Construction

The weekend has been spent on some productive construction activity. After a disastrous bout of unconvincing customer service at Homebase on Friday (who, as a result, I shall not be using again), Saturday was spent laying the groundwork to my first work of note since leaving University approximately twelve months ago. Today, the supports have been completed to the standard pictured above and will require some kind of sealing before its inaugural coat of paint.

This latest painting is numbered 163, titled 'Do Not Obstruct', and is intended to be a 'return' to the cellular structures that had been previously explored. I'm aiming for a dark vibrant red cell in off-white/yellowed surroundings, but there are no guarantees of the future. Hopefully, it'll contain a hint of humour, but in a deadpan Paul Merton style. I once saw Paul Merton taking a tour of Tate Modern. He's very tall.

Degree Shows: RCA Sculpture, Slade BA

Our recent visit to London took in vaguely work-related tours of the RCA Sculpture Show and the Slade BA Fine Art show. Immediate impressions of both, but especially the RCA, incorporated a vast sense of ambition. I'd like to equate this sense to my impression of reality through spoken languages that have limited names for colours. Or not entirely this, but coming to notice the subtle differences between Universities, and understanding what seems like varying student attitudes. Essentially, I'd not noticed the differences between resultant exhibitions from different Universities until this point.

Particular highlights included, from the Slade, painting by Michael Armitage, Gemma Nelson and (for Rule) video work by Jack Strange. At the RCA Sculpture Show, Rule was particularly enamoured with odd kinetic/video/light based deals by Daniel Pasteiner, whilst I plumped for the carefully constructed painted brick spheres by Thomas Winstanley. Also can't ignore (literally) Jodie Carey's 'Untitled (Monument)', a giant wedding cake constructed from cast bones.

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.

New Studio Floor

I finally managed to construct myself a suitable surface on which to build paintings. The only real problem is the storage of paintings once they're done. Or the problem of transporting them to places with space to store them. Also, next step is shelving for the collection of items affectionately known as 'junk' that occupied the space beforehand.

I'm quite excited about the possibility of making some paint this weekend, or at least experimenting with the process. Shelving should be out of the way by the end of the week, and then I'll formulate a plan to complete an incomplete work known as 139. I have a series of unresolved ideas that also may need to be explored.

FE Show, UCCA Farnham

Not sure whether this is of much note. Rule and I visited after work on Monday 14 May and had a cup of orange juice each. Much of the work was certainly unimpressive and the display was generally shoddy, but I'm not sure whether that's what should be concentrated on. The Foundation course is mostly eight months of deciding which skills to hone in the future, rather than working on actually improving, and therefore the show works on showcasing potential. Rule and I didn't view using these terms, and were subsequently disappointed. Thinking back, there may have been a few candidates whose display suggested a tempting line of inquiry, though somewhat incomplete and unresolved. Perhaps they'll do something in the future.

Exhibition Visit: Wales

Abram Games - Aberystwyth Arts Centre
Comfort Zones - Oriel Davies

Took a work related trip to Wales to visit the above exhibitions on 23 April. By way of background, these two shows will be coming to the James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, where I work, in the near future.

First stop: Aberystwyth. It's a long way away. Abram Games was a Graphic Designer, most known for his work during the Second World War, and the exhibition showcases the development of his creativity, innovation and technical skill through 70 or so posters. Having spent a good six months researching and spending time with a lot of the designs, I was already curious to see them close up. The DVD provided an informative background to the nature of the works displayed and I found the show to be educational as a whole. The designs themselves are regularly branded as 'iconic', and one of the most intruiging aspects is how much they reveal of social history - of how the world acted at the time. For example, there's an image reminding soldiers to think about their personal hygiene that made me think about something to do with being in the army.

A few hours away in Newtown, Powys is Oriel Davies Gallery who have initiated the touring exhibition Comfort Zones, on the topic of questioning notions of 'home' and domesticity. It'll be at James Hockey & Foyer Galleries from mid November. The curatorial information we'd been reading on the show had seemed somewhat complicated and inaccessible, but the exhibition itself has a fun atmosphere and is well put together. Perhaps the most memorable and illustrative of the stated theme is Nina Saunders' collection of works that remind me of Stuart Robinson's subverted objects. Distorted furniture and animals combined. Half a fox stuffed between the cushions of a sofa-esque item. I noted a lack of particularly expressive works. The collection has a certain cold and distant overriding feel. Topics tackled in a deadpan Gilbert and George style, with subjects seemingly needing to be held at arms length in order to comment.

Exhibition Visit: Callum Innes, Modern Art Oxford

Callum Innes - Modern Art Oxford

Rule and I visited Oxford last Sunday (15 April) to see the Callum Innes show.

Before getting to the paintings, we had a quick look at some big red chests of drawers containing Raphael Vella's (not particularly) "intricate and meticulously executed drawings". I'm still trying to decide what I think of the method of display - involving the opening and closing of drawers. Essentially, I wasn't at all moved.

The viewing of Callum Innes' paintings almost took a similar route. Whilst completely engrossed in the deciphering of processes, I began to notice the absence of subject. This gave the experience an eerie quality similar to how I might imagine an empty factory with all the machines running. There was even perhaps an absence of the works' connection with itself, clarified by the five Dioxazine Violet works lined up on one wall. Although the paintings look similar and presumably use the same process and colours, they have a distinct isolation from the room and from each other. All the 'Exposed' paintings have an aggressive air, but this is muted by the aforementioned isolation, and reinforces the heavy atmosphere. I suppose it would be referred to as a kind of tension.

For me, the inspiration comes mostly from the act of painting. The works in the show seem completely immersed in themselves and in their process that the impression Innes leaves is oddly cold and mechanical. It makes the gallery setting seem a perfect location to show these paintings, despite the current climate of 'alternative spaces'.

Wimbledon

To the inaugural episode of writings.

Tonight, I am somewhat concerned with the usefulness of part-time university courses in practical based subject areas. Having very recently returned home this evening from an Open Evening at Wimbledon College of Art, I have decided to not pursue the Masters avenue for the time being.

The majority of questions regarded the format of the part-time route, and the questions themselves reveal the possible inability, and indeed unwillingness, to fully engage with the course. Examples include the question of transporting work to the College for critical analysis sessions, as part-time students don't have a studio base provided. The questioner herself revealed that her present situation (at Chelsea, no less) of being required to bring in work for discussion has resulted in her producing work smaller than she would like. The pleasure in being an artist is more a topic of having the ambition that results in work that you feel the necessity to produce. That she is willing to compromise to such an extent that her work is not what she needs to produce to satisfy her curiosity indicates that her motivation is probably not suitable for creating a dynamic course 'cohort'.

Similar examples include the lady asking whether putting together a portfolio of work from a few years ago, which isn't necessarily representative of the pathway and ambition she wishes to take, would be a disadvantage to her application. If she hasn't done any new work in the past few years, why is she applying at Masters level? Likewise with the lady who went to University for a year in the 1960s, but didn't complete her BA and who now wants to get back into artistic ventures, but finds that art schools have surprisingly changed 'an awful lot' in just 40 years.

The tutors attempted to disuade any part-time applications, but stopped disappointingly short of discounting them altogether.