University Campus Suffolk

I have realised that despite the fact I spend hours and hours reading books, looking at artists, documentaries and interviews, I haven’t actually written any of it on my blog.

Posting about my practice on a blog doesn’t come naturally to me, I tend to work in a very sporadic way and gathering everything together in one place is very forced. However, I think the way I refer back to past works and past influences in between my posts about current ideas and understandings reflects my interest in the fragments of obscure thought that are the nature of the mind.

Agnes Martin’s writings provide me with inspiration and confirmation of my own meandering awareness. In one way her writings appear intentionally ambiguous and in another I feel totally connected and aware of her meanings. The honesty Martin shares in her understanding of what it means to be an artist is a both refreshing and absolutely essential to both current and future generations of artists, her words embody a simple truth that lies at the heart of any creative practice.

‘Sometimes there are moments of perfection and in these moments we wonder why we ever though life was difficult’ Schwartz, D., ed, 1998, Agnes Martin Writings/Schriften. Germany:Hatje Cantz

Martin’s paintings are also a source of great inspiration, her minimalist style and use of subtle colour are both things that are a large part of my own practice, the paring down of elements within my work finds a balance between the incomprehensible vastness of consciousness and the simple, humble reality that I believe is the fundamental truth of human existence.

An interesting element of her work,for me, is the incorporation of grids in her painting, the contrast between the vast, fluid freedom of her subjects and the rigid predetermined nature of the lines somehow finds a very delicate balance that relect the thoughts and ideas of her writing.

I have seen writings about Martin that document her interest in esoteric knowledge….Zen Buddhism and particularly Taosim have heavily impacted on my own practice and I find it interesting that many of the artists I research have had an interest in this way of thinking at some point in of their artistic practice, if not for the duration.

Today I have trying out things for some new sculptures…

I became aware of a lack of colour in my recent work and felt that its incorporation was important to the continued development of my ideas…

Painting in my work is not just a medium, it is also the subject, it explores the possibilities of the paint as a thing in itself…

I suppose the application of the paint is an indicator of this, the intentionally uneven application of colour allows the observer to understand that the paint is not being used to colour the wood or hide it in some way, it becomes a hint of something… a suggestion.

The text piece was exploring the possibilities of incorporating language, this felt necessary as I read all the time and think constantly, analysing things I see and ideas I have. The text was intentionally obscured as I was interested in how an inability to comprehend the words would affect the viewers experience of the piece.

I have been exploring putting together different works, to create new pieces, seeing how different objects and colours work together and how a kind of assembling of different elements of my studio can create quite interesting visual objects.

I began experimenting with this idea in late 2012…

These photgraphs document the first time the whole room was covered with strands.

While I was creating the piece I was thinking a lot about how things effect a space, the intangible vs the tangible… How I could fill a space with the most transient material. Stuffed full of nothingness.

To be completely honest, the more I persevered with the piece… the more it looked appealing visually/and the less I enjoyed it.

Spending many hours each day in a completely white room sticking each piece of floss strand by strand to the ceiling was, to say the least, utterly painful.

Exploring the ideas of installation and thin, light materials has made me realise that although this was a really good opportunity to develop my knowledge and understanding of this area… I really want to be making a solid object (whether that is painting, sculpture, drawing etc) It has also shown me that I strive for colour and personality in my work and this style and the concerns that I have been talking about don’t necessarily relate to who I am as a person…It is more a part of my yearning to constantly learn and understand art (and life) in a deeper way and find new ways of looking at things.

‘Beyond that there is only pretence and arrogance’ was, I can see now, related to my immediate surroundings and the things that seem to be celebrated.

The seduction of colour and scale… I suppose my use of plain colours is a direct resistance against this false attraction. Asking for something of its spectator.

Am I looking for something too pure and too honest?

Does that really exist in art schools?

Does it really exist in the wider art world?

I like to hope so, idealistic or otherwise…

The box piece was a spontaneous assemblage of things I was using in the space..I think it works really well in terms of what I was thinking about at the time…. work that naturally occurs as a result of something else (a frequent phenomenon in the studio) Something that found itself somewhere between ambiguous and simple…