In the beginning there were broken dreams of animation and Pablo Picasso.
In October 2008 I embarked – somewhat vainly – upon a Masters in Animation, having had no formal knowledge on the subject and no real desire to learn and understand the principles of animation practice.
An absurd idea, then? Well, the reason for embarking upon such a task was because I felt at a loss with my fine art practise. Having completed a B.A in Fine Art in 2007, I felt that I had reached a point where a fundamental change to my approach was necessary in order to sustain my professional development.
Animation is, of course, a perfectly plausible method of not only forming a relationship with properties of food, but also potentially inducing sensation. However, I found that my inexperience in the discipline of animation, coupled with my disregard for the fundamentals, meant that I was only capable of producing animations that portrayed food at face-value.
The intention of my animations was to render the scent of food in a visual way. Yet what I produced was a banal manifestation of the narrative found in the process of eating. Instantly, as with fine art, I became disillusioned with the practice of animation. I didn’t even take it upon myself to save these films. Nothing remains other than a few salvaged ideas and I wished to pursue in other ways.
Despite this, I was still intrigued by food. Chiefly because the implications surrounding food are boundless: Food encompasses everything. It is at once and something which can be regarded as a necessity and a luxury: For every vital nutrient and calorie it provides it is also able to engage with us on an evocative and sensual level. I found myself in an existential state between being delighted by the contextual possibilities of food in art, and frustrated by my inability to create engaging and, crucially, innovative work involving food. Change was required, and a change which involved to reverting back to the principles of Fine Art.
I found further resolve in my vocational commitments, working as an Information Assistant at Tate Liverpool during the exhibition ‘Picasso: Peace and Freedom.’ (21st April – 30th August 2010.) The fundamental act of being able to observe and become sensitised to the works on display for the entire duration of the exhibition allowed me to establish a relationship with Picasso and in particular, acquaint myself with plentiful Still Life works. From this a hypothesis occurred: Rather than simply taking the notion of food and trying to create animations, would it not be of more value to consider the principle of ‘Still Life,’ seeking new directions that are innovative and will allow the concept of Still Life to transcend it’s face-value.
And so, some 5 years after undertaking an M.A in Animation, I find myself as an emerging professional artist: Equipped with an M.A – not in Animation but Fine Art, having changed courses – and with the wish to ignite the language of Still Life, allowing it to become tangible and relevant. I also wish to exploit the endearing and mystifying language of scent. The concept of synesthesia – something which has been foremost in my practice since 2008 – is a very plausible route into the idea of representing scent in a visual way. It essentially regards a confusion of the senses, allowing scent to be inherently visible to an individual. If this were to be extracted and applied successfully then new and innovative directions can be uncovered.
In ‘Bread Bed’, I have created a significant starting point and reliable source that can be utilised should some artistic endeavours reach a dead end. Loaded within this piece comes not only the notion that food can be used as a medium, which in turn allows it to transcend its original purpose, but also the notion that scent, and the evocations contained within scent, can be represented visually. Toast is comforting, and the smell of toast induces and confirms such thoughts.
