Page 32 - WTPO Vol. VII #5

Humphries makes drawings that
are emotional and technical.
They link the visual language of landscape, color theory, and constructed elements. The works, “watercolor drawings,” are made by researching the sacred in a myth, an ungraspable character, or ephemeral natural phenomena. The properties of the tale are codified into a recipe then followed to generate a representation of the subject. The codification of the infinite contains and places a limit on the unconceivable. The recipes are followed ritualistically. The representation of this code in painting is a religion (of sorts). He paints religions (probably). Some parts of the ritual are rendered in the form of gestures, some drafted lines and curves, some of collaged photographic elements, and other constructed pieces of wood floating above the plane of the paper.
The start is by researching a particular event in the landscape or mythological character. After study, several attempts are made at sketching a version of the drawing representing the ephemeral quality or figure. Next, a recipe is formulated. This recipe is then followed from five to eighteen times. The final drawings could be considered religious and also different ver- sions from the test kitchen.
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John huMPhrieS