I’ve had some of my work displayed around the school recently and as always it’s interesting to see the work in a different space, and how each piece of work relates to the next. Some go together quite obviously, and others in more subtle and interesting ways.
This has led me into thinking what direction my work will take next. I have been taking apart older pieces of work and taking things apart. I am interested in things that have failed, or have broken or have fallen apart, and like things that look sorry for themselves. I like what Angela de la Cruz does with her work, but I’m more interested in things that have just failed through their own forces. I’ve taken a photo of a piece of work half torn from it’s stretcher, which contradicts what I’ve just written, but I find the patterns that the marks on the canvas make intriguing, the pictorial space has changed and the straight lines and grids clash in a different way to which they were originally painted. I was thinking about collapsing structures before, and straight bold lines becoming more liquid and falling into nothingness, and here I have collapsed these painted lines in a different way. I think I’ll play with this piece of work and it’s stretcher a little more and see what happens.
Following on from my last post, I thought I’d make a slideshow video clip, so I could see what changes have happened in my work. The clip below goes back a little, from my degree show, and through a couple of wilderness years before it gets more interesting at the 1 minute mark, as that charts the last couple of years during my residency. It’s interesting looking back in this way, particularly if you look at the first piece, and then the last. I find it annoying that I jumped back into my comfort zone on several occasions, as the video clip clearly shows. My work was going in one direction, and then I clearly take a step or two back here and there. It’s only a selection of my work, and I missed out drawings and models and stuff.
A short slideshow showing the development of my work over a five year period
It has been 5 years since my degree show in Exeter. I remember thinking at the time that I’d definately still be making work in the years to come. Saying it is one thing, and I was pretty clueless back then (and I still am), but I am still making work. I’ve learned an awful lot in those 5 years, the first three were pretty tough, but the last two have been more productive and I’ve been a bit more proactive and focused. I remember leaving Exeter and thinking that I’d get a studio and it’ll all be great and then I’d go and do an MA after a year or so, but I quickly learned otherwise. I did get that studio, but it took 6 months or so. It was important I guess that I set myself the target of getting a space to work as my number 1 priority, otherwise who knows what would’ve happened!
Although I’m happy to have kept going when so many of my uni friends have given up, I can’t keep going on the way I am. I need to build a sustainable practice, I need to be more proactive in finding opportunities for myself and my work, I need to be brave! I watched ‘Mary Queen of Shops’ the other day, and Mary Portas went into this bakery in London to help out the business. The silly woman who actually applied for this help was completely dismissive of the help and advice she was given. She was so stuck in her old ways, and it made me think/worry about me in the not too distant future, going nowhere due to staying with what’s comfortable. I don’t want to let me or my work go that way.
It’s been a while. So I thought I’d catch up with my thoughts and make a post. I’ve been beavering away on a number of things over the last month. My work has seemed to go in some kind of architectural kind of direction. That may be something that I’ll explore over the next few weeks. I was thinking about things collapsing recently, and that goes back to those cardboard structures that I was making a few months ago, that I would leave to fall apart and then draw and various states of deconstruction. I also feel the need to do loads of research too, so that’s two things on my immediate to do list.
