Somewhere below the surface within In Deed is a repeated two way activity. I commented on Cally Shadbolt’s blog earlier that many possiblilities occur in the studio during the final stages of the degree that can’t be investigated until later. I quickly had the opportunity to do this as I finished the degree and started working straight away towards the MK Showcase 2012. A couple of things I had been drawn to with a similar thread were floating around in my mind and I called them in to play. I have been working on two part paintings for a couple of years and beyond the actual finished works themselves I have been aware of the importance to me of moving between the canvases as a catalyst for the paintings. This movement was also present in the music I was listening to, Django Reinhardt and Stephan Grapelli, with their flow and rhythms. I tend to listen to one music album (usually jazz and never on shuffle) whist working in the studio for a period of time. I find the structure and patterns and improvisations echo in and around the work. A trip to Paris was due in the summer and I had started reading Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities; moving between countries, cities, time and scale. The work I showed in the Project Space I had made in my studio and I travelled daily to MK during the show to work on the canvases between these pieces. an experience I thoroughly enjoyed and found very helpful.
Reflecting on what I had written about the content of my work for the degree, I realise that the work is not merely about the perceptual experiences of walking in cities etc. but that the element of movement is intrinsic to the work.The practice of walking within that particular environment, I now recognise, has been the key to the unlocking the work itself; the city is the place where it happened first. Releasing the movement within the work in other ways is what comes next.
Degrees unedited blog /p/599499/
