BACK TO BLACK EYED SUSAN, 'the complete series'
Paintings by C.A.HALPIN with Music by MAT DUCASSE showing at
ART@42 42 Pembridge Road, Notting Hill, W11 3HN.
The paintings will be exhibited as a complete
series for the first time ever, "raw as a toothache and sweet as psychosis.
These acrylic ink imaginings tell the fairy tale of a once upon a bright moment
caught in the flashbulb memories.
Stories overheard from the middle of the night, tales to make the
neighbours hammer on the ceiling. Smartie hued times, talking in technicolour love.
Lingering and lost in the magic markered rememberings of a bleary bug eyed
morning".
The BLACK EYED SUSAN series continues a
long established way of working by C.A.HALPIN that is based on found words, images
and notes. This particular series uses
personal letters, intimate and erotic drawings, notes and images made by her
then lover MAT DUCASSE. ‘DO NOT BELIEVE THEM’ was a painting started by Mat
Ducasse, which he had abandoned and was consequently taken up by the artist to
finish and become the initial BLACK EYED SUSAN painting. Other paintings
including BLACK EYED SUSAN ‘Part One’ and BLACK EYED SUSAN Part Three’ were
begun and worked on together and then finished by C.A.Halpin. They chart the history
of a relationship through to the end of the affair. The written messages and images contained
within the paintings are layered over and turned around until they become abstracted,
distorted almost impossible to read.
Several of the paintings, once begun in unison, are worked on by C.A.HALPIN
as she turns the canvas until the images have no top or bottom, the viewer being
guided only by the forms that emerge as they are painted.
In the 2010 BLACK EYED SUSAN triptych C.A.Halpin
takes the viewer on a journey, through the space of a heartbeat. At times the eye is led to the centre of the
canvas, being enveloped and devoured by the rushing lines and floating forms, hints
of words seize our gaze. At other times
as in PLATFORM 2011 the amoebic forms drift past morphing with time into other
shapes thoughts and ideas as they meander on by. Are we passing through the
chambers of her heart or messing about with the business end of a rotooscope? Is
there sound in there? Can we hear the music of the lovers as they enter the in-between?
In ‘RING’2011 the largest of the series we witness an explosion of heat and
colour, mashed up words dashing around begging to be read perhaps understood or
not to be bothered.
This achingly psychedelic series is
based deep in the moment in between, wakefulness and sleep, here and now, male
and female, man and woman. The always been here and gone before. Bubbles that burst on waking, dreams that
drift away.
The fact that this is a complete series
with neither a beginning nor an end is important. Instead these are moments
captured using repeated forms. Sometimes
they act to disguise the meaning and at others burst with clarity. C.A.Halpin admits that they can be seen to
have a cathartic element. The paintings
abandon any right way up. Leaving the truths of each to make it’s way into the
art of being in between.
MAT DUCASSE has written NORMAL
CONSCIOUSNESS to accompany the BLACK EYED SUSAN series. He is an artist,
musician and music producer. He and
C.A.HALPIN work on collaborative projects as BLACK EYED SUSAN.
