Abbey Lyman

The series of paintings presented in WANA explore the nature of IHI and WEHI  and how they operate through a painted space. Within the studio IHI (magnetism)  and WEHI (fear/awe) operate as essential driving forces, forever there, interacting  and moving. A thrumming baseline that moves painting forwards, and shifts it from safety and preconception into a place not yet seen, WANA.  

Over a series of cold evenings, time was spent in the studio, sitting on a kitchen stool, painting in this assemblage of ideas. What came out of it was a series of five  painted works. 

Four smaller works were created in duos (“Of Wood And Of Water” and “A  Sea Available, A Step Lost”, “The Tulips They Sow” and “In Dancing Hours”)  creating cyclic nature to painting. One that allowed each painting some time to rest  when it entered a state of interest, and for myself to take a moment to pause and  watch the interactions at play in the work before responding. 

During the painting process there is a weaving of sensation, emergence and  intervention. Where painting undulates between informed habitual mark making  and a more chaotic, urgent response. Some moments in the painting process were  more meditative. Some moments provoked fear that the work was toppling into  something else entirely and were promptly washed over with a glaze of oil paint.  Some brought no sensation at all, these were the hardest to respond to and were  often met with tense, erratic marks. Some elements were guiltily fuelled by my own  expectations and preconceptions of aesthetic harmony. These elements were  watched and often not welcomed, some were scraped off of the painting surface  entirely.  

The final fifth canvas however acted as mediator for the other four, often being  worked on at the every end of a painting session with the intent to unwind and  explore a different direction of sensations. It is a freer bodily response to IHI. One  that had been waiting in my studio and collecting marks for a couple of years. A  work very essential in the making and realisation of this body of work.