Suzanne Laidlaw

I chose to limit my 1st year of painting in the UK to black and white works in acrylic on paper. I needed parameters, a simplification from which to experiment after the ordeal of ‘cultural overlaod’ while travelling. It was winter and dark in London early in the day, the city was shades of grey. I knew already the work would alternate between figurative and abstract images, that the engagement was with types of painting, that style could fluctuate between paintings, that identity was fluid and plural. Barthes ‘death of the author’ meant a signature style no longer applied and that a conceptual and idea based painting was possible. Pat Steir painted a work entirely of other styles, Jennifer Bartlett’s ‘Rhapsody’ and her work from the South of France put aside the singular identity to explore technique and style. I found diversity itself was a new authenticity, that it challenged the stable authentic fixed position and from here I produced conceptual grid collages, roller painted and brush painted figures in transition, semi-abstract expressionist line works and detailed figurative narratives protesting against modernism.