Iberian Variations

The Iberian Variations Suite was first begun in the mid 1980’s. The name Iberian is derived from a painting by Robert Motherwell called Iberia. Touchon wanted to explore the Abstract Expressionist idea of gestural painting combined with collage and so devised a way to create prepared papers to disassemble and reconstruct into what he calls the ‘constructed gesture’. 

This technique allows Touchon to mark on paper without concern of the results and then use the material to then carefully construct an image out of the chopped up parts and gives a certain amount of control over the finished work. This allows chance  and serendipitous discovery to play a part in the final work.

For some years now Touchon has been using 60×60 inch sheets of paper on which to apply his markings with black or blue acrylic paints that have been thinned down to an ink-like fluidity. Once finished he cuts the paper up into small pieces and uses it to create collages that typically range size from 6×6 inches to 18×12 inches. By working at this relatively small scale he is able to concentrate the gestures in the composition and carefully construct them from different incongruous parts giving a feeling of monumentality to the final works.