Artistic Statement

The work I produce is concerned with the patterns and geometrics of modern architecture and the industrial.
The urban landscape (as a result of modernist and new-brutalist design) is constructed from clean lines and geometrics. I'm interested in the (particularly modernist) idea that these geometrics promote calm and instil order - it interests me to see what happens when the patterns are undermined.
My paintings deal with the mark that breaches the line that contains it or the industrial pattern that is repeated so many times it becomes a blurred mass. Yet when the line is breached, it is only just breached, so the marks are not to be thought of as expressive, but represent more of a controlled lapse.
I am interested in the tension created when the areas of colour do not adhere to geometric boundaries. Here, I believe the painting becomes as much about the paint as it does about the geometric form that it is representing.
So here it hovers between representation and 'abstraction', - like hanging marks off a framework..

I work on a varying scale, a lot of my past works are large-scale, but I have recently worked on a series of smaller paintings (approximately 50cm x 50cm). All my work is oil on canvas. The colours I use are borrowed directly from the urban and industrial landscape. I work in a muted palette of concrete greys, browns and institutional greens. I'm very interested in the huge depth and range such supposedly 'restrained' colours can give.
I am influenced by a lot of German painters - Kiefer and Kippenberger to Albert Oehlen. I believe the dark, industrial palette and the 'loose' way in which they handle paint has influenced me a lot. Also Luc Tuymans, for the power he achieves with a muted palette and Christopher Wool for his representation of city surfaces.
I am also interested in Pierre Huyghe's work, particularly what he has done with the idea of inserting human spirit into the 'coolness' of modern architecture, re-activating the optimism of modernism. This relates to my work, as I recognise the ideology of modernist design, but I also recognise its fallibility.

Ross Walker