A good day’s work today. I added graphite powder to the deckchairs and having done one I realised I’d have to rethink how I was going to display them; the graphite had given the canvas of the deckchair a metallic look, making it appear like the remnant of a battlefield which I liked very much. I’ve always thought that an empty chair is never completely empty, that it somehow contains the presence of a person, and with all three painted, they also collectively took on the appearance of the dead and wounded of the Front.
I’m now thinking of getting three more after my girlfriend considered them – when they were white (as above) – to be like the white gravestones of a military cemetery. I think the contrast between the two sets would be very interesting. There is also something of a shadow about the graphite deckchairs, which ties in nicely with what I wrote yesterday. These shadows are collapsing to the ground, recumbent; dead.