Blockprojects Gallery

Peter Westwood
The odd paradox of having become
less rather than more, 2026
Screenprint
Arches BFK RIVES paper
49 cm x 52 cm
Edition of 12
8 available editions

BLOCKPROJECTS DIALOGUES
In Conversation with Julia Powles

BP: What can painting reveal that language cannot?

JP: Well language can of course reveal a lot. But painting operates across several sensory systems simultaneously, it is predominantly felt before it is thought. A different kind of understanding occurs through the sensation of experiencing painting. Words can often be fixed or definitive, while painting opens us up to overlapping emotions and complex ideas that can be many things – immediate, delayed, certain and contradictory. In this sense painting echoes our engagement with the world, as something we can only really know as a sequence of everchanging vantages.

BP: Looking across this exhibition, what do you see as the central question driving the work?

JP: How do we form connection to others?

BP: The circle appears repeatedly throughout these paintings. What continues to draw you back to that form?

JP: The circle has so many associations – unity, completeness, endlessness. So these thoughts are in my mind when I work. I think of the circle as a kind of body, where it curves like the human form against a grid or more rigid structure.

BP: Many of the works resemble maps, diagrams, or charts. What is being mapped?

I map out my family structures, across time or generations, and in terms of the consequence of being within a family. In this I ask questions of myself like: What are the consequences of actions and individuals within families? What are the legacies we all carry within us?

Artwork: Lost Time, 2026 Oil on linen 81.5 x 66.5 cm

BP: Your paintings feel highly structured, yet they never feel rigid. How do you balance system and intuition in the studio?

JP: They usually start with a system which then becomes corrupted through the making process via mistakes or changes. This assists me to retell a story or narrative more subjectively about the depth of interrelated human lives.

BP: Do these works begin with an idea, a feeling, a memory, or a form?
JP: Yes, often with all of those in mind.

BP: Family, relationships, and connection seem to move through much of your practice. When did these concerns first emerge in your work?

Artwork: Born with the Moon in Ta**us (All that I am), 2026 Acrylic, paper
105 x 76 cm Framed

JP: I think it’s always been there, just increasingly so.

BP: Astrology is present throughout the exhibition. What role does it play within your thinking and making?

JP: I love astrology as an alternative way of understanding the world. I’ve been fascinated by astrology since I was a child, along with telepathy and other ways of communicating that are considered alternative. While I am devoted to science and that what we consider to be knowledge is constantly in the process of being refined, cross checked and amended so astrology stands for intuition, or a different, older sort of knowledge,

BP: What interests you about systems of orientation, whether they are personal, familial, psychological, or astrological?

JP: I think we all need to make sense of who we are in the world. How we are orientated. In my case because I am adopted and have recently made contact with one of my birth parents I have had to reorient myself. My own map of the stars has changed, so I need to find a new way to navigate complex issues such as identity, family, loss and remorse.

BP: Your background spans making, curating, and education. How have these different roles shaped the way you approach painting?

JP: It’s impossible for me to separate out painting from everything else, they all seem to be part of the same life-long experiment, which is how do I answer the question who am I? How do I exist and how can I be connected to others?

BP: Looking at these works, I am aware of a tension between what can be known and what remains uncertain. Is uncertainty something you actively seek to preserve?

JP: Absolutely, yes. For me, for most of my life there was so much that could never be known. I think it’s a fundamental human need to know one’s origins and I was excluded from that knowledge, so I had no option but to make ‘non-knowing’ a companion. ‘Not-knowing’ was a kind of starting point from which I sprung forth, so not really knowing is very important to me.

Artwork: Julia Powles, Born with the Moon in Ta**us (Living a Life), 2026
Acrylic, paper 105 x 76 cm Framed