Hi guys.  I have found Part 2 of the reading 'Provisional Painting' which we were given last year.  It's a good read - take a look.  The link is below:

http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/features/provisional-painting-part-2/

Hopefully might help to take some of the anxieties away when painting!

www.lookawry.com/

T-11.11  (2011)  Lacquer on Aluminium

40 x 10 x 10 cm

The above takes you to the website of the artist 'Tilman'.  Tilman is interested in the non-objectiveness of painting, using predominately mdf and aluminium.   Tilman is asking for participation from the viewer, through the act of seeing.  Whether it be to crouch down to examine work more closely, or to peer behind or to the side to stumble upon the unexpected.

Hernan Ardila

www.hernan-ardila.com/

Monique Jansen sent through to Maddie and I the link for Hernan Ardila and his work.  Ardila is interested in the line, form, fields of colour and fragments of wood, plastic or metal.  His work is immediately aesthetically pleasing and draws you in for further investigation.  The assemblage pieces he creates and the simplicity in which he uses to  merge the forms together are striking.   Working in a repetitive manner, through his use of line, colour and materials,  Ardila is interested in the manipulation of a form  and the ability to alter it in many ways.  

Experimentation with Felt

I purchased some felt a while ago and it is another one of those materials that has been hanging around in my studio for a while, waiting to be used in some form or other.  I have utilised felt prior but just on its own, pinned to the wall.  This time the pink piece is pinned to the wall, but the further two green pieces adhere to each other and the larger pink one just through its materiality.

Andy Thomson and I had a further play with the felt pieces.  By placing the felt lower on the wall and allowing for it to touch the ground, it instantly talked more about the expanded field of painting, the liminality between sculpture and painting.  Alongside we placed some of my wooden pieces I had wrapped in wool for our drawing brief (which means of course I have  crossed the line between studio work and drawing!!) and a piece I was still working on.  This is a part of my practice that really interests me.  Colour and form obviously, but the ability to allow different forms and materials to sit alongside each other, and not always in a harmonious manner.  They communicate a feeling of temporality as well, the feeling that they could be easily transported to another space, or re-arranged in many varying forms.

Reflection on Talk Week Critique

Lead by Monique Jansen, Amber Wilson and Anoushka Akel

Through the course of the critique there were a few specific issues raised that stood out.  The first was whilst going through the initial ‘what are we looking at?’ approach the fact that the panel looked like concrete, had tape, plywood and yarn attached – appeared as a construction, similar to what was happening directly outside my studio space.  This was not a subconscious decision when making this work but has influenced me sometimes, if only for a starting point for a painting.  Additionally, an issue that was raised which interests me is the idea that the viewer had been presented with a work in a traditional painting style, yet were you dealing with a painting and/or object?  I am interested in exploring through my work the liminal space, seeing what happens when a painting is pushed to the threshold between painting and sculpture, or painting and drawing, when it starts to become something other than just painting.  The shadows cast from this object was also mentioned and became part of the work, which I feel is a subtle factor in my work and I would be interested in developing this further, which may mean larger works.

What appear predominant in these more installational or sculptural pieces are their control, rigidity and linear aspect (vertical/horizontal).  Even though intentionally the work is not directed and there is an allowance for development through the making, my personality still shines through.   In my work I will aim to address this area in particular, to continue to think of my work as mere play and experimentation.  To allow for the freedom and looseness to come.  There was suggestion to develop the dexterity of my work, to look at how it could become more precious?  These are decisions that I feel I need to ponder on, whether I tend towards the bounded, controlled and structured or whether through the dexterity of the materials it becomes more unconstrained. 

Abstraction and the grid was raised, as was the untitling of work and the comprehension behind that.  There are historical contexts that relate to these which I will address, along with the expanded field of painting, which is an area of interest.  A lot more reading to be done!