The other day Heather Burwell, (fellow student) and I were talking about our work. Heather suggested I look at the work of Mel McCuddin… A bit of googling took me to the website of The Spirit Gallery, which represents McCuddin.
McCuddin describes himself as a ‘figurative expressionist’. He started making abstract expressionist paintings in the 50’s, ‘because that was what everyone was doing’ but evolved a style of figuration in response to a need to ‘more precisely articulate’ his thoughts. His process starts with a loose expressionistic underpainting, from which figures then appear and are developed. I think this is very much like the surrealists using chance techniques to access the subconscious; for example Max Ernst using frottage as a starting point.
I like the quirky oddness of the work, but also find it interesting that his work developed from abstract to figurative and not the other way around. Particularly interesting is the way he talks, in his artist’s statement, about his paintings being, ‘a record of the evolution of an idea’.
He uses warm colours to create a glow and a sense of light coming from behind or from everywhere and not any particular place. He also thinks a single figure is more powerful than groups.
https://theartspiritgallery.com/artist/Mel_McCuddin/works/14852
This resonates with my ideas of distinct images or forms on an ambiguous ground and no sense of place. His processes are quite different than what I’ve employed so far, but I have been interested in the surealist’s ideas about what Ernst called ‘liberting ‘procedures. I found a short Youtube clip of McCuddin working in his studio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3wz9wg0Dos I’m inspired to try experimenting with some of his ways of working.