PaDA (update)

Paint-ing as a Democratic Act.

PaDA came about from an urgency for the public to connect with painting, and for my work, based with paint, to be able to create discussions and possibilities with the broadest spectrum of people. It seemed futile to create work based in a visual experiential language if that language of communication, wasn’t working.

It was no coincidence that the acronym PaDA is similar to DADA, as I acknowledge the absurdity of paint when times are filled with horror, hate and fear. The tension between the playful materiality of paint that also holds the weight of human conscience is palpable.

Art responses were painted inside High Street shop windows and the public were invited to make their marks, with paint, on the outside. What ensued were micro rich visual conversations that could not have been planned for. Translated into an exhibition format, a live installation Joined Up Thinking, I installed a screen, similar in size to Duchamps glass, where the public could digest the artwork around them ans add their own marks. Infinite images, possibilities and a relaxing of control.

This wasn’t my exhibition. Rather a set of site based possibilities that took shape -over time- from the actions and presence of whole context and communities.

Now, today, PaDA is beginning another shapeshift… into examining play, play spaces and creating moments and sequences of moments developed with other people, together and equally, as if the process of making is now a doing of finding out.

Where art itself is a verb, process is redundant and we enter work in the Middle Bit… the space that has no demands except to follow the spontaneous sparks of curiosity that can take us to new areas of learning, growth and connection.