I was was using the whales tail and the windscreen wiper as elements in the work of the late nineties and early two thousands. I intertwined two tail images, they seemed to dance, or to suggest the spirit of dance. I did a series of works which combined this image with the wiper, the wiper being a destructive force - the dance was an act of survival or maybe it represented a state of denial or total unawareness of 'reality'. In one piece I made three dimensional images by folding thin card and cutting out the shape, then opening it out like a concertina and revealing a chorus line of tails. I used titles like ' Waltzing' , at one point the phrase 'We've still got the Dance' struck me as both amusing and apt.
Fast forward to June 2017 - BBC News, it is early morning, lying in bed after arriving home from Russia the previous evening, catching up with depressing doom and gloom news on the box. I left with the Westminster terrorist attack filling the air waves and returned to the Grenfell tower block fire. The grim prospect of Teresa May stumbling through Brexit still to come, in spite of Corbyn's increased presence there seemed to be a surfeit of uncertainty ahead. A middle aged man, balding and handsome bounded onto the screen, in the back ground hovered leotarded dancers of various shapes, ages and sizes ' ordinary people' I think was stressed. 'We have the talent, enthusiasm and the will to win' He was talking about some international dance competition. We were taking on the world!? The way it was slotted into the bulletin gave it equal importance to the rest of the days news. Emily came into the bedroom, ' It's ok' I said ' No worries love… ' We've still got the DANCE '
I started showing with Angela when she first opened her gallery 50 years ago. I was then making abstract sculpture. A direction I took after fifteen years of painting. The sculpture was derived from landscape; or more precisely horizons, time and movement through the landscape which in itself served as a framework for visual exploration.
I returned to painting during the early seventies. A sense of landscape was still present but it had become a device rather than the subject - the stave on which to manipulate my notes.
‘Night Moves 1’
‘The Bleak Flatlands of Norfolk; I refer to the ‘Flatlands’ as I like the poetic feel of the word. The ‘Flatlands’ at night when the big skies take on another form and embrace an element of mystery. At night is darkness, at night is sound, sometimes silence becomes sound. The screech of an owl is welcome. The chacking of a chopper, the mechanical drone and moan of unknown sound is the unwelcome sound of preparation….’
(from Short Thoughts and Mutterings 2017)
This quote sums up what this painting is about - Pig arks have become a symbol of these flat lands for me, they shelter animals within their perfect arc, they are dotted throughout the landscape and I spend time photographing and drawing them. So inevitably they are starting to invade the paintings. Just as ‘Night Moves’ (or Manoeuvres) might reveal invasion.
John Loker 20/20
I had been working for some time on a big scale - activating the surface with multiple curving lines. I was trying to make the surface both infinite and active, an antithesis to perspective or pictorial space. I was attempting to embrace ideas of our ‘space’ & ‘outer space’. My working title has been ‘Space is a Dangerous Country’ for several years.
I began using small (usually about 17 x 23 cm) pieces of glass, painting onto several layers in order to help visualise some of the ideas for the bigger works. This gave me 3 dimensions and also introduced shadow into the work, also the slight colouring of green in the glass increased relative to the number of layers just as deep water gradually hides its content. Whilst still fulfilling a kind of sketchbook role they have become works in their own right.
JL/ 2019
The Flatlands at night when the big sky take on another form and embrace an element of mystery. At night is darkness, at night is is sound, sometimes silence becomes sound. The screech of an owl is welcome. the chacking of a chopper, the drone and moan of unknown sound is the unknown sound of preparation……’ (from Short Thoughts and Mutterings JL 2017)
These Fatlands are still the passive stage on which my work draws its content, right now it’s tone has lightened. The mutterings I quote above were written during preparations for war in the Middle East. And now? We are more than ever threatened by both external and internal events but this time the silence holds no tension, no expectation, it is a silence more akin to gloom.
But enough of this! If my source only only feeds me gloom then I must feed the work some energy and use my instincts to indulge in pleasure, joy and ambition for the future…… Hence these two small works. I don’t know where the lasso came from, objects and images present themselves constantly. Some pass on by others are like leeches they cling on, although I believe my leeches give as much as they take. And the Lasso - A lasso captures, holds and binds - and it ends the chase. (from JL’s personal thesaurus )