Carl Arroyo & Barry Stedman

Carl Arroyo
‘Suddenly everything feels intensely strange as the past and present slip into a
space where memory and consciousness, certainty and uncertainty, isolation and
connection shift to form something new without signifiable meaning but emotion,
emotion impelling gesture.’
Despite my painting’s disorderly scattering of marks, doodles, motifs, half
legible cryptic references, and asemic text, (writing without alphabet) they
are a coherent collection of exuberantly executed work that explores the
interaction of texture, composition, form and palette. When painting I
embrace a form of 'optimistic uncertainty' which helps to generate work that
is emotionally expressive, playful, bold and energetic.
The paintings are paradoxical in nature, uncompromising yet approachable,
vibrant yet dark, and sincere yet flippant. The work incorporates heavily
patinated, mixed-media imagery created through a process involving the
application of layers of overpainting, collage and expressively scrawled and
scratched marks.
Being the son of a Spanish Civil War refugee my evolution as an artist draws
on my radical Spanish heritage and the influence of post Spanish Civil
War artists, including Antoni Tapies and the lesser known, but influential,
‘El Paso’ (The Step) group. I also draw inspiration from the ‘Situationists’
provoked punk and post punk ethic of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, whose
counter cultural movement inspired a broader grassroots creativity opposed
to the nightmare of consumerist excess and passivity.