The title of this work, AHWAK (2015) – meaning ‘I Adore You’ – comes from a 1950s song by the Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez (1929-1977). It remains one of my favourite pieces of music.

The painting continues my long fascination with process as the subject of painting.

Commencing the work I have no idea of a final outcome, other then to stay within the painting’s organism and to finalise or complete the whole in a similar fashion to how it started.

I use any technique when suitable – spray-paint, rollers, brush and fingernails. Gestures are applied quickly and retraced slowly and images are recognised, pulled out and also erased, thereby allowing the activity of painting to render obvious the processes of thinking through paint.

Much like music, where several instruments play different components of a composition, here colours and shapes work in a variety of ways, yet create a complete picture. Rather than pre-empting an aesthetic outcome, the methods act out a functional purpose. I don’t resist illusionistic tendencies as I believe that these are unavoidable aspects of painting; the viewing and the making of the work goes in and out as
it moves along the surface. Flatness and depth are effects as much as the shapes and gestures, which may seem fast or slow, intentional or accidental. The sum total is colour and shapes connecting and separating to clearly identify the decisions I made in this moment in time. 

 

Matthys Gerber - March 2016