nick-e melville


anti con detail 1

anti con detail 2

neocon detail 1

neocon detail 2

BT dub text tent

IHF is BT dub

nick-e melville writes:

Concrete art is not concrete enough. Drawn away, as it was, from abstraction to the ‘harmonious measure and law’ of colour and line. Now, i’m no artist, or i wasn’t, though i still consider myself quite likeable, if a bit hardened, but to be truly concrete, shouldn’t those forms, lines and colours be less geometric, more natural? Whoever saw a straight line in nature without a microscope? Or a block of primary colour?

The works that i have now titled neocons, developed, not as a joke, criticism, or homage, but, as a gift: a homemade (there’s a recession going on) housewarming present. The first, anti con, used the neoplastic colours of Doesburg and Mondrian, dripped simply down and up a canvas. Simple. A child could do that. Afterall, it’s not rocket science. My second attempt was different. i wanted to deconstruct and reconstruct the concrete grids of colour, but through drips, i.e., chance and imprecise estimations, allowing various fluidities of paint, down various angles of canvas, to run against the resistance of the canvas and other paints. Let the colours drip themselves a walk, grow together, as per the Latin root for concrete, naturally. And now there is a vague political allusion in the title of the second attempt, which is always nice.

Some thoughts, then, on ‘neoconcretism.’ Don’t hate me. Sometimes i consider myself very likeable, sometimes i don’t. But what do i know? i’m neither an artist, a rocket scientist, nor a child.

 
 
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