go into my show, I will take
proper shots and post them in the exhibitions section. There
will always be a lot more work that I do that never gets
into an exhibition (specially work on paper) so I might just
end up putting some of that in here, or setting up another
section altogether, purely for that purpose.
(image 11 is on paper, all others on canvas - and all acrylic)

Image 6 (below)

Image 7 (below)

Image 8 (below)

Image 9 (below)

Image 10 (below)

Image 11 (below)



	

05/10/09
Here are some of the paintings I've been doing recently.
The first two are on canvas, but the rest are on paper.
Now that I have the images up here, I will try and write
something about what all this means to me.... later!

Image 0 (below)

Image 1 (below)

Image 2 (below)

Image 3 (below)

Image 4 (below)

Image 5 (below)

Image 6 (below)

			

03/10/09

I've been toying with the idea of setting up a new 
website, or maybe just a blog, using the newer 
database-based systems (Wordpress, Joumla etc), 
and have got as far as setting up a webserver on 
my own computer (now using Ubuntu almost exclusively). 
But its much too much work! There are times, too, when
I don't really want to be writing about my work, so it
seems a bit over the top to devote a huge amount of effort
to this process.

However....
I have been doing quite a lot of work on paper recently,
and there is enough to make a few comments about. I will
collect my photos together and put some of them up here.
Soon.
			

03/06/09

The story is now updated, and continues from this page
			

02/06/09

My show is up and reflection happens of its own accord.
I was looking at the pages I have written in the 'Story'
section of the website and I realise that they are quite
out of date now. The more detailed 'story' (the Warrnambool
talk) concludes with the 2006 painting Firmament.
We are now half way through 2009!

This is quite a good place to restart, however, since the
same painting is in my current exhibition (the oldest in
terms of its genesis).

While the painting remains, fixed in its history by the final
face it presented on completion, my ideas about it and the
direction of my work have been moving on.

The best way to deal with this may be to continue the next
episode of the Story and through this to try and explain
where I find myself in June 2009, and how I got here.

This link will take you back to the story, somewhere in 2006......
			

01/05/09

It is very close to my upcoming show at Place Gallery in
Melbourne. Perhaps this is not a particularly good time to
reflect on the current state of my painting, and where it is
going. When the show is over, then I can reassess everything
and chart new directions. Particularly, I don't want to
predispose anyone to look at my work with a strong sense of
what I myself might feel about it. It's much more useful for
me to get feedback which is coming from directions I never
expected and haven't considered.

This is also the reason I decided not to write about my work
in an introduction to the exhibition, or to ask anyone else
to write about it. Either way, such a literary experience
might influence an otherwise intuitively visual response. At
least that is what I'd like to believe - that such a
response might be possible, despite the myriad cultural
impediments to such an idea (or is it an ideal?)

I haven't yet decided exactly which paintings will be in
this show, but it will be generally similar that which I had
in Sydney last September (click here to see the images).
There will be a few extra works, all paintings on canvas,
and a few works that are no longer available will be left
out. Once I have decided on the hanging, I will put all the
images on this website for internet consumption.
			

28/06/08

I now find myself with a group of (unfinished) paintings
and a new one which seems to be pointing in a different 
direction (the last one started..painting 2 below)

The new direction derives from the work on paper I have 
been doing over the last year or so, as represented by
the group show at Watters last year.

Its not a bad time to review what is changing, what is 
going to be lost and what, potentially, gained by this 
change. Its not normally my way to plan what I'm going
to do next, partly because I like to be open to the 
possibility of something new arising that needs attention
even though it wasn't in the 'plan' at the outset. Of
course its possible to have a plan and then deviate from 
it as necessary.
		

16/06/08

After something of another gap, I am ready to discuss some
work I have been doing. This relates to a recent visit to
the UK where I reacquainted myself with some paintings in
public galleries that I found profoundly inspiring. At the
top of the list were the Constables at the National Gallery
and Tate Britain.

But first.....
I recently started two paintings of 1320mmx1800mm. These
two are beginning to show some of the changes that came out
of working on paper last year (see my last show at Watters
Gallery - 2007)

Painting 1


and Painting 2

	

27/02/08

Well, it turns out that I'm not writing in here as often as
I expected to. But there's no hurry... things move slowly
in this painting business. And I have moved back to painting
again, after spending more time on drawing and work on
paper recently.

As happens with my work at times, I find myself doubling
back to review paintings I have done in the past, which 
can suddenly inspire me to resolve issues in current work.

This painting, Trespass, done in 1985 now seems crucially
relevant.


(click the image for a larger version)

The lack of hard-edged forms is something I want at the 
moment. I feel hemmed-in sometimes, by lines and edges
of things. This image is very much a landscape, albeit
an imaginary one. And it has a simplicity that I am also
looking for now.

	

04/01/08

There are different threads running through these drawings.
Each of these represents a potential transition in my
painting. This might take the form of different paintings
(ie the threads are transferred from the world of drawing to
the world of painting) or they might collectively lead to a
resolution of the threads along some common path. I could do
this work all by painting on canvas, but it is slow work in
general and the danger is that one gets lost on the way and
the resolution never happens. This might be OK for me but it
might cause problems for someone who doesn't understand the
long-term project with all its seemingly illogical twists
and turns.

