JACK OTWAY
Jack Otway joined us on the project in February 2022. Working with oil, acrylic and graphite on polyester, Otway makes paintings that toy with illusion, flatness and the negotiation of contrasting languages of abstraction. Beginning with a gestural underlayer, Otway focuses on the removal of paint. This is a haptic process, with the drying speed and changes in viscosity determining the way the paint catches, stutters and ripples. Otway views this process as an economy of subtraction, referencing architect Keller Easterling’s Subtraction, 2014. Easterling poses that demolition is an essential system in creating value in city building. Otway's removal of wet paint forms an initial structure where the negative space is a crucial foundation for highlights in the layer above. This extends to the naming of his paintings, numbering each one chronologically, Otway includes those he deems unsuccessful and doesn’t release to the public, amplifying the value of absence in his works.
The overlaying glaze is a measured process that uses geometric patterns and a luminous colour palette. Referencing the hyperbolic flatness of Paul Virilio’s writing, Otway is interested in how we can have a more intimate relationship with flatness as we constantly interact with it in our current technological era. While not directly referencing this in his work, Otway’s paintings navigate an optical flatness and depth that are at odds with one another, pulling us into illusion and throwing us back out in a way reminiscent of the screen as both window and boundary. The finished paintings are a triumph of colour, flatness and painterly gesture, contrasting and complementing each other in a way that demands slow looking as they push and pull at the gaze.