A REASON TO HOLD ON
Black 4.0 acrylic and gesso on canvas
30.5 × 30.5 cm (12 × 12 inches)
Hand signed and numbered by Stuart Semple, verso.
In A Reason To Hold On, Stuart Semple arranges fifteen hand-painted letters into a grid of three rows. The structure cuts across the boundaries of the words, suspending their meaning. Seen from a distance, the black forms approach abstraction; the painting asserts itself as an image before it can be understood as language.
The work continues a process of reduction developed over two decades. Where image and text once coexisted in Semple's paintings, their gradual separation has allowed language to assume a pictorial identity of its own. Reading follows looking. As the phrase becomes legible, it opens onto associations that the painting does not depict: memories, emotions and personal histories supplied by the viewer. This space for individual experience is central to Semple's purpose.
For the artist, art has always been a reason to hold on, a sustaining presence through which one idea leads to another. The phrase's emergence is intended as a moment of affirmation and resolution. Executed in Black 4.0, a paint developed by Semple in his own studio, the work brings this conviction into the material of painting itself.
Only 10 will be available, each painted by hand. The price doubles with every purchase.