One thread is the concentration on process resulting in a
lot of accidental and unplanned artifacts. This is what I
mostly do in my painting anyhow but it doesn't show so much
when the process is taken a lot further and the forms cease
to relate directly to their origins.

This drawing:

has a lot of ambiguity in the forms. It could be just the
beginning of a landscape, the forms emerging as figures or
organic objects.  However, as it stands, the marks ARE the
forms, and in that sense it represents nothing but itself
(an abstract, if you like) and the process used to make it
happen. There is little or no working of the forms towards
some ulterior vision. Nevertheless, there is a sense that
this is not random, and that decisions have been made about
the overall structure and composition that could indeed
relate to a vision of some sort, which is indeed the case
(though the process is highly intuitive). That is why I
think of it as a drawing and not a systematic work in the
classical sense.

Now..... I have to put right something I got wrong in
yesterday's post. I was rummaging through an old CD and
found a copy of my website in 1999. It happens to be the one
with my painting diary mentioned yesterday... so I was wrong
in saying I was doing it in 1997. I must have the date wrong 
for the particular painting I was thinking of ('Lines of Force')

in my database! And I think I will put 
the whole thing on this website just for 
archival interest....



	

03/01/08

A new year. A new start in here....I just remembered that
the first online 'diary' I did (now called a blog) was back
in 1997 before the word 'blog' had been invented. According
to Wikipedia the word 'weblog' was first coined in 1997 and
the word 'blog' in 1999, though web-based diaries had been
around for a bit longer.

I've put some images of recent drawings on Google's Picasa
site. Its good because its quick and easy to do (quicker
than writing web-pages) and because the interface is
sophisticated and effective - you can view the work as a
slide-show and use most of the screen.

This link will take you there.

I want to talk a bit about those drawings and how they fit
in to my painting story, but this will have to wait for
another 'post'.

	

4/10/07

vision v. building
working with both - 2 streams of work, potentially resolved
into one
currently, working with building
	process } forms }spaces etc
today had 'vision' of working the other way
	derived from consideration of
	websites and virtual worlds eg holiday space, utopias
	} realisation that painting does/can do just the same
	ie. spaces/worlds etc that perform the function of 
	alternatives to normal experience esp visual
where do/would these come from, how derived?
	sources could be
		1.visionary
		2.building
	visionary nb. Bunuel's description of meditative 
	creation of film narratives when drinking in bars
	thus, meditative creation of mental 'vision'
	followed by realisation through processes of painting
		also drawing, computer collage, various combinations
		of both etc.
	building - starting with collage, drawing, whatever, and 
	creating spaces that might develop into visionary spaces
	or, spark meditative visionary creation, leading to
	further images

other related thoughts
	drawing of elements without attempting to do it with any
	sense of style. By excluding style, freedom to develop
	drawing faster and extend the potential for vision. Style
	will happen on its own in the process of painting, and 
	shouldnt be an issue at the outset.
	thinking of Broken Vessel image and how it developed from
	digital image which itself arose from vision, which was
	subsequently 'built' out of scraps of digital object-texture
	eg. photographs of bits of fencing.
	thinking of recent drawing for Mick - graphic design job
	involving redrawing of crap clip art images of people
	-ultimate in styleless imagery
	thinking that drawing on computer is a good way to 
	exclude style issues (as in painting style, brushwork etc)
	would like to develop library of figures, derived from
	photographic sources, simplified and even cartoonised
	as elements to bring into 'narrative' visions
	thinking here of Large Proverbs and crazy figures doing
	crazy things

themes for visions?
	dystopia worked well... in the end (hated the idea at
	outset)..... might try other versions of dystopia
	alternatively, utopia - which could be more challenging
	utopias - series of attempts at creation of utopias
	where does reality fit in?
	might be an element of a broad sweep of utopian landscape
	where reality is but an element of something bigger
	even multiple realities
	thinking now of The Triumph of Death - how elements of 
	this (?dystopian reality) could be incorporated into a
	broader image. Is reality dystopic? if so, what is 
	utopia... and if reality = dystopia perhaps 
	reality also = utopia, and everything is ultimately 
	equal.... at least in terms of its presence in our 
	minds and culture, reality being just that (what is
	present in our minds and culture)

	Utopia might be seen as a series of examples/metaphors,
	none of which encapsulate the idea of utopia, but which
	together begin to suggest it.

	Thus there is no imperative (at least in the beginning)
	to have an all encompassing vision. That..... later...

	ideas for utopias then
		family utopia
		social utopia
		sensual utopia
		intellectual utopia
		personal utopia
		spiritual utopia(?)
		landscape utopia
		medical utopia
		zoological utopia

	all these could have their antithesis in the dystopias,
	ie. 	family dystopia
		social dystopia
		sensual dystopia
		etc

	feel like this is working towards a massive agenda that
	will take a very long time to accomplish, so I'm not
	going to worry about doing it quickly. There is also still
	the issue of 'building' work... ie formal improvisation
	and how it fits (or doesn't) into this new scheme of things

Family utopia
	references
		my painting Rock from 1985
		many, many renaissance paintings of the holy family
		the Simpsons and the Adams family
				
	nuclear? extended? including 'diversity'?
	how big? what setting? doing what?
	relationships between figures
	superficial and deeper relationships