chris makin

acrylic on linen 90 x 150 cm

“In creative terms there is a similar process in jazz, where the melody is first stated, and the instruments then work to erode and subvert it. Revelation comes when it is broken open, remaining as fragments against a cloud of harmonics . My paintings operate in a similar way, propose a similar relationship to image, but in reverse order ; the cloud comes first, any melody is an emergent property.”

(See ‘The Problem of being a Painter’ in ‘Writings and Comments’ below.)

Based loosely on images of a village in the stories collected by the brothers Grimm, and of similar childhood mythologies, there is also a sense of the movement of music in the way that the elements relate to each other in this painting. I was remembering similar concerns in the paintings of Chagall as I worked on it.

A still life with bowls and an urn at the top and mid-zone , and fruit on a plate low down ; in the area between are columns framing the space. Various other elements from fragments of a night sky to suggestions of cloth are scattered around inside it ; the painting plays with the ideas of multiplicity and containment, the tension between the Classical and the Romantic, and the random complexity of the quantum world.

“My monochromatic work however, is not describable by any of these processes ; but it does involve the same paralysis as the inevitable starting point. The interior intention, the formulation of the image, as the foundation for art, is similarly distrusted, but whereas the previous solution was the spontaneity of free association, here it is sought in absorption in the external subject.”

(See ‘The Problem of being a Painter’ )

This painting was selected during my MA at Central Saint Martins as part of the UAL “Xhibit” initiative to showcase the best emerging artists across UAL, with a subsequent exhibition at Bermondsey Project Space ; within that cohort it won the Cass Art Prize .

Exhibited in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2020

acrylic on canvas 150 x 90 cm

“Painted at a time of personal change. The knotted rope ends in mid air ; there is a door in the distance, inviting the future. However the loom presence is a guardian, a symbol of work and artistic creation, and the stillness after it, raising the prospect of futility, yet somehow sublimated into the painter’s act of hope.”

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“As heir to centuries of portrayal it is important for me to find ways of honouring that tradition whilst searching for meaningful insight . A lot of painting goes into each image which I hope feeds into the question it is asking, about the meaning of art, and of work, and what is left at the end.”

(Quotes from RCA Application Document 2020)

In this painting there is an image of Lucien Freud’s early portrait of Francis Bacon, stolen in 1988, a reproduction of which can be seen here.

I have a great interest in etching, The intricacy of the processes, the fascination of the inks and chemicals, and the presses, which often have a sense of history locked into them .

These three pieces were drawn looking out from the window of the print workshop at Woolwich Studios , directly across the Thames to a dock and factory opposite. Though these were drawn in full daylight, something about the dusky ink reminds me of the end of the day.

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The smell of oil paint is something I remember from my very early years , and to catch a breath of it still sends shivers through me. The smells of a print workshop are similarly enthralling, and the sights, and the quasi-industrial processes. These are mirrored by the industrial subject here, which also has an intense physicality just in looking at it..

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There is an excitement as the plate comes out of the acid, and the ground is removed revealing something unknown, though not yet revealing how the final work will appear. The quality of good paper is a real pleasure ; lifting it off the plate after the first print is another revelation, though there is considerable scope for change in how ink is applied for future printings, and in more work on the plate.

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Working in a print shop is more social than my studio, though I love the solitude in front of the canvas as well. Even in works like these, although printed in a communal worksop, the absorption for a prolonged period during the drawing roots it in solitary practice.

“It seemed to me that each loom was a presence, like a portrait, but fixed at a distance they looked across. The light on the floor became symbolic of the evanescence of the moment. Monochromatic work is very attractive to me. It roots the apparent in a seriousness of intent, and is dreamlike, echoing Tarkovsky’s dream scenes ; and is atemporal. It emphasises the stillness.”

