On ‘finishing’
Today – after a few months in progress I have finished my painting. But what is it to finish?
It seems to involve an intense mix of anticipation and aprehension;an excitement followed by the anti-climax of feeling – ‘is this it?’
Its almost as if I pass myself coming back at the finishing point – its done so quickly – yes there is time to reflect now but also just a short breath before starting again on the next painting – continuing the process of painting.
I have been looking at the painting of Swedish artist Anicca Neumuller, now selltled in Herefordshire and exhibiting at the college. She has been painting for many years and looking closely at her work I can recognise the subtle nuances and painterly language of someone who is fluid in her work – a fluidity that comes from experience and knowing. Her work is beautiful.
I feel a frustated impatience – I want to be furhter along than I am – impossilbe – to be an artist is to work hard and long. I am just at the beginning
I tell my tutor that I am exploring my relationship with familiar objects. “Why use paint?” she asks “why not take moulds of these objects and explore your ideas in 3D?”
“Because I want to explore the relationship between abstract marks and representation marks as a way of expressing my feelings towards said objects” I say – which is true. But I didnt say – “because my feelings and ideas have an element of secrecy about them. If I use paint to explore the significance of ‘my’ objects I can immure my feelings – and keep something of my feelings safe and secret within the layers of paint”.
I didnt say that – at that moment it felt too personal to explain – but thats how it feels – I have a sense of control within the process of painting.
As I’m part-time I have weekly breaks. between painting and I have been finding this frustrating – a regular stopping and starting.
Today, after a week of thinking about my progress I finally got back to some painting.The work is starting to come together – I have had in mind making connections and considering the spaces between objects.
I have plently of discussiion amongst peers too which has been really useful.
Cant wait to get back to college next week for more painting!
Photographs to explore and question one’s own identity – and how this kind of ‘looking within’ allows the viewer to also refelct on themsleves. I was really interested to read about Heather Casey’s work on the Middlesex University blog. Casey works with the self portait. There is an element of chance within her work – her photographs becoming dirtied in the printing process.
I’ve also been using an element of chance in my self portraiture to explore identity and my changing self -perception. I’m influenced by Francesca Woodmans photographs -rich in content and with multi-layered meaning her self portraits are incredibly accomplished.
Talking to my tutor today about Francis Bacon’s painting techniques. She feels sure that whilst critics talk about him re-working his gestures (going over marks in the still wet paint) – working on an unprimed canvas abosrbs paint straight away – making it imposssible to move the paint around once applied. We therefore deduced that Bacon made his marks with great consideration and care.Clever man.
I’m really excited by the way the unprimed linen canvas shows through in his paintings – the linen is a beautiful, neutral kind of tone and it seems to give his work further gravity.
I am working with with layers allowing underpainting and the canvas to show through. it feels as if I am giving the panting some sort of cronology.
My tutor has asked me to think about possible connections between the objects I am painting (because people automatically look for connections when reading paintings) and to think of the space between objects as important as the objects themseves
