Trying to focus my work into a sensible, acceptable, believable, academic Research Question on which to hang my current art practice, is an ongoing and largely frustrating task. I’ve dithered about with Landscape, Sense of Place, Time, space and movement, The Phenomenology of Life, as various ‘pegs’ on which to hang the stuff I paint. But nothing quite explains what I’m doing.
I’ve tried a really simplified and uncomplicated description, stating that I paint about ‘Life Itself’ . But that’s a bit of a cop-out. Or is it? Looking into existentialism, (Researching ? Yaaay!) I found various complicated definitions but the one which most struck a chord with me was this – ‘The philosophy of Existentialism was an influential undercurrent in art that aimed to explore the role of sensory perception, particularly vision, in the thought processes….art is not an exact science but a means of capturing the complexities of what the eye observes.’ It does have to do with 1. phenomenology, 2. ontology and good old-fashioned 3. observational drawing. All of these 3 are built into my DNA and basically what my art practice is about.
Have I hit on the answer perhaps ????
