Paintings from the Nineties *

* Paintings from the Nineties

The last six of the monumental series, were finished in 1990 - number 34, on December 29th. This included the 8-by-12 culmination of the series, number 33 - now at the National Gallery. For the next 13 years, 1991 to 2003, most of the masonite sheets that came into the Bloore Studio were cut in half for 4-by-4's. The square proportion of the 33 8-by-8's was retained but scaled down to search for new motifs.

32 4-by-4 paintings were done between July 9, 1991 and May 31, 1993. Then a series of 19 were done from July '93 to March '94. This was followed by a summer of about 50 large inkworks and a fall with five transitional 4-by-4's, four of which used coloured lines. The next series of 20 works in 12 months did lead up to another three panel 8-by-12 but tragically it was destroyed half way to completion by the effects of a burst steam pipe December 12th, 1995.

Three months later the quest recommenced "from scratch" it was said. This phrase only referred to energetic rather than intellectual momentum because the next series, begun March '96, picked up aesthetically right where the steam pipe broke in. After a time 3-by-4's and 4-by-6's entered the mix and finally, after a 2-by-2 maquette and a 4-by-4 maquette, there was another 8-by-8, number 29, in January '97 which was completely different from anything done in the eighties.

Was there now to come thirty-four more monumental works? Where would they go? The last run of large works - given a marvelous exhibiting in Terrence Heath's show which crossed the country - was very poorly received. They were stored and ignored in the studio racks - except the few that had been given away, with no small effort, for which not a single letter of thanks nor even acknowledgement had been received.

So Bloore turned to his brushes. Who knew he even had any brushes? How old were these brushes? Dusty, yes but only the best - in perfect working order - and seductive - not crisp like the palette knives - they were soft and light - "sexy," he said.

The Brush Line series started only two weeks after the 8-by-8 and ran to some 34 works by June '98, mainly smallish but a few 4-by-6's. Many of these were bought up by painters who, we can suppose, related more directly to their making and consequently felt even more acutely their astonishing, sometimes confounding, virtuosity.

The next six paintings called the Blue Series proved to be the first six of eight transitional works, five blueish 3-by-4's, a brownish 4-by-4, and then two white 4-by-6's [What will we call these things when we go all metric?].

The regrettably named New Series ensued and ran to about 20 works from January '99 to July 2000.