Personal Project Development.

Initially i wanted to create work that responded to my current setting as an artist in Newcastle; I thought this would predominately take shape (exploring new subject territory) as landscape and seascape studies of Northumberland and Tynemouth. Having being warned to avoid typical 'postcard' subject matters such as Tyne bridge, i began thinking about making this 'postcard' element explicit and perhaps painting these scenes to appear formally as paintings of  postcards. However over my brief trip back to London over the Easter break, i salvaged a large collection of old family Postcards, letters, albums etc which fascinated me. It is hard to say what it was that captured my interest in these images, but they became the subject of my subsequent work (and perhaps the foreseeable future). The postcards dated from around 1907 and many had correspondence written on the reverse; all belonged to my grandfathers's Aunts Postcard collection.

Different aspects of each postcard interested me, for some it was the physical object and others the image or handwriting and i suppose literary context. The above painting was created from a postcard that particularly interested me, due to its circular shape and also how is was curiously off centre. I painted this as if it were on a gallery postcard, and kept a limited palate and the subject matter slightly hazy. I was also interested in the use of Text, and a phrase on the back of the postcard which stated "this space may now be used for communication" which i letter transferred on to the right hand side.

I continued to work with the postcards, adding paint and text (inspired by Ed Ruscha). I also created a collage of enlarged sections of the photographs and painting which i then painted into, again with a liited palate and blurring the image to reflect this loss of information.

I had various other studies alongside this exploring different qualities concerned with the postcards. I have decided that i would like to create professional postcards of all my 'finished works' and build up a postcard portfolio. When considering my work i realised that this notion of reproduction was an underlying conceptual interest of mine; questioning what my final 'outcome' could be considered to be. Is it the painting? or is the postcard reproduction of the painting sufficient enough, does a viewer get any more or indeed any less out of seeing the actual piece of work?