PRESSURE - BLOW OUT

When I was a student of architecture in the late 'seventies, we all favoured those tea-chest stencils.  I imagine most of us liked them because of their earlier use by Le Corbusier (then, truly worshipped by students and staff).  

I also liked them because they were used extensively in the artist Tom Phillips' work.  When I was doing my Master's in art at Sussex, he came down to give a lecture, and I asked him where he got his set from.

So, courtesy of my Mother's tireless efforts with the phonebook and an underground ride to Dagenham, I got four sets of industrial metal stencils - 2 inch, 1 inch, 1/2 inch and 3/8 inch high.  I used them throughout the rest of my student time on all my drawings.

Much later, when I started my art practice, I used them on all my paintings - titling and signing with my 1 inch set along the side of my deep canvases.  I dab acrylic paint through each stencil, letter by letter, and have to clean each one immediately after use.  They are all still in pretty near the same condition as when my Mother gave them to me.

Here are two new pieces which explore new ways of using them:

Pressure, 1200mm x 300mm

Blow Out, 1200mm x 300mm

These are both made on marine plywood (new for me), and the letters are made by applying texture paste through my 2 inch stencil set.  This means that the letters stand proud from the rest of the surface by up to 5mm.  The photos aren't great, but you can just see my more usual 'architecture' of weld seams and rivets - and, of course, the oxidisation.