I attempt periodically to discover what I can say about what I do, and to say it succinctly.And if I can say anything, where has it come from? Have I invented a spurious fiction, or engaged in a process of revelation? I have a similar difficulty with words as with images. If they are not right, they are wrong.This painting has obviously evolved. I didn’t exactly catch it unawares, but I have been a little surprised by it. I thought it was going to die.
The dividing line is intransigent, unsympathetic, uncompromising. provoking claustrophobic sensations. But I am compelled to return to it, in the hope that it will have mellowed, will compromise, sympathise, and my return is welcomed. In painting it I appeal to it to be different.Being tied into repetition of subject-matter signals unresolved need, nuances of image nudge the imagination into further uncertain territory. The dividing line moves to create unequal distribution of surface. The stillness of flower and bird is both reassuring and disconcerting. Not knowing past or future they are suspended in continuous present. They remain forever close and infinitely distant.The issue is resolved when its imagery is redundant.
Painting today. One of those times when the doing is a kind of aimless search. Like singing out of tune – you know you are doing it but each attempt at correction produces another discord. I think I just wanted to mix paint. Blobs of soft pigment mixed with glaze medium. There is a decadence about it. A submission to purposeless physicality. For a while the mixing and spreading is enjoyable. Then only repetitive. It seems that periods of such activity are integral to the process, a flushing of the system, to be endured until purpose returns. A time of doubt. And today I noticed a greying of the light that leads into autumn and then winter. I dislike the short grey winter days. Rain and wind and contrast are fine, but still greyness is debilitating. Odd that I am using a lot of grey. It’s the contrast that must be rediscovered. Not necessarily violent contrast, but purposeful difference. Chord as well as discord. I thought that I would chart the path ( I nearly wrote ‘progress’) of this day’s work in the hope that its aimlessness would be overcome. I shall catch it unawares tomorrow, maybe surprise it into reaction.
The drawing came first. Drawing dictates to me how it is to be done. It is a tactile matter, feeling and feelings. Sometimes making a line is a matter of precision, a surgical strike. At other times it is indiscriminate, carpet bombing. This drawing began as indiscriminate, evolving with greater precision. I started to write that the drawing looks like the pigeon, but a drawing always looks like a drawing. The (real) pigeon happens to be one of the sources of the drawing. There is always a signature in the work.
The painting was (is possibly) to be constructed in a much more detailed manner. I made preliminary marks and stopped. I liked what I had done. I am tempted to express satisfaction with the image; liking somehow seems trivial compared to satisfaction!!!
Victor Burgin, in ‘The end of Art Theory’ refers to the ‘Bloomsbury….aesthetes’, Clive Bell and Roger Fry. He states (writing in 1986) that ‘The antiquated legacy of Bloomsbury is today a self-complacent cult of ‘taste’ and ‘response’ which stifles ‘intellectualisation’ to protect a supposed ‘authenticity’ of expression and feeling – that which comes as ‘second nature’, or as Pascal observed,, ‘first habit’. Burgin encapsulates in this the problem of liking things. The painting arguably falls within the remit of Bloomsbury Aesthetics. I am apprehensive of that possibility. The unconscious production of ‘tasteful’ objects is something to be wary of. To see such a thing reveal itself in front of me is to confront myself with an uncomfortable possibility. It is as though I am accused of an aesthetic crime. And in so far as the aesthetic and the moral are related judgements, the accusation goes beyond the marks?
Thinking about issues raised by Jane Boyer and others, writing and writing, it is easy to drift from one thought sideways to another, ending with a foggy mess of word associations – a kind of Chinese whisper. There are several strands to Jane’s blog, and from other contributions. They seem to be to do with.
An idea of the artist’s indebtedness to society.
The notion of justifying art.
The accusation that art is a self indulgent activity.
The nature and place of Political art.
Art for Art’s sake.
I think that the discussion begs questions of some underlying assumptions.
The demand to justify and the felt need on the part of the artist to justify is to do with hierarchical relationships.
Ranciere’s ‘The Ignorant Schoolmaster’ approaches a related issue through notions of equality and inequality. Jane’s reference to Buchloh is apposite. Much of what we are puzzling about has been looked at in far greater depth elsewhere.
The few words of his that I have encountered are sharp reminders of my naiveté in engaging in this discourse. In his terms, the kind of flimsy pictures that I and others produce are a complete and utter trivial irrelevance; self indulgent and useless; I am a trespasser. And in a sense I cannot mind.
In naiveté there is hope. My motto.
The line divides, directs, demands,
Defines, discriminates, rejects.
Coercive, uncompromising,
Confirming of impotence.
It is other and neither.
Amoral ,
Partisan,
Double edged,
Taking both sides.
Duplicitous loyalty picks at feeling
Through the eye;
Uncovers what I had not sensed.
Silhouettes whisper from their edges.
