During my second year I was very confused about my work, I had preconceived ideas about what an artist should be like and the way in which they should work. E.g: Drawing the idea, making it and then attempting to get it into a gallery.
For me this was a difficult concept to grasp as I have always believed that the act or experience of creating art is more important than the end result. Being aware and present in every moment is of pivotal importance to me as I believe we live in a world where we are constantly looking forward to the latest phone, the next holiday or deeper more unsettling hopes of being a better person or a better painter etc and this is really unhealthy because the present moment is all we really have…
Alongside this I realised that there is a common theme of repetition in my work, I feel this is an expression of each passing moment and the repetitive nature of my work requires me to perform gestures/ marks over and over again…
This in turn bring about a kind of meditative state, where the work is emergent rather than predetermined. Even if I begin, a drawing for instance, with an idea for a certain shape or thickness of line, through the repetitive act I seem to transcend though and the work comes from a place beyond my mind.
A contemporary artist that I have been researching for my dissertation and studio practice is Linn Meyers, she is also very interested in this ‘almost meditative state’ through the creation of repetitive organic forms that she maps out before she begins, the work changes as a result of the imperfection of her lines. She has said she is interested in how the drawing change and evolve as she works and is excited about what will emerge.
