In 1939, Colquhoun began her life-long experiments with automatism. A separate section of this website will ve devoted to the importance of automatic processes in Colquhoun's art.
Two exhibition at the Mayor Gallery in 1947, one of oil paintings and the other of drawings and watercolours, brought together many of her early works that employed a variety of automatic processes. Although the exhibits were small in number: 21 paintings and 23 drawings, they were large in conception. The exhibition of paintings, in particular, must have been an astonishing tour de force. The hues are bright; vivid maroons, crimsons and scarlets, iridescent blues, acid yellows and glaucous undersea colours all leap from the canvasses. In addition to their qualities as images, the oil decalcomanias have a great physical and tactile presence. As a geologist might read the history of a rock formation through its folds and faults, so the viewer of an oil decalcomania can read the record of the work by tracing the ridges and furrows of the paint and subsequent brushed-in changes.
In her introduction to the catalogue of the paintings, E.H.Ramsden drew attention to Colquhoun’s persistent search for a profounder understanding of our relationship with the natural environment. For Colquhoun, this understanding was often sexual. Sex, as a biological force, is present in all of nature. In this exhibition Colquhoun finds sex not just in the organic world nor in the human world of gender relationships, but in the universe itself. Sea Star (1943) is a cosmic vagina whilst Gorgon (1946) has as a central feature a gaping cavity, reminding us that, for Freud, the Gorgon was a symbol of castration. In The Long Journey (1946) and A Visitation II (1945) Colquhoun bores deeply into the structure of the cosmos. The creation of matter and life itself are the dominant themes.
The antithesis of life is death. Death is present in Garden of Adonis (1945), with its promise of regeneration. Surrealists were fascinated by acts of extreme violence. Dreaming Leaps: in Homage to Sonia Araquistain (1945) is Colquhoun’s contribution to the genre. It is an act, too, of cosmic violence as well as violence against the self.
The drawings and watercolours that were shown in the second Mayor Gallery exhibition of 1947 are more intimate in conception and execution. The majority have biological forms whilst a few have referents in the mineral crystalline word (Morphological Study, c.1940). One or two are undeniably abstract. Most forms are born from a drawn line, one that sometimes meanders (e.g. On the Beach, c.1947), one that is sometimes angular (Torn Veil, 1947) and one that is, most commonly, cursive (Marine, c.1947). For the most part, there is no focal point. The eye is not led to one part of the image but roams freely across the whole sheet. The watercolours are nearly always characterised by ambiguity, both of location and of scale. With no horizon or perspective to give clues, the forms lack all indication of scale and location. We could be in the heavens or in the deep sea. We may be looking through a microscope at amoeba, sperm, crystal structures or plankton. Conversely, we may be witnessing phenomena on a planetary or galactic scale.
All the works show evidence of reworking of the initial automatic impulse. Sometimes this involves the minimal application of an ink wash (as in the superautomatist drawing, Depression (1947). Other works, such as Rock Pool (1947), show considerable hatching and cross-hatching with a fine-nibbed pen. The diversity of the automatic processes is notable. There are examples of fumage (e.g. Self portrait, 1946), entoptic graphomania
(e.g. Elemental, 1946; Torn Veil, 1947) decalcomania
(e.g. Foam Flower, 1947; Santa Warna's Wishing Well, 1947) and parsemage (e.g. Low Tide, c.1947; Sunspot, 1945). The exhibition is notable for the first appearance of the marine and inter-tidal imagery that became a recurring theme in her work (e.g. Rock Pool, 1947; Marine, 1947; On the Beach, c.1947).
continue to next section: the 1950s
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