Jemma Craig in her Masters dissertation, Painting fights back , discusses Karla Black and Helen Frankenthaler’s paintings and sculptures, Craig sees a direct correlation with these two artists colour pallet and the composition, in Black’s words ‘I,m always thinking about composition and the relationship between form and colour-that’s really painterly, that’s what a painter does ‘ The image i have posted like these noted artist’s conceptualises and evokes a painterly motion through the layers and talks about place. Stepping through the image to another world.
CY Twombly: Untitled (Bassano in Teverina) 1985. A sculpture one must bob down squint to see whats inside. In the Tate Papers Kate Nesin refers to Twombly's sculptures as having an in-between ness. /
This paper discusses CY Twombly’s Untitled (Funerary Box for a Lime Green Python) 1954, it refers to the sculptural as content more about what you can not see rather than what you can. Monument and maker while in the same breath in-between-ness is strongly included in the frame. I disagree to me Twombly has an unmistaken indelible touch you know when you are looking at a Twombly there for it has content and a history attached.
Do Ho Suh: Home within Home Installation 2013, 1x1 scale fabric, A monumental articulate transformative work. /
Human identity, cultural borders and retention of home memories resonate, in a COVID 19 world. This image beautifully retains one persons conceptual motif, we can live out of home cross borders yet we retain family and historic memeories.
Read MoreEmmylou Harris: The Road, welcome relief, this song breaks my tension, gives me some respite, takes me up above the clouds so high, thoughts move from the studio to a safe plce. /
The Road, We share together, takes me to a safe secure sanctuary, just what i need, a break from my studies. These lyrics resonate with my trepidation in this weird world we live. You can’t be haunted by the past (i think we can and are haunted by the past) Can you see me from some place up there amongst the stars, Yes these words evoke thoughts and spark my imagination, the road may be lonely yet the end is ever evolving and hope is out there. Like Emmylou Harris, Martin Creed also gives me respite he breaks the tension in his some time absurdity art actions, yet they hold presence in my unconsciousness mind and sporn my creativity.
Karla Black: Gisela Capitain. Michael Archer Artforum: discusses materials as natural, fragile, amorphous. He discusses her early career as performative, how Black was influenced by Bobby Baker.. /
What i contest with is Archer describes Karla Black as a feminist and goes on to say her works have titles that lead to a feminism dialect. Looking at black’s artist talks and interviews today she states that she takes offence to be categorised as a feminist artist. She discusses her work is successful if the audience gets a feeling from the work based on its material qualities not the gender of the artist. Reference:https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/features/karla-black
Helen Chadwick: An art work that is both fascinating in its content (a human brain) and at the same time to some repulsive. /
Image Self Portrait 1991. Is from the ‘Meat Lamps” series of works. I see several layers of content being played out here. A fine example of a staged photographic image made for us to enquire about the brain. The coupling of holding a human brain so delicately. A scientific representation. An for me the most significant, how do we perceive our body our brain our inner thoughts. As my on going project seeks to uncover meaning to the felt human body, this representation i feel is an excellent example of an inquiring mind.
Kiki Smith: Blue Girl 1998, this image gives a sense of tender mourning, isolation and separation. It is having a connection to a healing , overseeing presence and to the larger cosmos. /
The feelings the Blue Girl 1998 plays an important part of my practice, i see a departure from the real world and being transported to spiritual sensory being in another safe place. The Blue Girl through the action of kneeling and with the sporadic gold stars in the back ground is like being transported to another safe world.
Kiki Smith: In conversation, its so informative, up lifting and inspiring to all the time connect in some way with a living legend of the art world. /
This image is a recent drawing i did for my project Tying, i have posted the interview with Kiki Smith as she uses the body as a narrative in much of her work and the way she talks illustrates a creativity of how artist often think and develop the seed for making. My work has similar traits of an initial crazy idea that begins to transform in to in this case the fragility and vulnerability of an abstract body.
Kiki Smith: Flowers Blanket 2004 shows a temporal pathos, the work being presented in this high sided glass vitrine give the work an archival resonance. /
Papier mach’e sculptures a series of 13 rows x 16 threaded together to create this archival embodied work.
The theme of what i have created has connotations of Kiki Smith’s Flower Blanket, 2004. Exhibited at Monnaire De Paris France, this was a part of a body of work that was exhibited.
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/kiki-smith-untitled-flower-blanket-kiki-smith/2QFKRTOyGGC9Qg?ms=%7B%22x%22%3A0.5000000000000001%2C%22y%22%3A0.5%2C%22B%22%3A8.914539511660807%2C%22z%22%3A8.914539511660807%2C%22size%22%3A%7B%22width%22%3A1.4620896902450309%2C%22height%22%3A1.2500000000000009%7D%7D
Read MoreMona Hatoum: Roadworks 1985, performance in the streets of Brixton London /
The works of Mona Hatoum early performances, such as Roadworks 1985 and Changing Parts, 1984 where the artist is videoed for seven hours naked in a plastic cell of muddy clay which she is viewed trying to escape. I feel this sense of exposure to the world yet a heightened trepidation of being on public view. I am not it just feels like it. As i walk run my memory trail i am drawn to Hatoum’s performances.
C Y Twombly: By The Ioniansea 1988. Bronze string fabric white paint. I took this picture at the Broad LA. I was so excited to see this series of sculptures have a mesmerising disposition. /
The connections i make with Twombly’s art are full of this ambiguity materiality quality. By The Ionian sea 1988,
has a sense of archaic relic from a ships instruments, yet it posses what resonates a sense that it is speaking to you. The roughness and the white paint sort of just left unfinished to me illustrates the artist hand his finger print his possession of the work. These quantities and the tactility of the material are traits i strive for in my work.
