Loud Noises From Various Empty Vessels

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I decided I needed more colour in my digital work, and started playing around with ways of coaxing pure, saturated, and even clashing colours out of some perfectly ordinary photographs, in the process turning them into the sort of thing that someone who revels in colours for their own sake might want to hang on their headache-inducing wallpaper, right above their fever-dream sofa fabric. Zzzing!

This sort of project (if we can dignify a bit of experimental mucking about as a "project") always seems to work best with a theme, and I started out with the "Gates of Paradise" (beyond which everything turns psychedelic, as any fule kno) but really got into my stride with "vessels" of various sorts: bottles, jars, dishes, and so on. A trawl through the backfiles netted quite a few candidate images. What followed may have you reaching for the paracetamol, sunglasses, or perhaps even the phone to report me as having gone temporarily insane, if these hues are a little too much for you. But then you should see the ones I'm not showing: hey, we learn from our mistakes.

Most interesting to me, though, was the way various recognisable approaches to painting could be conjured from these entirely, um, photo-realistic photographs. Now, I'm sure I must have mentioned somewhere over the past fifteen years that I used to be quite a decent painter in my younger years. I was even entered for – and won – several national competitions for painting in primary school, and exhibited a few times in local shows in my teenage years. But, much as I like making pictures, I'm not one of those who revel in the paintiness of paints.

You've seen the people who do, I'm sure, in their paint-smeared overalls, the hands-on brush-wranglers who adore the textures, the messiness, and all the process and paraphernalia involved in getting pigment onto paper, board, or canvas. Above all, what I hated was that everything needed thoroughly cleaning up straight after you'd finished your session of dabbing, scraping, and splashing, which has to be one of the most tedious, mood-altering chores there is. Unless, of course, you have (a) a studio, and (b) an assistant or two. I have always preferred drawing, endured the darkroom, but digital photography and imaging truly hit the spot for me, in every possible way. But painting does still interest me, in the way sports might interest someone who used to be a natural athlete in their school years.

I find it fascinating how, if "expressiveness" and "colour" are given the upper hand, the tricks and turns of various conventional manners of painting and print-making can be persuaded to emerge from the shadows of an ordinary photo, as if they'd been hiding there all along. So much so, I'm pretty sure that some of these would stand a very good chance of success in many open-entry exhibitions, as they look just like the sort of thing that always does get selected.

Except, it's an interesting question whether the judges would regard these as "authentic" pictures: they're prejudiced enough against digital imaging and photography as it is. It's an interesting question, but one which I'm not going to explore again today: if it interests you, why not follow the link in the previous sentence? It is curious, though, that the one true provocation of "conceptual" art – that craft skills, however hard-won, are not in themselves the same thing as art – is somehow never taken on board by so many self-styled gatekeepers in the art world. A safe, derivative painting of a jug, something you've seen a thousand times before, is decor, not art.

But, listen, if you're not a squillionaire looking for a unique investment opportunity and just after something suitable to hang on the wall above that razzle-dazzle sofa, look no further! What size would you like? Would you rather have it in red? Not a problem here at Mikea...