Jack Otway

www.jackotway.wix.com/paintings

Each painting presents a version of that ‘painting’, existing across a photographic surface. Heavy refinement of these surfaces allows me to search for, find and (re)examine variations of pattern, tone and texture orchestrated through varying painted durations, pressures and intensities of touch. Brightness, contrast, exposure, focus and saturation are all handled IRL. As a result, the ground appears in a state of flux- it’s carved into, shifted and pulled apart. My painterly surfaces remain in dialogue with the temporal nature of the digital screen, the skewing of perception via the nature of the edit and the printed image as time sensitive. 

Drawing upon these problematic notions, my current practice examines relationships between format-specific reproduction, varying labour intensities and authenticity. By presenting a meticulously repainted all over-ness – a web or woven fabric of brush strokes – these works deal with the nature of the crop, alluding to and as if cut from a far larger expanse. This endlessness, mimicked within my process-led reworking, becomes a search. As if I’m tearing through repeated reproductions of artworks in print or online, searching for the authentic, convincing articulation: a truthful reproduction of every potential state that came before, re-presented in just one painted hit. 

Jack Otway exhibited at Griffin Gallery in the Griffin Art Prize 2015 shortlist exhibition, in November - December 2015.

 

EDUCATION

BA (Honours) Fine Art (International) (First Class) - University of Leeds, 2011-2015                       

Erasmus Year - Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Art, Krakow, 2013-2014

Foundation Art & Design (Distinction) - Alton College, Hampshire, 2010-2011

(Last updated 22.06.2016)

Share