George Blacklock The Marriage of Reason and Desire, 2000

Up to this point, I was making paintings influenced by Italian ‘Annunciation’ paintings that involved two separate shapes that were involved with, or created, a basic kind of narrative: one shape ‘invading’ the space of another, in the way the angel ‘invades’ the pictorial space in which Mary is residing.

Among the influences behind the aquatints Blacklock made at the time is the work of English artist Gerald Wilde, in particular The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which references William Blake. 

“The Gerald Wilde work was particularly influential, as is given away by the title of this aquatint,” says Blacklock. Gerald Wilde is thought to be among the inspirations for the character of Gulley Jimson in The Horse’s Mouth, one of the artist’s favourite books on art written by Joyce Carey.

These prints were also the start of a series of paintings:

In these aquatints I was trying to expand on these narrative possibilities by making the shapes I was using to be in contact with the other – I imagined tendrils creating a connection between them. The paintings were called T.I.O.R. standing for - The Intractability Of Relationships.