Tricky Walsh Artist Statement:

All of my paintings are drawings in disguise.

I spend almost the same amount of time composing them in grey lead as I do with paint. I use set squares and rulers and compasses and flexible rulers and occasionally templates and sometimes a stray piece of timber if I need something longer, to draft them. The set square is from when I was studying architecture in the nineties, lol. It's seen a lot. It's become a pale yellow with age. I know how it feels.

I work with a clutch pencil and 4H leads because i spend a lot of time on the surface of the paper, and it's heavy handed, moving rulers and set squares over it for hours and I don't want any smudging. But also, I just love the faint crispness of the lines. I usually draw on one day and paint on the next. I find coming back to it the next day helps resolve the palette. Then I add the mess. Dropping watered down gouache onto the surface from a height. I'm not good at it as a general rule - randomness, but with all the deliberation and planning I feel compelled to include some chaos. I enshrine it into the artwork by painting around each tiny splash and drop. Around the convolutions of where it has bled and levelled.

I like the unexpected shapes it forces me to work with, and how it breaks the geometry. My favourite parts of the works are the splatters actually. It's the only place you can still see the drawing. Sort of like seeing the reinforcing in the concrete.