Not The Dart – An Abstract Childhood Memory

It’s funny how certain childhood memories stay with us. Some are remembered because they were wonderful experiences. Others, well, perhaps because things didn’t quite go according to plan.

Not The Dart is my abstract interpretation of a childhood incident involving a dart, my brother Steve and me.

Rather than paint a realistic representation of the event, I wanted to explore it through movement, colour and spontaneous mark-making.

The composition is dominated by sweeping turquoise and violet curves, interwoven with soft yellow passages and bold blue oval shapes. Watercolour washes, ink marks, splatters and dripping pigments contribute to a sense of movement and unpredictability.

Near the upper-right corner, the dart itself appears within the flowing composition.

The Story Behind the Painting

I created Not The Dart around the same time as my acrylic Pop Art painting, Brothers In Arms, approximately twenty years before writing my autobiographical article of the same name, Not The Dart.

While Brothers In Arms combines three separate childhood incidents into a figurative composition, Not The Dart concentrates on the dart incident through abstraction.

The two paintings approach related memories from completely different artistic directions.

One uses recognisable figures and objects to communicate a narrative. The other allows movement, colour and expressive mark-making to suggest the experience.

I chose the title Not The Dart rather than a song title, as I felt it was the most appropriate description of the painting and its origins.

Artwork Details

• Artist: Stuart Ian Currie
• Title: Not The Dart
• Medium: Watercolour and ink on paper
• Size: 52 × 75 cm
• Year: Circa 2002
• Style: Abstract / Expressive
• Subject: Childhood memories, movement and personal history
• Original artwork: Hand-created by the artist

Not The Dart demonstrates how an everyday childhood experience can become the inspiration for an abstract painting, where colour and movement communicate something that words alone might struggle to express.