Tom Yates
Yates creates a space where he sets painting texts against each other. Abstraction, perspective, images of celebrity; all these texts are carefully placed to provoke an interference. The actual act of painting, of the re-presentaion of images happens as a performance. These are not paintings that slowly develop over days and weeks but are prepared for and then performed in one nocturnal session. There is ritual, preparation like a sound check, like a taoist artist preparing, setting out ink pots and paper ready for an intense moment. It happens and its finished, there is no re-working. The texts are now joined to form this one new space. They are no longer single elements, they form a new mass, a new creature, hybrid form that inhabits the surface of the canvas.
