Etymology: the origin of a word and the historical development of its meaning
A series of paintings using the metaphor of histories, evolutions and meanings.
Words are spoken and sometimes written. These painted forms consist of delineating blocks of colour and their repetitions within.
Moving left to right through chronological time, highs and lows of hierarchies, we see similar types of compositions. The same syllables, lyrical and repeated. A form may not have a lineage however, repeated sufficiently, harmonies and a greater whole emerge.
Our cognition process quickly delineates the foreign from the familiar. If we speak a word enough times it dissolves into a phonetic exercise – it becomes something new. Our cognitive brain feels safe with these repetitions up until a point.
Having previously lived in Mexico, Cuba and France I was always intrigued by the commonalities between English, Spanish and French. Many phrases exist autonomously but when experienced in the context of the broader language and culture, they become succinct. We try to express ourselves within our vocabularies via inflections, tonal variations and pronunciations. These personal signifiers within our shared vocabularies create the unique.
In these works I’ve chosen to use aerosol enamels and airbrushed acrylics, which are both unforgiving, yet yield serendipitous results. Embracing unexpected imperfections and trying to control them creates an ongoing tension.
Some paintings contain gestures – yet not always the same. Some have been painted within a stencil or using a paintbrush; a decree imposing its arbitrary authority. There are hard lines pitted against the gesture of individuality. There are freedoms overlaid with constraints.
Externally the packages are contained by positive white spaces suggesting boundaries and allowing for comparisons. The painted rhythmic slivers akin to repeated syllables or phrases – coalescing to form a new image. Repetition may create abstraction yet, repeated enough, may also create a new kind of structure – an ordered chaos.
The different, now has a chance to become familiar.
-Karl Shoobridge
Image: Black Sun, 2025, spray enamel on polycotton