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“The knotted rope is important, a visible manifestation of frozen time ; stillness, which is very much the subject ; also, a desolation, which is a question about what is left when the art work is finished, yet this is also the place of the painter’s leap of hope and faith. ”

(Quotes from RCA Application Document 2020)

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SELECTED SMALER CRAFT WORKS

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acrylic on linen 90 x 150 cm

The following refers to the left hand panel :

“The Jenny painting is a portrayal of the pathos of the animal situation - in the form of a ram’s skull, and a portrait in memory of my rescue dog Jenny. The face is disintegrating and a yellow bird on the right flies into a green grove in the cheek There is an outflow of water reminiscent of a gushing from a wound. This is also the hair of a witch, opposite whom is a mask - they don’t look at each other. Over the front of the face is an angelic figure with the face of an owl its arms outstretched in protection and containment . Each eye is different under the arch of a ram’s horn.” (See ‘Jenny and Picasso’s Minotaur’ in ‘Writings and Comments’ below)

“The voice rushes upwards and to the right - some rudiments of teeth, and the jaw are seen at the bottom. The minotaur in question is from Picasso’s Vollard suite, where the blind creature moves in a parade, that could represent symbolic elements of self, head tipped back and crying in anguish to the sky. Here the elements of speech are both anguished and magical, in keeping with the mythological context ; could this be something like the minotaur’s voice, if we were ever able to hear this?” At the end, the minotaur begs for mercy, but having no human language is not understood, symbol perhaps of the animal unheard behind the closed doors of factory farming, trapped at the labyrinth’s centre. (See also here)

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“The face of a young woman is seen on the left, from whose mouth the rectangle of utterance has come……There is a balance between the organic and linear/conceptual in the speech contents, an attempt to think about the nature of language, as both music and meaning.” The subject matter, as with all my work, is how meaning is created, the discovery is to be able to eavesdrop on that moment where the whole notion of form emerges.

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“The voice description is at the top left ; slightly below centre/right is another “focus” of pictorial activity, mixed with some rib-like structures ; this corresponds to the inner state, and the bodily machinery of voice. In between the two elements are structures similar to teeth and the jaw. The head is thrown back.

Paul Celan’s poetry grew out of his experience in the Nazi Holocaust, in which his parents died. Although speaking a number of languages, he wrote in German, the language of his oppressors. His diction became increasingly fragmented and difficult, as he became more broken in front of the pain of the subject ; it might also represent the ruins of language.”

(All quotations from RCA Application Document 2020)

“From the narrow end on the left, which is where sound emerges from silence, the fragment of a song swells towards the right, where there is a sudden stop, maybe a pause for breath at the end of a phrase. Within the phrase are known and strange characters, and fragments of these, to mimic the way harmonies resonate within music; and there are visual rhythmic elements, like musical bars.”

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“I am interested in language and have made a number of text based pieces where closely written iconic passages merge into the appearance of cloth. The voice series, which is my most current work, moves that interest from the written to the sound-based - but the mystery remains the same, and I like to play with letters in a mythic atmosphere so that they become pictorial elements but still invite meaning”

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“Another synaesthetic image of a phrase from a song, working in the same template as the previous. Here though, sound builds from the fragmentary and evanescent on the left, to a solidity of complex crescendo, before, once again, the phrase ends.Text is not so apparent, so maybe an instrumental - I am reminded, in the build up, of elements of John Coltrane’s “Ascension” which is an inspiration.”

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“Sharing a similar format to others in the “Songs” sequence , the sounds enter from the narrow point of silence on the left and read across the canvas from left to right, as in a book. Of all my work these three pieces are unusual in being in landscape orientation, which I think derives from the horizontal movement across time. This piece is more compacted indicating a fuller, more dense music. The notes do not correspond to coloured elements, but the idea is an attempt to portray a synaesthetic image.”

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“Variations in density simulate the tensions of music. Lines from above indicate musical bars. There is the possibility of a mouth opened in anguish on the right, with blue teeth above it , belonging to a creature without limbs, denoting the plight of animals in front of humans, who cruelly exploit them. This is a way I would like to develop my work….. to clarify and emphasise the image of the mouth, and the crying out of animals. My interest in voice as subject matter provides an important background.“ The voices of animals could be magical music, but these days they are largely cries of pain, unheard behind the closed doors of factory farms. My greatest hope is that my painting could become a voice for them.

(Quotes from RCA Document)

OSM 1925

Acrylic on Linen 90 x 150 cm

Acrylic on Cotton Duck 90 x 150 cm