European Contemporary Arts Practitioner

Mock Artist Talk +3

Q. You mentioned in a previous post [Post #11] about possible paintings detouring from your trademarked grid/abstract work to dark night landscapes of street scenes. Do you think these will be carried out soon?

A. Absolutely, I can see the work developing to incorporate tad more realistic landscapes, still lacking figures so as to explore the chosen themes in new imagery, probably trying not to paint text to accompany it: let the viewer take-in the night scene.

Q. But wouldn’t this proposed new work actually make it more difficult to distinguish your work from others, and harder to understand the topics you are exploring in the work? How would it translate across?

A. Admittedly the proposed new work’s imagery would be dramatically different; someone working in both abstract and non-abstract painting; which is why to avoid just jumping into this new stuff it would be best to continue the work created since University [grid, abstract painting] for a good period of time before deciding to exhibit opposing visual work.

It would not translate the exact same way, that is certain, but it could still explore ideas about nationalism by using images of derelict buildings and scene at night to cast a similar pessimistic view of previously held optimistic utopias.

Q. Referring back to a previous Talk regarding use of colour and gloss paint in general, what does it look like the new work will reflect of the Residency Gallery’s town of Stoke-on-Trent if anything?

A. Previously it felt necessary to only use gloss with hardly any reflective finish, but recent events and developments have drawn up an interest in using reflective finish gloss so that it does exactly what it says on the tin: reflect, and reflect the world the viewer in a makeshift mirror.

For this job, black is the most effective colour to do so, being a colour that scientifically absorbs other colours rather than bouncing them back – being open, rather than closed – and also existential.

However, using white would be out of the question unless it was being mixed with black paint to create grey and thus a colour that is not necessarily ‘liberal’ but accepting.

Other colours like magnolia, stone, etc should really only be used with hints of dark tones to continue an exploration of dystopia and negativity (representing the ‘worst’) in order to be prepared for whatever the future may bring.

Something that the work is not is hyper or psychedelic; it is a tad conservative but only on the side of enforcing and abiding by rules and laws set-down such as using a structural grid, using limited colours and others such.

This potentially makes the work to be about condition and possibly exploring feelings of betrayal.

After-all, the days you remember the most are the worst ones because they made you who you are, what you learned from, and too much freedom to do anything you please is the real hell. If everything is allowed and everything is accepted then that presents the real crisis of “where-do-we-go-from-here” syndrome.

And not being accepted into every opportunity, or exhibition is not the end of the world… it is only the reflection of the time we are living in. The old philosophy is true the world is not going to change to you, you have to change toward it. But that should not stop you from completely losing your personality, mannerisms or belief systems.

Q. Where do you see the new work being made for the debut solo exhibit developing?

A. Lessons learned from University lecturers and tutors peaked interest in seeing the painted text to be made-up of sentences rather than just quick-fire words and being larger size than 38 x 31 centimetres, so still leaving plenty of room for exploration and investigation into the selected topics and discussions, and in the greater context of contemporary painting.

Cinema Possibly Effecting Mindset on Graduate Residency

Random. Exhibiting images and details of the some of the DVDs of films that have served as inspiration during Graduate Artist Residency at Airspace Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire UK.

Naturally, the list could be longer, but for the purposes of selection, one film from French, American, Polish and Italian cinema have been chosen as representatives of lasting impact on artistic influences, transferred from the silver-screen to contemporary painting.

Moj Nikifor (My Nikifor), 2004 co-written/directed by Krzysztof Krauze is a biographical film based on the folk naive artist Nikifor (1895-1968).

The Artist, 2011, written/directed by Michel Hazanavicius is a silent black-and-white romantic drama film set between 1927-1931.

Citizen Kane, 1941 co-written/produced/starring/directed by Orson Welles is a drama, examining the life and legacy of a fictional media magnate named Charles Foster Kane.

Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief), 1948, co-written/directed by Vittorio De Sica is an Italian post-World War II drama about a father and son searching for their stolen bicycle without which the father cannot work and bring about salvation to his young family.

Together, these selected films create a picture of a pre- post- world of utopia and dystopia, rise and fall, conflict and result. All films being in black-and-white reflect a tendency towards the nostalgic, seeking to revel in the past whilst not completely abandoning the future: only some of the principles, values and morals that the future (post 1968) has produced.

These texts give meaning to what once was and shall never be again.

Eureka

Always read the fine print; the smaller details in the contract/obligation about the opportunity e.g. artist residency.

Nothing is expected. The choice of candidates are those that can talk, discuss and exchange the premise of one’s practice, its significance to the contemporary day, and its future. In short, what is expected to be gained out of the opportunity and what can actually happen.

In the example of the ever fleeting Graduate Artist-in-Residency programme at Airspace Gallery, it is important to note that it is called the Graduate Artist Residency meaning that is open to Graduates and it is an Artist Residency. Nowhere, not even in the opportunity description, does it outline that the artist that is accepted and the work they produce need be themed or structured around anything from the Gallery’s town of Stoke-on-Trent to its reputation with pottery.

