Northumbria University

This is what I have been using as my statement up until now. While I think it covers some integral points, my work seems to be ever changing, and I think some key questions are missing. Ideas of investigation, functionality and presentation….

Art is the way into conversation, yet thinking, talking and writing about what is essentially a visual process is one of the most difficult things for an artist to do.

The “medium” of the blogosphere opens up a space for a critical and analytical dialogue between me and my work, creating a harmonious cycle where, while the blog is the driving force for the artwork, the content is also about the creation of the art itself. This, in turn, creates a battle between aesthetic values and practical realities of production, resting somewhere between our bodily experience and our intellectual understanding of communication.

The fragmentary images are echoes of unread words and a translation of them is not necessarily required. They form visual patterns, or codes, which play a dual role as imagery and as building blocks of meaning. Presented as a range of subtle processes of exchange, in contrast with mass interaction; each piece of work has the possibility to last forever, change or be erased completely.

Paradoxical qualities dominate: public/privacy, fragment/whole, reveal/conceal, substance/ light. The notion of time is also central to the operation of my practice, constantly shifting between immersed and immediate studio time. In order to blog, I must experience the entire length of the day, how I use the time determines what I blog. The writing is situated in a public arena, where typing is a very quick and direct activity, this is in complete disparity with the long hours spent labouring over an artwork in my private studio space.

When making work, a contemplative space is created wherein I am more fully able to reflect on my own sensory experience. I wish to create a similar understanding for the viewer where they can experience the familiar through my work; with mark making acting as a form of contact between artist and medium, artist and audience and audience and artwork.

I’d love to create a set of profiles, similar to the blogger profile, where I send out the same piece of text to a number of people and discover where that can lead. This only came into my head at 8am and some thought on it today might help me to decide who I would like to do this with.

“All art is useless”…how can it gain a function like the blog does?

Could the blog get projected, and the recorded artwork be placed on a monitor? If it is able to be scrolled around and viewed in a similar way to the blog then a juxtaposition occurs.

Will projecting the blog-which documents my thoughts and experiences-alongside the static image of the installation-which will be one of many experiments-elevate it so that it becomes more on a par with the artwork, and so more important?

I’ve been a bit of a bad blogger lately (I’m sure we all go through these neglectful phases from time to time) but I think it is now the right moment to become much more thoughtful and thorough on what I post.

I talked about the difference between immersed and immediate studio time in my profile with Richard Taylor. It was said that while the blogging was direct and immediate compared to long hours labouring over the artwork, the opposite is now starting to happen. Since I have already made the work and have decided to document it through a digital medium (projection) the experiments are now quite short. While this is the case, careful consideration is essential and I think that writing in this blogging arena will now take longer than the practical processes.

My practice is becoming a series of experiments in order to make sense of unanswered questions. The final aesthetic outcome is not necessarily as important as finding out these answers. I almost feel like a scientist!

We’re five days into March, and so far it gets 10/10. Nasty February is long gone, I’m feeling very positive. I have managed to film for five days and the room I moved to actually produces much better light (we’ve had beautiful sunny mornings this week.) I’ll edit this afternoon and see what can be produced from my mass of footage. I also practiced projecting onto and through acetate and it works, another progression. I feel as though I’ve completed two weeks worth of work within four days.

I’m going to Edinburgh tomorrow to (my favourite) Fruitmarket Gallery to see Toby Paterson’s show, and the AV festival starts today too, lots of exciting things to see….I’ll report back!