December 1 - 19 January 2019
Castor Projects
Enclave 1
50 Resolution Way
London, SE8 4AL
Tom Worsfold starts painting without a plan, allowing objects to coalesce on canvas and conjuring range of possible worlds, memories and references. This text was written using a similar method.
Volume
Tom Worsfold’s paintings can be full or empty, quiet or loud. The canvas is either a figurative container for abstract ideas, or an abstract vessel for figurative schemes. There are baskets, bags, bodies being used as bags and forms being unzipped like bags. If this is sculpture as painting, the sculptures here are receiving an endoscopy.
Density
In Worsfold’s paintings, complexity and simplicity occur in equal measure. Large objects, such as leaves and tongues slide into space and obstruct our view, whilst the innards of a snake are revealed in a graphic cross-section. We have no choice but to read it all simultaneously.
Models are real
Olafur Elliason says that models are not representations of reality but that they are real. Models are activated by their users and no space is model free. The spaces within Worsfold’s paintings are full of physical, social and political models. They might be guides, archetypes and real.
Paint effects
A furry black line recalls Christopher Wool’s wirey spray paints. A blurred rainbow is all Morris Louis. Flat, sweaty pinks make me think of Phillip Guston. Worsfold’s paintings employ a range of motifs and references. This is not a checklist, a challenge or a role call. This is what paint has done and what painting can do.
After effects
Posterization is an effect in Photoshop. The continuous tonal gradation of an image is reduced to several areas of fewer tones, with abrupt changes between tones. Photographic images can appear like graphic posters in a few clicks. In basketball, posterized is a slang term. An offensive player dunks over a defensive player with such ferocity or elegance that it warrants the moment being immortalised into a poster. In both cases, images are made.
Speed equals distance divided by time
There’s a velocity to collage, an immediacy of legibility. The most obtuse objects come together with an economic, satisfying snap. In Worsfold’s paintings, this process decelerates. Objects and forms converse, rather than collide. In screen-printing, the snap is the often-minute space between a screen and a surface. Many will only witness Worsfold’s paintings on or through a digital screen. For many, the snap will be more than a few millimetres.
Tom Worsfold starts painting without a plan, allowing objects to coalesce on canvas
and conjuring range of possible worlds, memories and references. This text was
written using a similar method.
Volume
Tom Worsfold’s paintings can be full or empty, quiet or loud. The canvas is either a
figurative container for abstract ideas, or an abstract vessel for figurative schemes.
There are baskets, bags, bodies being used as bags and forms being unzipped like
bags. If this is sculpture as painting, the sculptures here are receiving an endoscopy.
Density
In Worsfold’s paintings, complexity and simplicity occur in equal measure. Large
objects, such as leaves and tongues slide into space and obstruct our view, whilst the
innards of a snake are revealed in a graphic cross-section. We have no choice but to
read it all simultaneously.
Models are real
Olafur Elliason says that models are not representations of reality but that they are
real. Models are activated by their users and no space is model free. The spaces
within Worsfold’s paintings are full of physical, social and political models. They might
be guides, archetypes and real.
Paint effects
A furry black line recalls Christopher Wool’s wirey spray paints. A blurred rainbow is all
Morris Louis. Flat, sweaty pinks make me think of Phillip Guston. Worsfold’s paintings
employ a range of motifs and references. This is not a checklist, a challenge or a role
call. This is what paint has done and what painting can do.
After effects
Posterization is an effect in Photoshop. The continuous tonal gradation of an image
is reduced to several areas of fewer tones, with abrupt changes between tones.
Photographic images can appear like graphic posters in a few clicks. In basketball,
posterized is a slang term. An offensive player dunks over a defensive player with such
ferocity or elegance that it warrants the moment being immortalised into a poster. In
both cases, images are made.
Speed equals distance divided by time
There’s a velocity to collage, an immediacy of legibility. The most obtuse objects come
together with an economic, satisfying snap.
In Worsfold’s paintings, this process
decelerates. Objects and forms converse, rather than collide. In screen-printing,
the snap is the often-minute space between a screen and a surface. Many will only
witness Worsfold’s paintings on or through a digital screen. For many, the snap will be
more than a few millimetres.