Juice One Two Six
Alchemy Metal Book
38 off set litho pages bound together to form Alchemy Metal book, in early the 1990’’s i was one of a group of artists that would come together as the Ikonoklast Movement, a group that wanted to push the boundaries of the graffiti art form. As i found my feet as an artist my experimentation in the late 1980’s into the 1990’s with colour and paint informed where i would later go with my art. Aerosol paint in the 1980’s was Dupli colour, Carplan, Hycote, and a defunct auto paint Parsons, they were not Designed for the use we put it too, whilst artists explored the use of the opaque part of the paint range my interest turned to the metallic paint which had an iridescent quality, ever changing when viewed at an angle and in changing light. My experimentations on wall would inform my experiments on line board, canvas, acetate and glass, a surface i had come to love above all surfaces. Scraping paint, dripping paint, Rorschach and splashed paint expanded my visual technical language, which became my signature techniques, colour distortion and colour demolition descriptive terms i used to describe techniques i developed, which would translate and scale from small scale sketch experiments to canvas and glass and wall murals, A commission in 1991 for Auto K a German Automotive paint manufacturer introduced me to paint specifically made for uses beyond cars, the Belton DecoSpray range had gloss, matt, and an amazing range of metallic paint and Pearlescent paint, as the years went by i would acquire an extensive range of exotic aerosol paint, each paint had a unique chemical composition, when combined produced a variety of chemical and textural and visual reactions and finishes.
In the mid 1990’s i got hold of some aluminium off set Litho plate, and the idea started to form around an abstract sketch book, i wanted to gather all the paint and style techniques together, i had experimented with Rorschach with Cellulose and acrylic paint to produce the Pressed flower colour works/book and assorted acetate sketch experiments, the aluminium plates would be the pages of my sketchbook, comb bound, making it a singular document, this was my reinvention of the black book, the fabled writers sketch book. Alchemy is the medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. It was concerned particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir, a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination, this was a perfect description of what i was doing with the pages of the book. My book would be split into 3 sections like early examples of the periodic table of chemicals elements the group were Precious, Erotic and Rare Earth Metals, these section titles would inform the colour, the texture, the motion of the gestural scrapes, then in 3 painting binges the Alchemy Metal book was born. Beyond the metal book the experiments continued, loose metal pages were painted throughout the 1990’s none would be bound together as a complete sketch book like alchemy, but i would continue to push the form with the Venom’s and Perth metals, the Venom Metals a 5 panel continuous signature like flowing scrape, the largest that i have ever produced and the Perth Metals taking the form into the portrait and diptych format with juxtaposing scrapes. Robert Elliott / Juice One Two Six
Red Scrape - Aerosol Paint on Line board - 1987
Erotix - Blueprint Gallery, Selly Oak 1989
Tattooed Tears - Blueprint Gallery, Selly Oak 1990
Blue Scraped Glass - Aerosol Paint on Glass - 1991
Poured Landscape - Aerosol Paint on Line Board - 1992
Untitled Pressed Flower series - Acrylic Paint on acetate - 1992
Untitled Pressed Flower series - Acrylic Paint on acetate - 1992
alchemy |’alkmi | noun [ mass noun ] the medieval forerunner of chemistry, concerned with the transmutation of matter, in particular with attempts to convert base metals into gold or find a universal elixir. • a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination: finding the person who's right for you requires a very subtle alchemy. DERIVATIVESv alchemic |alˈkɛmɪk|adjective, alchemical |alˈkɛmɪk(ə)l|adjective, alchemist noun, alchemize (also alchemise )verb ORIGIN late Middle English: via Old French and medieval Latin from Arabic al-kīmiyā', from al ‘the’ + kīmiyā' (from Greek khēmia, khēmeia ‘art of transmuting metals’).
Alchemy Metal Book
Precious Metals
Erotic Metals
Rare Earth Metals
Loose Metal Pages
Venoms Metals
Perth Metals
