Not done much work in the last few days as Christmas has to be sorted!!!
I have done a lot of thinking though and have been going round in circles-I have come to the conclusion that 6 months is not long to discover and experiment with a new medium and wanting to produce large works is really pushing it!!! I have therefore done a bit of thinking and questioning what it is I am doing and why. I think (for now anyway) I have come full circle and will stick to my original concept but achieved in a different way. My inspiration comes from images of closed and old, damaged shutters on doors and windows in a house in France. I want to work big as I feel it will be more powerful and was inspired by the work of Rothko and Miro among others. My first thought was to use only oil paint-now I am considering alternative options. I plan to have a sound installation along with the other works.
I am anticipating most of my time over the festive season will be spent with the family. I went to the studio to do a bit of rethinking today and have brought home some books to look at over the holiday so the blog may go a bit quiet for the next week or so.
Merry Christmas everyone and all the best for a happy and creative New Year !!!
Had a wonderful day in the studio today. Up a ladder listening to music (Christmassy and slightly cheesy!) and painting my huge canvas. All very black but I’m happy happy!!! Picked up some paint on the way and had to top up and get more by lunchtime. I think it needs one more coat then I can really get going with the oils. I’m also working on various smaller canvases to try out different types of backgrounds. My plan was to paint black paintings with white marks. The inspiration for these works came from images of closed stutters, doors and windows in an old house in France. I am experimenting with different blacks adding colours to the background. Interestingly the canvases look very black but there are subtle colours visible-when photographed the colours were much more noticeable-this is something I may play with.
A fellow studio holder helped me nail a huge black canvas to the studio wall today. I planned to work big but seeing it on the wall was a bit intimidating -However I have plans and can’t wait to get started tomorrow-I need to remember to take in a step ladder!!!
My 1 click Amazon orders (fatal!) are arriving and still more to come. I received a wonderful book on Angela de la Cruz yesterday- I saw her work some years ago in Camden Art centre. Her approach to painting and sculpture and the way in which she brings the two together are inspirational and I realise how much more I can do –to work more experimentally and not think of painting as a 2 d process-
I have also been revisiting Eva Hesse and another inspirational book on her studio works.
Enjoying the painting but feel it’s time to do some proper research!!! I have been playing with paint for a month now just to see where its leading me-there are a few things emerging and a lot of early experiments being rejected.
I have revisited my final MA project report which included an examination of the phenomenology of illness and concepts of deconstruction. Research methods included theoretical discussion of the philosophy of being and of human existence and attitudes to death.
Heidegger saw mortality of life as centrally important to our understanding of life and referred to human existence as “being towards death”. He sees life as being a limited time stretching from birth to death and argues that in order to understand life we should understand ourselves as being finite. So for Heidegger life is a constant move towards death and focuses on the temporal essence of human existence. His phenomenological argument concerning death is that we do not actually experience death as death is a state of nothingness. Rather we can only experience an anticipation of death.
Researching “Process Art” I discovered William Basinski
A review of William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops
You are slowly being destroyed. It’s imperceptible in the scheme of a day or a week or even a year, but you are aging, and your body is degrading. As your cells synthesize the very proteins that allow you to live, they also release free radicals, oxidants that literally perforate your tissue and cause you to grow progressively less able to perform as you did at your peak. By the time you reach 80, you will literally be full of holes, and though you’ll never notice a single one of them, you will inevitably feel their collective effect. Aging and degradation are forces of nature, functions of living, and understanding them can be as terrifying as it is gratifying.
Jump up ^ Source: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/577-the-disintegration-loops-i-iv/
I am experimenting with different textures and ways of using oils. For the first few test pieces I used the paint as thick as possible with lots of texture. I am now trying the opposite-oils thinned down with turps. I gessoed a canvas and planned to paint it with black. I thinned the black paint and started applying to the canvas-the drips were amazing so I want to experiment with different thicknesses of paint and let the paint drip in different directions-layering up using monotones, colour and black and white.
Last night was the ASP Christmas party with food drinks and games. I had a brilliant evening and feel so grateful and lucky to be (temporarily) part of such a wonderful group of creative people. Is there a word for a collection of artists?!!!
