After researching various artists, I came across Nan Goldin. She has been mentioned several times in connection to my artworks (mostly photography) with the feeling that can be felt from the photos which influenced me to go take a look at the library in one of her books titled The Devil’s Playground. Without reading about the book beforehand and finding information about what the series of photographs included in this book are, I jumped right into viewing. At first, the book introduces itself with pictures of ocean and nature in general, which are like the calm before the storm. The storm comes with personal family pictures, which at first looked like a usual family album pictures… but that was exactly the problem (?). There was nothing indicating the feeling of discomfort and ‘the uncanny’ at first, but the more I read through the pictures, the more uncomfortable I felt. Being a ‘Voyuer’ was the first thing I could identify myself with. Looking through a camera placed in people’s houses and rooms to observe the usual moments of their life.
French Kiss; Joana&Auréle (Joana and Auréle making out in my apartment, NYC, 1999)
This chapter was hard for me to go through in the library, having people around me, watching me watch other people being naked in a personal and intimate moment. Voyuerism usually comes as a secreat obsession or sexual desire, that one experiences/enjoys by themselves. While looking at the pictures, I wanted to almost identify myself with the voyuer, wanting to see what I see in private. Its interesting how the ego changes in regard of what one is doing. Being surrounded by other people while observing such photos seems almost like unacceptable, but I still went through the pictures with awe how interesting the moments captured were and how uncomfortable I was feeling while watching them.
CONNECTION
I can say that I now see how people feel while looking my pictures as for some they could indicate the same exact feeling that I felt right at the moment of reading through the pictures. The one difference is that Nan Goldin captures real people and real emotions/moments. I don’t do that at the moment (who knows in the future), I create narratives based on those moments and emotions.
Tutorial with Gary Colclough
Talking to Gary has always helped me in the field of painting and the process of getting to painting(collage making, choosing of the subject for my art etc.) and this conversation was not different. While Gary was looking at my works, I saw him being interested in one painting the most. The painting titled don’t drown.
Gary mostly spoke about the fact that the painting is being the most cinematic out of the three paintings. He noted that the painting is leaving us in the unknown, not knowing what is actually happening. The painting is leading us to thinking that the person seen on the painting is maybe being drown and maybe just laying in the bath. The viewer also sees the edge of the canvas, which is leading us to thinking there is more of the story to be told, not cutting it. Should I do that, is it helping the painting?
Gary also gave me some references to look at or read into. One of them is the movie Blow Up. He said that the cinematic of the movie is amazing, so I might have a look at it.
Another references were to look at Painting as a Weapon. I hope that I found the right book. The book’s full title is Painting as a Weapon; Progressive Cologne 1920 – 1930. The book focuses on the understanding of art during the Weimar period in Germany thanks to a group of Cologne Progressives, offering a new definition of the relationship between art and politics between the World Wars. American historian Lynette Roth reveals how the group also developed a new and unique formal language shaped by their socially critical stance.
This book examines the artistic practice of the Progressives in a new light.
Following that, I was also introduced to
Karin Mamma Andersson, who is a Swedish Contemporary painter. Her work is often figurative, frequently depicting domestic interiors and snowy landscapes, and is known for its quiet, dreamlike quality. Andersson spoke about her art: ,, I paint slowly, gently, thin, beautiful, ugly, thick, hard. I love it, it’s my life. But I hate it too, It is a quiet, messy, illogical confusing disorder. It is here that dreams and the subconscious come in.”
All that I think connects to my art in its own way and I understand why this reference came to me from Gary.
POSTER
The picture used for my poster is not included in my exhibition. Its a cropped picture from another picture not choosen for it.
In this picture, it indicates, that the exhibition is going to have to do something with the colour green and its dripping.
Curating of the Inner conversation exhibition
While working on where to put where, I noticed my hate for two of my paintings, thinking that they dont fit in with my vision and idea. So I found a solution to my problem, I glazed the paintings with blue paint, changed details on the two paintings and finally, after contemplaiting life and having a little breakdown, I decided to use all of those paintings.
the first one is the recent one. It looks way better fitting in the whole collection than it did before.
Another little parts included in my exhibition is a text printed as stuck onto a wooden panel, and two little paintings as supporting artworks.
UPDATE 22.11.2021
Fixing up the exhibition. Fixing up all of my paintings, including my pictures that I had printed out on a photo paper, was quite challenging but fun. I love working on my own, so spending my free time in the studio, trying to figure out every measurement was peaceful for me.
Here are more detailed pictures of every piece(painting) included in the exhibition. I did not put any of the titles inside the exhibition, because they all have one name: The inner conversation.
The photographs mentioned in the previous blog posts are included as well.
In the case of curating and placing pieces around the room, I have decided to go for every working angle et cetera. For example, painting with the title Silence is on the floor in the corner and a painting titled Dont drown has its own wall.
UPDATE 06.12.2021
Looking back at the feedback from my peers and people around, I decided to continue working in this field and focus more on
colour palettes, for which I found a very good instagram account.
That account includes pictures with colour palletes added to them, letting the audience to see the reason why some scenes can be really pleasing for the eye. I want to learn about colour theory, so I will be looking more into artists that work with colours as their ‘power’.
Narrative is the other part of my works which I want develop. I want to keep on finding things that will inspire me to create new and new narratives as its something that keeps me going. When creating something for the being of it, I do not enjoy it as much as I do, when there is a storyline added to it. For me, it creates a mysterious layer on top of the visual part of it. What you see does not matter in the end, while looking at my works.
After reconsidering using my original pictures, I have decided to give my idea another/new chance using a digital camera. After getting really comfortable with my smartphone, I wanted to get used to another medium with which I could work + have better quality and possibility to manipulate the pictures without loosing that much of information from the RAW file. The photos taken with my iphone end up being as jpeg, so many informations are already lost by the time I play with effect. With the digital camera, on the otehr hand, I have the possibility to work with the raw image with hundreds of informations in it, meaning that after manipulating the image many times, its still going to have a great quality.
CONCEPT
The concept of the pictures is still the same, just with different technology. All the pictures here are taking part of the exhibition.
The only difference between them and the old ones is the quality and focus on cropping of the images.
While working on my dissertation notes, I slid into reading a book by Charlotte Jansen – Girl on Girl, and came across an artist Izumi Miyazaki. Her work is based on taking self portraits which don’t represent herself. Miyazaki said ,,Even though I am making self-portraits, I do not feel that It is the same person in front of and behind the camera”, which is again a thing which I relate to a lot. She as a Japanese woman was expected to create more of cute than cruel pictures, but got the exposure she didn’t receive in Japan in America and Europe. Talking about her working method, Miyazaki stated that she always has a clear idea before creating the work, but that it often changes throughout creating the photographs. She turns herself into sashimi or a sandwich, a consumer and the product also.
Her grotesque like photography is opening new doors to imagination and to me, the aestheticality of her works really pull me in.
