'True painting, in any form, always develops a concrete existence of its own, independent of what it represents. But, if painting is to manifest itself completely free from visual representation then this principle becomes absolute.

To emphasize this condition unequivocally I started by abandoning the paintbrush, with its illusionistic associations, and adopted the paper collage technique of early Cubism in which the paintings was built forward from the picture-plane. This affirmation of the concrete surface and pigmental substance of painting led to the notion of constructing a picture like a carpenter constructs a box with wood, saw, hammer and nails. Hence the college developed into relief.

But to start intrinsically from the premiss of the painting or relief itself meant rejecting any form or method which implied a reflection of the heterogeneous effects of visual experience. The first step, therefore, was to adopt an organic process of construction in homogeneous terms.

Beginning from a standpoint of the rectangular picture-plane, this meant projecting analagous sections of its surface forwards into actual space, thus producing an orthogonal structure equivalent to that of architecture.

But once involved in three-dimensional relief, the problem of independence raised fresh questions in respect to the status of painting. If painting is to become a free object in its own right, capable of producing a maximum aesthetic impact, then it could be argued that its form would have to correspond to the dimensions of the space it occupies like any natural object. Did no the naturalist tradition use perspective in order to produce an illusion of space and solidity? This suggested that the surface format of painting could not provide the conditions necessary for complete independence unless combined with sculpture or architecture. In response to this, therefore, I continued with the development of relief projection.'



'Today meaning dissolves in order to create new meaning and what is known becomes unknown. In art the peripheral images of thought and perception reappear as anonymous objects before which is always a question. While reason sleeps the symbol awakes.'



Victor Pasmore

If we take a sheet of paper and scribble on it vigorously we become involved in the process of bringing into being something concrete and visible which was not there before. The shape and quality of what we produce is the outcome of forces both objective and subjective: a particular tool, a rotary action and a human impulse. The more we concentrate on this operation the more we are drawn into it both emotionally and intellectually. But as the line develops organically, in accordance with the process of scribbling, we find ourselves directing its course towards a particular but unknown end; until finally an image appears which surprises us by its familiarity and touches us as if awakening forgotten memories buried long ago. We have witnessed not only an evolution, but also a metamorphosis.

In calling this development a work of art we are initiating a new creative process into the history of Western culture because, if we analyse the means by which our object was brought into being, we find that it was essentially intrinsic. What mattered initially was not what our scribble would represent, but what it might become.

Victor Pasmore
February, 1969

Catalogue introduction to Victor Pasmore - The Space Within - New Paintings 1968-69, The Marlborough Gallery, London, 1969