John Squire
It occurred to me whilst working on the first two shows honing, reducing, abstracting those curvilinear forms, burying entire paintings and layering to the point of confusion, that what I was doing had a parallel not only within my character but in that of the nation as a whole. Reserved, repressed, impassive, inscrutable and hard to reach,

I felt this connection could be explored more thoroughly.

I began to dismember articles of clothing with English connotations and incorporate sections into the paintings.

Coats, jackets, skirts, trousers, shirts, blouses and track suits are cut sewn and re-cut then drawn across hessian covered boards before being surrounded by or embedded in multiple layers of encaustic.

It gives me a wonderfully warm feeling to create these paintings and simultaneously underline the uptight, po-faced side of my character and country.

John Squire
December 2007