Shop front mock-ups

Shop front mock-ups (long explanation incoming)

Something I’ve been looking at from the start of my practice in abstraction is the idea of using abstract expressionist marks and motifs to form my personal visual language. While each painting and illustration can be considered a standalone work, there are symbols, shapes and brushstrokes that are recurrent through every medium in which I work.

My approach to creating these was completely random, letting my hand move as I saw fit; I continue to do this, making each iteration of a ‘motif’ unique to the piece in which it lies. As with my paintings, much of my inspiration comes from Wassily Kandinsky, whose works such as ‘Auf Weiss II’ are often interpreted as visualisations of music, physics and centrifugal force, and of Kandinsky’s synaesthesia. In a similar vein, I try to use my symbols to encapsulate mood and energy throughout my work - only I know how that feels to me, and every viewer will interpret it differently.

I have isolated some symbols and used them to decorate areas of the shopfronts here, so they are individual components of the piece rather than an addition to a background, which they often become. Just the start of some new things to play with. Enjoy