MARK SURRIDGE
OPENINGS


26TH JUNE UNTIL 18TH JULY

‘Vainly i dug for a perfect sky,
piling a barrier all around
Then one black night, lifting a heavy tile,
i crushed the skeletal void!’

‘Muo’, from the book, Lucien Stryk, Taashi ikemoto


Introduction

Openings is an exciting breakthrough exhibition for Mark Surridge, representing a clear development of his vision through a dramatic questioning of his creative approach.

Since 1998 Surridge had been making paintings which took primary inspiration from the elemental nature of the landscape, effectively capturing its might and power with romantic zeal. These ‘matter’ paintings were adventurous, using combinations of paint, sand, sawdust, soil and carborundum to achieve an impasto surface, emphasising and enforcing the physicality of the forces that he aimed to evoke. This ‘flow’ of work concluded in 2006 with a period of what Surridge describes as ‘reflection and reassessment’.

despite being an intrepid painter, Surridge felt that a greater ‘freeing up’ of the process was increasingly important. investigations ensued, with greater internal examination being added to the external interrogation that had gone before. He adopted methods of psychic automatism and listening to the subconscious through Freudian experiments, with the aim of developing the parameters in which the work was operating, placing an open ‘self’ as part of the equation within the work.

The physical and formal element was thus finally developed: Constraints had been shed. Surridge see’s himself as a painter, but what exactly can a painter be when free to roam? at what point does painting become sculpture and in turn, at which point does this move in to installation? a journey and outcome that we get to witness, where one form of expression shifts and informs the other. This honest, unhindered experience is immersive, exciting and liberating - for all involved.

Surridge states,“My work is about trying to understand who we are, where we come from and where we are going”, this questioning is alive and clearly evident in this multi sensory collection. Time spent with these pieces, individually and collectively, provides us with brief openings into a place of wholeness. Surridge’s aim has been to share “an appreciation of the natural world and losing ‘the self ’ or ‘the ego’: to be invisible in the subject matter, but remembered in the work”. i believe that these goals have been emphatically achieved. But rather than providing big elusive answers, we are reminded of how infinite the questions are. Observe with awe and wonderment, there remains so much more to say and see.


Joseph Clarke. 2010


Artist Statement

For me it is the physical act of making that informs my work. i use the principles of the ‘palimpsest’ to look at the world through a series of layering – the most distant layers erased or partially erased by the ones in front.

applying archaeological terms to examine patterns and shapes found in the natural world i am striving to illuminate some of the mysteries that confront us when we allow ourselves time to sit and notice. i believe that nature’s patterns can be found within oneself.

When in the studio i focus on “being in the now” experimenting with methods of mark-making and psychic-automatism to unleash signs and metamorphic forms that can be repeated and sequenced evoking biological spawning and breeding. This corresponds with my interest in the cycles and seasonal changes found in the natural world; i site fractal art and eastern Taoist and Zen philosophies to bind these ideas.
exploring naturally formed geometry in swathes of plants, the rhythmic forms found in tree branches, passing clouds and the fluidity of water, for me it is this new way of seeing the world and the engagement with ‘materials’ that connects me with my environment making the creative process authentic and complete.


Mark Surridge. 2010


A palimpsest is a parchment which has been written on twice, the first writing having been erased (or partially erased) to make place for the second. Some historians use the term to describe the way people experience time as a layer of present experiences over faded past. The term has a wider application, in its
broadest sense it is a trace of something that has gone before.