Process

"It's a moot point whether the act of making or the photographic record of it is the true "work". "
Guardian Arts

The nature of the conflict between the act of creation and the creation itself is seemingly somewhat overlooked in my experience. Questioning the importance of process over that of production was picked up at College during critique sessions in which fellow students seemed disinterested whilst I claimed that the finished work doesn't matter as much as making it. This ideal stuck unhindered until the point when I realised that the works I had completed held weight for me visually. It's worth the possibility of debate to dredge it up to be considered once again.

A painting is an artwork completed to communicate some aspect or combination of ideas, situations or moods. However, the artistic satisfaction comes from the act of creating the work, and its validity is decided by the individual participant through a period of consideration inspired by the visual connotations of the work itself. In these areas, the process forms an experience of the work, for which the work is a catalyst. The work cannot exist without the actions required to make it, and it is reduced without the experience of its participation. The experiences and processes can and do exist without the necessity for an artwork, and therefore the process is of more importance than the physical outcome.

* * *

A small portion of today has resulted in becoming aware of how often I switch off at the mention of certain references. For instance, throughout University I completely ignored anything said about Duchamps or Beuys simply because it happened so often. Today's realisation of this was caused by reading Matthew Collings in Modern Painters (June 2007) considering an essay he's writing:

"It's about Picasso in the early 1960s dissecting his own art, redoing the same format in endless repetitions as if he's asking what painting is and coming up with repetition itself as the answer. Process is the point. Perpetual agitation is the mood. There is no culminating work preceded by a series of studies, just the studies. Every picture... is the work."

I realise that I'm expecting myself to elaborate on these points but, having nothing more informative to note than that I find them inspiring, I won't. The emphasis I wanted to make was on ignoring things when they might come as some use in attempting to clarify any desired objectives in the field of painting. Perhaps it's just that Collings has a viewpoint that doesn't just reiterate everything I've ignored in the past.

The process of creating work has become, or is becoming, a series of realisations on the considerations of others. It could be possible to construct a practise from curating and editing ideas already realised by those others.