Lately I’ve been re-reading ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, because it’s sometimes labelled ‘the first great Surrealist novel’ … and I’m curious (and curiouser) to see what might happen if I were to keep a theme at the back of my mind when working. I’m not used to thinking/working in terms of ‘projects’ – I’ve always resisted defining – or is it structuring – my work in this way. I’m going to try taking ‘Alice’ as a loose theme for a while, and see what happens.
I’ve started by working on very large sheets of paper. Ink, conte, acrylic, graphite. I know I really don’t want this work to be illustrative. But why? What does ‘illustrative’ actually mean, for me, and why don’t I want it at the moment? I would love to listen to people who are more articulate than me having a discussion about this. Perhaps I should start a new thread on the artists talking forums. It might help me clarify my thoughts, and perhaps change my mind!
