September Crits – Part 1
The other week, Katie Goodwin and myself hosted a peer critique session at ASC Studios. This was the third in our post MA Wimbledon roving salon/crit series. We were a little overdue with this one, as the previous two were held in January, and late March. There were 8 of us that showed both work in progress and finished work.
It was a good way to end the Summer as a group, catch up with each others practices as well as giving and receiving feedback. It was a good and constructive session, everyone there contributed both by showing work and by giving feedback to others. I feel that we all got something out of it.
I decided to bring some paintings to the crit. I hadn’t shown them before and I was quite nervous. In fact the day before I was having a crisis with them, nothing I was doing was working. I even went to the extreme of hiding them in our studio so nobody would see them. In hindsight, I think I was just un-focused with them and was trying to do too much with them at once. For this crit, I decided to hang two paintings on the wall. One larger painting and one small painting. The two that I felt most comfortable with, the two that I felt were most complete. The other 6 or so small paintings were just placed on the floor leaning against the wall.
Some of the points that were raised during the evening, with the simplicity and the flatness of my new works. How messed-up can I let them get. They almost look too clean at the moment. I spoke of my choice of materials, and the tradition of painting, albeit with a slight twist. I am painting with cement-egg tempera on canvas that I prepared with my own gesso. Traditionally, you would use a hard surface for egg tempera paintings, but my use of canvas can potentially highlight the fragility of the materials. Some of the paint was beginning to crack. The look and cold feel of the paint seems successful, the imperfections and air bubbles almost fool you into thinking that this is a harder surface. In fact, almost everyone wanted (and did) touch the canvas. I did encourage this though. The physical feel of the work related directly to my structural works.
Other points that came up in the discussion was that I need to perhaps re-think and consider further my use of materials. Could my paintings be seen as objects, and become elements of the structural work, such as bricks or slabs. This point was raised after my descision to place the smaller paintings on the floor. I was also told that I was ‘painting a wall, and then making a painting on that wall’. This was interesting as all my structural pieces have drawings attached, and Remnants also featured boards, that had been painted in cement.
(continued in the next post)
