Studio Work
- Stuck (Oil and oil stick on Khadi rag)
This was me trying to get working again, trying to find a way to bring textual content into painting – maybe I am being to literal in how I’m thinking of it. Basquiat and Emin floating around in the back of my mind, especially the vulnerable, confessional nature of Emin’s work. Thinking about where I could go? What role could writing play in/ with/ against/ over/ under/ around/ as part of painting? What should it’s purpose be alongside the pictorial element? How does it form a whole with the writing? How does it correspond to my interests in portraiture and the human figure? What does text do that the image doesn’t?
This is a possible route to beginning to synchronise the work I am doing with my therapist with my creative practice.
I felt a starting point is using writing to explain my emotional interior, exposing some of how I am feeling, what I am thinking. This quick painting surfaced as a result of that; how I am feeling as a result of this Unit, it’s projects, the difficulties of relating the content of the learning material to my personal practice, my antipathy towards the disruptive change that I feel has been imposed upon me. I will keep discussing that in this log and my work. It’s important for me to feel that I can use this space to express my perceptions of the learning situation: art is not about ‘towing the line’, responding to academic expectations, it’s about pushing the boundaries (as Akomfrah tasked) and that includes pursuing topics that are challenging, uncomfortable, confrontational, annoying et al for the target audience. This sketch is a visual, personal explanation of where this Unit currently sees me.
From Life Drawing Sessions
Following on from the above portrait sketch, I have started seeking other spaces where I can integrate writing and painting, the weekly life drawing sessions I run offer a regular opportunity. Again, exploring the use of writing to express my thoughts and feelings as I work from the figure, trying to dig beyond what I feel is a pseudo-meditative, thought-less state, where my unconscious appears to be motivating the body’s actions as I draw. There are responsive thoughts and emotions there, I just haven’t really noticed them. This practice is a vehicle for bringing them to the surface.
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
These following two sketches were created in my home studio, using photographic references of models. The text in the first was extracted from Georges Bataille’s ‘The Eye’: the choice of text was somewhat arbitrary, somewhat ego driven (I was trying to be ‘intellectual’) and also driven by not knowing what to write. Am wondering if this is to do with working from ‘colder’ photographs, so having far less of an emotional response to the subject material? I do regard all of these attempts, though, to integrate text and image and idea as conceptually crude and forced: there is nothing really there in terms of a driving ‘substance’.
Untitled (Gouache and water-soluble graphite on Khadi rag)
Untitled (Gouache, pastel and water-soluble graphite on Khadi rag)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour and water soluble graphite on A3 cartridge paper)
Untitled sketch (Watercolour, water soluble graphite and gesso on A3 cartridge paper)