By the beginning of 1992 I was producing the last of a series of large and somewhat bombastic oil paintings, works which I still have great affection for in spite of their tendency towards humourlessness. On reflection the more playful gouaches I made at the time were an antidote to that seriousness. I was attracted to the way the medium lent itself to experimentation, the surprise element of aqueous paint. In this I was influenced by, or at least conscious of, the precisionist works of Charles Demuth and the thin turpsy paintings of Georgia O'Keefe. I'd seen works by both these artists during a trip to the U.S. a couple of years before and the impression they left had become a lasting one. In fact I'd become intrigued by the whole American water colour tradition.

At this time I was working in a studio in Middle Park though, as always, I struggled to find good studio time. I had a job I hated hanging bad art in a mediocre gallery: (toward the end of that year an incident involving a flying toolbox would see me mercifully ejected from the position). My collaboration with Andrew Seward was continuing; we were working in an investigatory fashion on a range of ideas using projections. This part of my practise always contained an element of play; another great foil to more sombre personal musings. Andrew and I were running Platform, which I think was going through a pretty good period (it went in cycles in those early days) and in 1992 we set up Slide, with assistance from Adam Boyd at 200 Gertrude St, as another forum for exploring the interface between art and its audience. Looking back at my CV to patch this period together, 1992 was also the year that Vault was born and died. Now part of the Crown Casino forecourt this anarchic little gallery was defeated as much by water (the wettest winter for many decades), as by any other factor. Perhaps the only art space in town where water freely flowed down the walls, Vault provided some useful experiences and an opening that I'll always remember fondly (against the backdrop of the city lights and the Yarra River an island of fire, music, booze and mayhem in the middle of the peak-hour city rush).

There's always been this conflict in the way I work, between infrastructure projects like Slide and Platform and the desire to just make art. The gouaches were an attempt, during a very busy time, to maintain some sort of foothold in the activities that art school had convinced me were central to being an artist. Nowadays I think I'm more reconciled to the fact that there will be moments when I just don't make art. The pictures I made in '92 grasped at small moments. They are, as a result, almost inconsequential and that is one of the things I like most about them.

The blue green rectangle is from a set of these gouaches which were notations relating to quiet walks around the St Kilda foreshore. It was shown at the Vault, where the lamination sure came in handy.

Richard Holt