I was asked recently, by Chantelle Purcell of Core Gallery, about transience in my work (see link below for the full interview with Chantelle). She saw a Deleuzian sense of becoming and an unresolved quality to the work, something I thought was very interesting. I admit I’m not too familiar with Deleuze, but I knew his name from reading art history. That was as far as my knowledge went, so I looked him up and I found this:
“Underneath all reason lies delirium and drift.”
Gilles Deleuze
Now that’s as tasty as chocolate to me!
The division between reason and irrationality is so thin it shimmers. What reason can we hold onto when everything around us shifts so constantly? And what irrationality must we embrace in order to flow with that shift?
I’ve had a lot of experience with transience and I’ve had to come to terms with those two questions. As I told Chantelle, transience is what is real for me.
Transience and isolation go hand-in-hand. I’ve had to deal with isolation in so many other ways that the isolation of working alone as an artist really isn’t that bad. For me, the difficulty of isolation as an artist is questioning whether the work is any good. We all make work we like and I’m just as certain we all wonder if anyone else will like it.
And I don’t believe for a second it is as simple as that statement appears.
I feel a deep satisfaction with my work, I’m pleased with what I’ve produced and I’m not really too bothered by the idea that others may not like it or respond to it. When I show my work, I’m not offended if people don’t like it; I sort of mentally shrug and move on. But when people do respond to it, I give a mental sigh of relief. It’s not the approbation of being liked it’s more the discovery of common ground. It’s like discovering a crazy passion for something in common with a friend.
In that moment isolation and transience dissipate and there is connection. Is this why we feel compelled to make art? Is that feeling so profound for us that we are propelled to move forward, becoming artists in order to find it again? Do we know delirium and drift fills the space between the connections?
(All said facing into my own crit with Graham Crowley next week! eek!)
http://www.coregallery.co.uk/relay/
http://coregalleryinterviews.blogspot.com/
