Doug Bartlett

Doug Bartlett is the name given to the energy created when Nick Morris and Dave Bowers work together on the same canvas.

“We open up the roller door to the garage in Torquay and let rip. With a few beers, and the music turned up, we throw ourselves into the canvases. Slabs of colour are slapped down haphazardly and images are layered on at random. A lot of this initial work won’t survive the painting process because we have a rule that says: ‘you can paint over anything, and the other one can’t protest’. Whole vistas appear and disappear. Hours of work can be swept away with one brutal sweep of a brush. ‘Doug has entered the building’ is the only explanation required.

This process, which is confronting as well as cleansing, continues until we both agree the painting is finished. Working this way creates a feverish momentum, and we can be working on up to forty paintings at a time.

The canvases are a free-flowing exchange of random images and themes, and are applied using stencils, spray paint, silkscreen and freehand, using acrylic paint and oil stick. We glean material from mass popular culture, including quotes from celebrities and words lifted directly from spam text.”