It’s been an emotional few days. My ACE funded project about British artist Felicia Browne has never felt so relevant.
Brexit casts a pall over everything I do. I’m best when fully absorbed and setting up a showing of process works has mainly fitted the bill.
I’m revelling in this opportunity to work with my creative mentor and curator Sarah Mossop, who is vastly experienced and currently visual director at Oxford’s Old Fire Station. It is definitely raising my game in terms of the presentation of my work, and the work itself benefits too.
The wonderful thing about our studios’ project space (where I’m holding my process show) is that it gives out onto the front of the building. People can see you as they enter and I’ve already had rich conversation with studio members, again enabling me to think critically about the work. The quality of conversation makes it incredibly stimulating and I’m struck by how often I’m told it is a lovely project – the subject (Felicia Browne) is captivating.
So I’m sharing some install shots. At the end of a long day I couldn’t work out why the light was so bleached out on my iPhone – only when I downloaded did I twig that it must have been a filter. I like that it makes the work look as though it comes from another time and place.
Some of you might notice a new assemblage piece for the 5th stage. A very different interpretation of 5/ Border: Criss Cross.
This may not be the final hang. It’s a process after all…
Photograph by Philip King.
I have a lot to feel grateful for. Hours put into the creative side of the project are staring to pay off, I have doubled my studio space, and at the weekend I was treated to a photographic session (unexpected help in kind) in the studio by Philip King. All photographs in this blog post are by him.
I also have the most marvellous colleagues on the project and some exciting news in the pipeline that I can’t blog about just yet.
As I begin to turn the creative ship around and get my project management head firmly in place I’m thrilled to start sharing some images from the studio with a taste of what will be on offer, without (I hope) giving away too much.
I want to say how grateful I am to the Arts Council for funding this project and how important being able to take a little bit of extra space is proving to be for the creative work. I couldn’t have afforded to go for it without this support.
Having a bigger space has pushed the paintings on immeasurably and will impact on the quality of the final pieces. I’ve been emboldened and taken risks I may not have done otherwise. It has also given me the chance to see the works as a cycle and assess how they work as a whole.
The work is coming together!
I’ve had a lucky break. The opportunity to take over double my usual (somewhat cramped) studio space. This has transformed my ability to see the seven panels I’m working on in sequence, and in to see them all together.
Double the space is glorious. It changes everything – I can spread my wings and be bolder with the work. I honestly feel it has moved things on dramatically – together with the working through of ideas that the painting process brings.
I’m coming to realise more and more how I must feel my way. That for some of my responses I can plan, but for others I just need to work through it. Painting is thinking in this sense.
My motto last week for painting was – you have to break it to make it. I risked everything by reworking one panel which I thought was finished. It was a solid piece, it did the job, but there was one element that niggled. What replaces my original painting is a radically different and more emotionally powerful interpretation of this particular stage in Felicia Browne’s journey.
The two images below give a hint of progress.
A truly exciting two days on the object front! Yesterday I finally caught up with a contact who had been keeping some genuine 1930s glasses for me, and I was able to take them with me to the studio today.
They are more like the ones Felicia wore (as seen in photographs) than a previous pair I had managed to find during the research phase of the project. I’ll still use the older pair – as they fit a description of Felicia’s glasses by a fellow student at the Slade. The new pair are a wonderful addition and broaden what I can achieve in the final hang.
In the afternoon I got notice that a parcel had arrived. This was more exciting than I can say, AND I can’t reveal yet what this object – shipped from the US – is. I’m determined not to show the larger panels and their objects too soon. But it’s taking all the self-discipline I have! It’s for the 5th (additional) panel, which focuses on Felicia’s road trip to Spain. That’s all I can say – other than it is PERFECT!
So back to the glasses. The image above shows how they could be used with the final panel – here attached to the smaller painted sketch.
I’m delighted with them and can already see that they can even be worked on to enhance the layers of meaning I’m trying to incorporate in the work.
Sketch 4. Paris: Wandering Savagely. Bound for a major re-think.
Work on the project is proving intense. I’m in studio phase and working as many hours as I can on paintings – some of which sit! like well trained dogs, and some of which don’t.
By this I mean I can already tell that some are going to prove difficult to resolve, resulting in tussle of wills for which there is no doggie chew to bargain with. This is often the way – it is only the rare painting that arrives as a gift and lies doggo on first command.
But my 6 painted sketches are helping tremendously in the work on the first 3 larger panels – it’s my 4th that’s being tricksy.
Interestingly, it was by far the quickest (in sketch form) and, looking back, highly provisional.
So – chin scratch, head nod – comes the sage observation that if you have to work to a plan, it pays to plan more thoroughly.
This may be obvious to the casual observer, but something of a novelty for me in my painting practice. I’m intuitive and explorative in method – I begin usually without preconception or plan, but rather trust to instinct to draw on my research.
Already, Felicia is stretching me and teaching me new tricks.
The first 3 works are also those which incorporate Felicia’s line, and even carefully chosen examples of her figurative sketches. There has come a point in panel 4 where I no longer recognise my own work however, and part of the struggle is to orientate myself. Immersed in research material, entranced by Felicia’s drawing practice my explorations have now taken me too far for comfort in an exhibition context. The work still has to reflect who I am as an artist – albeit responding to another artist’s material. So I must step back in panel 4 and dig my way out a little to recoup my own thumbprint and regain what feels like the harmony of panels 1-3.
