Terminal Greys

Adding a week's residual pigment to a Terminal Greys panel

Terminal Greys Study
oil on canvas
59.5 x 34cm
1973

Trying To Make A Fourth Grey Rainbow
oil on canvas
1975

Each week, on Saturday, the colours set out but not used up are mixed together. The resultant usually neutral and dreary-looking hue announces suddenly, when put in the context of its predecesors, its own richness and particularity.

The first tall narrow canvas accommodated twenty one greys and this pleasant number has been adhered to ever since. I thought I would make a cross which linked five points to stand at the top of the overall covering of grey. As the crosses progress downwards with successive applications of paint so each grey comes into conjunction with up to seven others.

The first series of Terminal Greys was built from acrylics. My return to oil painting soon after made for denser, cumulative textures, thicker in summer (when paint clogs and dries on the palette) than in winter. Since, by the rules that grew out of the work, all the residual paint has to be used, the last layers (which only serve to cover a small part of the canvas) are often extremely thick.

Since I am now only the functionary and artificer of the enterprise I feel free to express my pleasure at the result. The more panels that are seen together the more inevitable and right they look and the more the dross is seen to be transmuted into gold. Of all the things I have done I enjoy the contemplation of these the most.

Although this 'classic' format of Terminal Greys has persisted there have been other experiments and excursions along the way, sometimes with miniature versions or longer compilations. More arduous were the three versions of a Terminal Grey Rainbow which involved agonies of indecision as each grey was applied to an estimated place on the spectrum.

Adapted from Work and Texts (1992),  pp. 36-39.