This is the companion piece to the work I showed in Material Presence Part 1 at Fitzrovia Gallery last week.  

It is part of a larger body of work called Birds Are The Opposite of Time  – a project I developed whilst listening to Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps (Quartet for The End of Time) by Olivier Messiaen. The work was composed in a prisoner of war camp in 1940 and was inspired by the Apocalypse as it is described in the Book of Revelation. The title, Birds are the Opposite of Time, is taken from Messiaen’s notes on part III of the work – Abyss of the Birds: ‘The Abyss, which is Time, with its sadness and weariness. The birds are the opposite of Time: they represent our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows and for jubilant song.’ Messiaen was a passionate ornithologist and in the same way he saw music and birds as being the opposite of time as it marks out the finiteness of life, I see artmaking as being the opposite. Painting is an expression of my inner life, which feels infinite in its formless constancy to my sense of being. 
I am seeking to create a feeling of vitality  and performance when I make a painting and I am driven by a sense of compulsion and necessity. Aspiring to develop new language I work in an exploratory way, learning as much from failures and mistakes as discoveries. 

The Finissage of Material Presence Part 2 is today, 26th November, 12-5pm at Fitzrovia Gallery and the last day of the exhibition is tomorrow (10am-3pm)  

The exhibition features paintings and sculpture by talented artists from the Turps Correspondence Course of 2021-2022

Material Presence
Fitzrovia Gallery
139 Whitfield St, 
London 
W1T 5EN

Birds Are The Opposite of Time (2022) by Joy C Martindale, Acrylic on paper

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