Read MoreLouise Bourgeois 1911-2010: 10 am is When You Come to Me 2006. Tate exhibition 2013 /
The exhibition was a multi work, of twenty hand-painted sheets of musical score paper depicting the hands of Louise and assistant Gorovoy’s hands, painted. What interests me is the act of using her hand to illustrate actions in various movements, and the connection Bourgeois had with Jerry. The meaning of the work can be looked up at Tate. What i am interested is my hands holds this indelible print my thoughts and trace . It can not be replicated by another person they are mine, and this is the mark of the artist. My papier mach’e finger sculptures have this characteristic, and at the same time a fragility in the materiality.
Cornelia Parker: The Distance: A kiss With Added String /
Cornelia Parker re-purposing such an iconic historical art work. She said that like what Duchamp did in the exhibition “First Papers of Surrealism” (1942) where he used a mile of string to criss-cross the gallery space obstructing with the string art works on view. I look at what Parker has created and view it as two people being transported into another world. The intervention by hiding their bodies with the string is like a form of escapism, they no longer have to be on display to the prying public, they have been freed to take their own destiny to look down on us from far above in the clouds.
Man Ray, The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse, 1920 has connotations of a body may be a living breathing body under the blanket, a brilliant use of a ready made object (the sowing machine) /
Man Ray’s The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse, 1920. Evokes a sensory feeling may be a temporal feeling as what really is under the tied up blanket ? To me i see a living breathing evocative body may be a monster thats about to break free and enter our world. My practice is trying to create this sense of the artist hand and body as a presence, so to this extent Man Ray’s The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse, 1920. directly influences how i am working.
Christo and Jeanne Claude, Wrapped Monument to Vitto Emanuele , Piazza del Dumomo, Milan, Italy, 1970 /
My first project for semester one started with a paper mach`e bird i made, and then bubble wrapped to hide its meaning and origins. Much Like what Man Ray did in his The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse, 1920, which was a sowing machine covered with an army blanket and string tied it up and then called it Art. My sculpture is the start of a process where i am contextualising the body loosely tied to show a sense of protection and encapsulation. Somewhat utilising what the Dada artists did in the 1920s - 1930,s.
Christo and Jeanne Claude, in their wrapping of this monument has a similar context to hiding an object and looking at through fresh eyes, that is to say if you are looking at the object for the first time and do not know what is hidden.
Sarah Sze, i have followed her installations for years, what i engage is the large scale of working with low cost everyday items and making amazing art from them. /
Seamless 1999 has this carnival feeling to it yet at the same time it is a very complex work to make. How Sze goes about her work is intuitive yet she has a definitive process, how els do you construct the vast amount of work she has over the years. Today i am working on my concept map and have been thinking about her complexity yet at the same time seamless has a narative its like a story from a kidds play room. My map and the way i work is spontaneous but it takes me for ever to create. So may be there are some similarities between Sze and my self.
Sarah Sze, American artist creates some amazing installations. She represented America at the Venice biennale 2105 /
A hammock no people a memory is created or a memory is remembered.
Read MoreMona Hatoum, Hot Sot 2006 a buzzing neon globe of the world. How the world today has changed with the outbreakCOVID 19 /
Countries, borders, race, language all mean nothing today, how a virus has crippled and devastated communities the world over. Mona Hatoum’s Hot Spot 2006 illustrates like the buzz it produces up close the virus is silent yet is global in its scale. To day i am walking a trail its like my map it has no clear path yet it meanders creates a sensory presence within the landscape and evokes memory as i walk past sign posts, markers points of significance in my mind it is my globe and buzzes within my head, it allows a trace for art making and like the virus it is contagious.
Richard Long, A line Made by walking 1967, where the artist walked backwards and forwards till a line was visible, conceptual, minimalism, land art ? /
Long’s documentation (taking a photograph) of his action is both conceptual and performance but the performance has been played out and all we are left with is this image. The theory for me behind his actions goes beyond the photograph which is the memory. The relationship is in the memory why did he do this walk back and forth, what was he thinking at the time, was this intentional or just passing the time of day. Was this a therapeutic exercise for other thoughts long was contemplating at the time. He was an art student when he made this work !. Most of my unspoken thoughts happen when i am out walking running doing my daily exercise routine. Yet whats not routine is the thoughts that pop into my head nearly all about art or negative about personal stuff, why is this so ? I enjoy so much the exercise yet the path i take is in-bedded in to my subconscious i don’t need to look at a map i just go out and walk/run. My question is, are my actions and the memory art ? The thought i have on these walk stay with me long after the walk is done.
The voice of Susan Philipsz, Scottish sound artist. Winner of Turner prize 2010. Mesmerising heavenly sounds. /
As a very significant way to how i conceive and think conceptually about my work the memory trail plays an important part. Over the years i have often watched and listened to the beautiful creative sounds and places that Susan Philipsz performs in. The outdoor installation she created at ‘Lowlands’ 19 May 2010 it runs for 8 minutes 25 seconds is so engaging on both a purely sound work but for me more importantly the memory trail this evokes in my own walking along the Yarra river in Melbourne. This in turn resonates feeling emotions and sensations that expand the way i conceive and in the studio make my work. I hope you take the time 8.25sec you wont be disappointed.