There is something about my recent work which I feel is finally tapping into many of the things that make me tick and which I am “allowing” into the work. My Chinese background on my mother’s side, my experience of Indonesian batiks, the fine stitches my mother makes when sewing …
For my sister this reminds of of spilling ink on her homework!
When making the work though I was not thinking of those things, but of how Klee divided up the space in a formal way first.
I have also been reading Susan Sontag’s essay, “Against Interpretation”, and thinking about her assertion that formal considerations can allow us to experience an art work more fully than considerations of content.
I haven’t absorbed the essay in full yet but what Sontag argues for, I think, in arguing for a critical language based on form, is a heightened sensory appreciation of the artwork.
