Curriculum Vitae XI-XV

Curriculum Vitae XII
oil and acrylic on board 
150 x 120 cm 
1986 - 1992

Curriculum Vitae XIII
oil and acrylic on board 
150 x 120 cm 
1986 - 1992

Curriculum Vitae XIV
oil and acrylic on board 
150 x 120 cm 
1986 - 1992

Curriculum Vitae XV
oil and acrylic on board 
150 x 120 cm 
1986 - 1992

The format of these pieces has taken some while to evolve and I have vacillated over the precise relationship of text to picture. The central image is of course the text, the commentary in each case being the surrounding pictorial matter, which in some cases is also formed out of text, emphasising the fact that I regard texts as images in their own right: treated as they are here with words ghosted behind words to form a (literal) subtext they are all the more image for being doubly text.

The text is not written in advance and I am normally only a couple of lines ahead of the painting. I have no idea how the whole text of each panel will end up when I start: often they take quite a different turn from what I'd imagined. In CV XI which talks about food the original idea was that it should be a joyful celebration. It ended up however as a dark elegy on sin and theft terminating in a funerary inscription.