A Following Cadence

Abstract

James Cousins' work is known for combining found lens-based depictions of nature with elements drawn from genealogies of abstract painting. His 2020 exhibition, Song Chain, significantly stripped away the densely packed layers prominent in earlier works. In these pared-back works, Cousins' spray-painted rhythmic bands were given space to oscillate and perform. A Following Cadence similarly sees the use of banded grounds, but with an additional layer of oil paint in a re-purposing of a wave motif into patterned overlays. Here Lupin refers to a rendered use of a botanical image embedded within the stencilled layer, albeit with likenesses pushed to peripheries of colour and shadow. In this sense, the lupin's faux presence as concealment rhymes with the canvas' reliance on the frame supports. In other included paintings, arrangement or composition are derived through accumulated direct paint application. These works self-consciously capture acts of trialling and testing, rehearsals of colour, scale and variation. The two sets of works could be seen to be coercive in capturing moments of interrelation between input and output, control and unpredictability, malleable expressions that allude to pressures and forces external to the works and their place.