Before and After – Learning To Be Bold
One of the key points that has come out from my two Re:View bursary mentor meetings is that I am still too timid in my work.
As a result I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on what holds me back and what I can do to move forward in this area. Thinking about how to be bolder and freer in my materials and concepts without resorting to being sensational for the sake of it. Consideration of the audience, especially in commissioned works, has definitely restricted me. My mentor advised:
“your concern about the audience is problematic – your main focus has to remain the work, while the curator will provide the necessary ‘portals’/interpretation needed for a mixed audience”
I think I also have had a tendency to intellectualise pieces from the start rather than to give in more to instinct. As a result some works have been too prescriptive or literal. As an experiment I have reworked a piece that I felt suffered from this problem. I worked on it more from a place of gut instinct and the resulting piece is definitely, in my opinion, stronger as a result.
