Monday 3 September 2012

The Divine Sludge

  In my last post I was talking about my earliest encounters with real artists who knew the value of earth tones. The other night when I should have been sleeping I was instead loitering about on Twitter. I'm in a process of amazed discovery as to what an astonishing resource that app is for artists. I came upon an artist called Murat  Kaboulov and opened his site (run by a relative as he sadly died in 2010). I was immediately not only entranced by his pictures but catapulted back in a kind of eureka moment to the unswept floor of a studio in Beaufort Street Chelsea where flakes of oil paint and toast crumbs stuck to my four year old knees as I played at my mother's feet while she posed for a portrait.

  The beautifully presented website www.muratkaboulov.com even uses a version of the divine sludge colour as its background. But the paintings ...what a joy to behold....take a look at these ... I can't show you a picture because they rightly have the images protected from download but here's a screenshot you can click through on which I hope will entice you to visit and enjoy this inspirational work:
                                                       www.muratkaboulov.com/figurative
So in my dream painting Murat Kaboulov shall now be one of my guides. Each of those paintings is worth hours of study and each demonstrates masterfully how vivid colours need earth tones to work. In 60s psychedelic and pop art bright colours were allowed to stand alone but even then it was rare. A quick search of Google images for Peter Blake, that quintessential artist of the Kings Road era, revealed the use of the Divine Sludge time and time again. For just one example you might remember this piece for its bright colours but look carefully - it depends wholly on its earth colours for its impact:

I have painted pictures in the past, I'm proud of a few and not shy to sell them but I've hardly begun. I learn as I go, I try and look deeper, I know what I want to do. I'm going to have to live long I think.