For my work in progress presentation on Tuesday I showed a couple of early paintings, including my first one from 6 years ago, to provide context to where I am now. I was surprised how exposed I felt; not in showing them, but in talking about them. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to give the titles for them or to say much more than that they were metaphorical. I shared this feeling and some recognised the difficulty of a naming or explaining work, whilst others their work often starts with a title.
Later, I also realised that it wasn’t just concerned about feeling exposed by very personal subject matter, but that in describing the work, it would somehow be reduced. That ‘understanding’ the work takes away some of the mystery. I like to remember something I heard that was alleged to be a quote from Frank Zappa; “trying to talk about music is like trying to dance about architecture.” This just goes to the heart of what I’m trying to do with my work; – explore and express things that aren’t aren’t easy to put into words. All art does this to some extent, but I think some work leads to thinking about meaning, whilst some can only work on the level of feeling.
Comments about these early paintings were very positive. Paul Johnson, (tutor) said the first painting in particular ‘looked weird; in a good way’. I like that my work looks ‘weird’. I’m trying to create a sense of ‘otherness’, of seemingly familiar and strange at the same time.
I spoke about feeling inhibited, and that I feel my work is too controlled. I think I’m ‘building’ paintings rather than ‘painting’ them. I described wanting to be more ‘painterly’ and expressive. I also said I’d previously made ‘functional’ things and Kerry Andrews, (tutor) challenged the idea of thinking about art as not being ‘functional’ or having a function. He also said that building paintings is not a problem, many artists work that way.
I then showed what I’ve been working on this semester:
The feedback on my work provided lots of ideas and suggestions of other artists to look at. The key messages / suggestions I took from the session:
- Think about indeterminacy, [John Cage as an example] – make a limiting frame or system to work within and define systems that generate things beyond my control; remove myself from the work.
- Go big! Get some canvas or paper to fill up my wall and work on that.
- Find tricks to get ‘into the zone’; – lose control and then majik happens. Kerry referred to Orphic Myth – descending to the underworld & re-birth; – so much art is about this theme.
- Take it easy, just keep experimenting
- PLAY !
Good advice and much to think about. I recognize that I need to try to take some pressure off myself, not worry about outcomes so much and remove some ‘performance anxiety’. I do indeed need to play more. I’ve already started thinking about finding ways to generate work with my direct control removed. Although I aim to use the outcome as a starting point to respond to, rather than as finished work; much as Max Ernst did with what he called ‘liberting procedures’. I think this has to be the next key area of investigation.