Orbital Comics presents a solo exhibition of new works by Carl Stimpson. The show runs until Wednesday 12th June so please come and have a look. All are welcome to come along to the private view which is on Saturday 1st June at 7 pm.
The
wand and lasso are no longer the reserve of magicians and cowboys. In this age of digital tools it has
never been easier to splice and merge, in order to create montage and composite
images. These tools (and a box of others) make it easy to achieve
seamless results, but the ability to create interesting melded and mashed
imagery remains a true challenge.
Carl
Stimpson’s analog painting practice has, over the last six years, focused on
producing strange new narratives from a host of cut and pasted comic book
images.
Femme fatales, explosions, comical characters
and Japanese heroines from Belgian comics, to name but a few, are sourced and
blended in his work. Source materials, including the works of cartoonists;
F. Bergese, Philippe Berthet, Dan DeCarlo, Frank Frazetta, Herge, Edgar P.
Jacobs, Jack Kirby and Roger Leloup, provide visual information that is
appropriated by Stimpson to create his own compositions. The viewer’s
attention switches between boyish interests of fast cars and fighter planes and
the more adult and alluring depiction of voluptuous women. Stimpson deftly composes these
paintings, turning complicated mixtures into final works that feel as though
they have always existed. The leftfield text included in his paintings
serves to disconcert and intrigue the viewer.
The
pulp aesthetic of comic book art demands, in the first instance, only a
superficial analysis from the viewer. In recent works Stimpson has looked
beyond the graphic quality of his source material in order to explore the print
processes used to create it. New paintings incorporate a subtle layering
of primary colour washes; this involved technique serves as a simulation
of the means by which the original images were produced.
The digital paintbrush is considered to be a
relatively crude tool, yet in the hands of this painter its analog equivalent
is used sensitively and deftly. Stimpson’s work reflects a painterly
aptitude, a long-standing love of the comic book medium and a broad, deepening
knowledge of its history. His paintings are peculiar, beguiling and
entertaining.
