Malcolm Morley: Sensations: Capitain Petzel, Berlin, Germany

The fundamental aspect, the motor that drove Malcolm‘s passion for painting, was sensation. Sensation being the unmediated bodily response to the outside world through the senses; in this case, the sense of sight. Malcolm admired the art of Van Gogh, Cézanne and Picasso, artists whom he felt were more concerned with presenting the world as something made with paint, to create a new visual experience, rather than being concerned with what the subject matter was ‘about’. Malcolm said he wanted to get the painting directly into the nervous system:

„...the emphasis is very much on the idea of looking at. I paint them from the way in which I’m looking at them, which is really from the point of view of sensations. I feel the sensation of it, and preimagine it made of paint. ...So it’s not just a question of looking, but of doing, in relation to this, in relation to that, in relation to the space between things. In a way, it’s very classical.“