James Milroy

Four decades of obsessive, compulsive artmaking
filling brushes with paint and dragging them across
paper and canvas until the paint runs out and has to
be refilled and refilled, covering surface after surface
with lines and shapes made of coloured brushwork,
dividing the paper and canvas into isometric grids in
order to have a visual structure beneath one's feet to
cling to and provide an illusory base for juggling ideas
and motifs, repeated motifs making patterns, allowing
variation and improvisation, where the overriding aim
is just to articulate the surface, giving it a shimmering
intensity, for what purpose, who knows, maybe simply
for the fun of filling brushes with paint and dragging
them across paper and canvas until the paint runs out...

James Milroy,
April, 2019.