It is not called the Graduate Artist with a Pottery Flare Making Work Based Around Stoke-on-Trent Residency for a reason: because it is none specific to anything but being available to graduates. And the environment Airspace Gallery presents to a graduate not of the ‘City with Six Towns’ is warming and educational. One can only imagine how the local Graduate Resident Artist must be feeling…

This residency has presented an opportunity to reflect in a relaxing environment, like a moon colony: unfamiliar but homely.

Therefore, conclusions can already be drawn to confirm that the majority of work featured in still upcoming Debut Solo Exhibition of this author in late January 2013 will carry the same ‘values’ and ‘trademarks’ of previous work (i.e. University) with a new audience and passion that will display a visual growth. Meanwhile, it may still be early days to propose that some of the new work featured in the Debut Solo will stand-out for reasons ascertaining to imagery (i.e. Post #11 Possible Paintings).

Nevertheless, time away from the hustle-and-bustle of the busy South neighbouring London has presented time to isolate key interests in practice and retain the individuality and unique vision that was nurtured back at University.

After-all, when asked “if you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?” the correct answer is always: “yourself”.

Abstract Painting versus Non-Abstract Painting

Age-old question: which is better? The answer of course does not lie in the opinions of groups and organisations but the individual who paints (known as the painter). In someone’s hands, they hold power over a medium practised more than any other in Fine Art because they control the reality of what is seen in a two-dimensional format.

This question is being dissected now at a point when the paintings for a certain debut solo exhibition at Airspace Gallery in late January 2013 need to start being produced.

Expanding on the previous post #11 4 November about Possible Paintings, this post seeks solace in concluding questions regarding audience, viewer and future in practice. Again, it really is only in the artists’ best interest to produce what they can, practice what they can, and still manage to take the reality of the situation [world] into their work.

An analogy could be the difference between having your lights on whilst driving, and not turning them on at all. The difference is life or death.

During the Cold War, the USSR (or Soviet Union) effectively banned abstract art as being too bourgeois and insisting that the official state art be Socialist Realist, depicting figures, workers, the proletariat etc. This made the early 20th century abstract work of Suprematism, Avant-Garde and such illegal but served its purpose for inspiring the working class to work towards each individual’s better futures, and the so-called communist-disciplined population increased productivity and inspired others not to spoil the youth of tomorrow but to educate and train them for better or worse.

Meanwhile, across the pond in North America, the predominantly New York-based Abstract Expressionists were being showcased as the ‘New Avant-Garde’, ‘America’s Answer to Freedom and Democracy’ and ‘The USA’s Very Own Art Movement’, manipulated as propaganda against the countries that would deny so-called ‘freedom’.

But freedom has its price like anything, and one such answer could be destruction: for the ability to speak, perform and do whatever is pleased is the real nightmare. It allows prisons full of paedophiles to be treated as royalty by liberals who have an inferiority complex, and allows for anyone with financial backing to command the passive damage of individual beliefs such as religion or nationality. Money talks?

There have to be rules, regulations and boundaries not to necessarily be enforced upon others but to stay within the confindes of groups’ own cultures. Neo-colonialism is still alive and must be vanquished. Just because someone does not believe in similar principles/systems does not give right to enslave them and call it ‘liberation’. Just leave them alone.

As for how all of this effects the discussion: if you going to produce anything, think of the consequences but stand-up for that vision; be professional and research the world you are entering; and always keep ocuppied.

This is not the end.

Possible Paintings: Change of Address.

The accompanying images suggest, as the post title implies, a “change of address” at the imagery represented in practice to depict the necessary subject matter.

A fondness for taking first-hand photographs at night around Stoke-on-Trent and its surrounding areas as far as London has increased a fascination with photography as part of the making process. The night has potential with its disadvantages for encapsulating whole environments and settings in darkness.

Perhaps this interest comes from the influence of famed Spanish painter Francisco Goya (1746-1828) and his black paintings; revealing the pessimism of his time; which are still as relevant today. Or maybe Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) and his shadowed backgrounds against Romanticism settings.

The photographs, on which the proposed new work is based, seem to illuminate contemporary signs and symbols of modernism in the present day against a dystopian light. Or perhaps the illumination; however much a flicker; represents the possibility of utopia. An optimistic view that tries to break through the pessimistic site of brownfield areas that have been poorly used or abandoned.

‘Parking Space’ documents the reflecting negative use of once vacant space into a retail outlet selling outdoor equipment, creating an ironic suggestion that more time is needed to be spent outside of urban life.

‘The Great Leap Forward’ takes its name from the economic and social campaign of the Chinese Communist Party in the mid-twentieth century, using the image of silkworms from China to reflect what a sort of ‘natural modernism’ from ecological communities.

‘Cobridge Hall’ (in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire) illuminates an unused building near the border of towns Burslem-Hanley to highlight its isolation and possibly ghoul features.