together. These choices will eventually compose
your signature, lending individuality to your work.
Just as working in any painting media, the three Cs –
composition, contrast and colour – are just as relevant in
bringing the work together. In particular, combining diverse
materials to create contrasts was one of my aims.
The assemblage Towards the High Lands of Orcombe
is a good example of this. It not only contains a number of
weathered fragments from wooden boats, but also rusty
galvanised metal. Although it looks as if I added paint to
some of the pieces, this is exactly how they were found.
Nature is the great teacher and my belief is that
the found object is far more powerful than the made.
I therefore decided from the outset to let each piece speak
for itself, and not to alter their appearance in any way. I felt
that the rust, the flaking paint and the fissures had already
‘created’ the subject without any intervention on my part.
The pieces were simply cut down to the required size,
mounted onto a thin MDF board and then displayed behind
glass in a box frame. Basic materials included a saw,
sandpaper and PVA glue. Where necessary I also used
a stronger bonding glue.INFLUENCES
The use of assemblage as an approach to making art is not
a new idea. It began in earnest with Pablo Picasso’s Cubist
constructions; three-dimensional works he began to make
in the early 20th century. Other pioneers and celebratedexponents of assemblage were Alberto Burri, Joseph
Cornell and Kurt Schwitters.
Burri used unconventional arrangements of unusual
materials such as sacking, glue, charred wood, vinyl paint
and plastic sheets. These unpromising and humble
collections of materials were brought together to make
work of arresting beauty. Meanwhile, Cornell was
influenced by the Surrealists and his most characteristic
artworks were boxed assemblages created from
found objects.
Like Schwitters, Cornell could create poetry from
the commonplace. Unlike Schwitters however, he was
fascinated not by rubbish and the discarded, but by
fragments of once beautiful and precious objects that
he found on his frequent trips to bookshops and stores in
New York. His boxed constructions relied on the Surrealist
use of irrational juxtaposition, and on the evocation of
nostalgia for their appeal. “Somewhere in the city of New
York there are four or five still-unknown objects that belong
together,” wrote the poet Charles Simic in his book,
Dime-Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell.
“Once together they’ll make a work of art. That’s
Cornell’s premise, his metaphysics, and his religion.”
As the poet WB Yeats once said: “The world is full
of magic things patiently waiting for our senses to grow
sharper.” I like to think this is also my premise, with walks
along the foreshore taking on a whole new meaning.
http://www.raybalkwill.co.ukABOVE, FROM LEFT
Below Golden
Clouds the
Sun Shall Sink,
41 x15cm ; Distant
Sea and Rock
Pools, 40x15cm;
Upon the Jewelled
Shore, 38x15cm.
All mixed media.Top tip
Always try to combine
diverse or unexpected
materials to create
interesting
contrasts