Gregory Hodge: A Stitch in Time

In 1888, Van Gogh made numerous paintings of the landscape in Arles using multicoloured, lozenge-like marks that referenced the woven surface of fabrics and tapestries. During this period, he had studied the colour theories of French chemist Michael E. Chevreul who was the director of the Gobelins Tapestry Manufactory in Paris and had developed a method of intensifying the brilliance of colours by means of contrast. 1 Van Gogh tested the effects of different combinations of colour based on Chevreul’s theories aided by a box of colourful balls of wool that he referenced when making paintings.

Recently, I have been looking at The Hunts of Maximilian, a series of 4.5 x 6-metre tapestries displayed in the Richelieu wing in the Louvre. Woven in Brussels in the 1530s, they came into the collection of Louis XV of France in 1665. The original drawings for these tapestries are attributed to the Netherlandish painter Bernaert Van Orley (1488-1541). Depicting hunting scenes in the Soignes Forest on the outskirts of Brussels, each of the twelve tapestries are dedicated to a month of the year. The landscapes represent the changing seasons and architectural details of the surrounding areas. In the foregrounds are figures dressed in elaborate costumes riding on horses accompanied by dogs hunting deer and boar.

Looking closely at the details of these tapestries has played an important role in the development of my new paintings. Scanning across their surfaces one can trace subtle shifts in tone and texture achieved by the weaving together of different coloured threads, along with the gold and silver that was woven within the picture plane. Up-close, in the details, these tapestries reveal a microcosm of visual information and studying them has helped me develop new painterly strategies.

Tapestries of this size required enormous resources and large workshops of skilled craftspeople. This series took approximately sixty weavers three years to complete. In the mid 1500s, around one third of the population of Brussels worked, in some form or another, in the

manufacture and sale of tapestries. Amazingly, in 1797, most tapestries held in the collection of Louis XV that contained gold and silver were burned to recover their precious metals. For reasons unknown, The Hunts of Maximillian, were spared.

I have been experimenting with a range of different textural painted marks that emulate meticulous woven surfaces. By layering fast drying acrylic paint applied with various adapted tools, the up-close surface of my paintings reveals the fluidity of the material and the speed in which they were made.

An ongoing part of my practice is to generate source material by making coloured pencil drawings and digital collages. My recent drawings are rendererd using intersecting directional marks to mimic the appearance of warp and weft. My drawings and collages combine cut-out fragments of my own photographs of tapestries, landscapes, plants and interiors with gestural painterly marks. Translating these collages and drawings into paintings brings further complexities and distortions to the compositions as the representational elements are obscured.

In my new works, there is an interplay between my systemic rules of mimicry and moments of more intuitive freedom as decisions take place in the process of painting. The stacked layers oscillate between optical trickery and nuanced painterly expression. The variation of textured organic spaces, with crisp and defined masked edges, further disrupt literal readings of the representational imagery.

In The Hunt of Maximilian series, each scene is framed by an elaborate border. This framing acts as a decorative device and emphasizes the drama playing out in the scenes. In my paintings, trompe l’oeil trims act as an important pictorial strategy. Painted territories are contained within these frames while gestural marks not bound to the systems of the weave underneath, hover like loose threads, draping fabric or ribbons and appear to project out into space, defying logic, in a moment of baroque theatricality.