Starlings Flocking

This starling murmuration i find not only is beautiful but presents from far away tiny black dots or marks in the sky. I see this video in terms of my practice as tiny pencil marks of the paper or small incision marks that cut into the paper to create this sort of sweeping, organic motion of movement.


I try to make work that reveals a similar motion of movement, like an optical shift. The flocking creates this illusion too as they present accumulation of clusters together causing this repetitive motion, through the duration of the clip, the starlings emerge and subtract dividing themselves to form new clusters. I am trying to demonstrate a similar process in my practice as i want lines to connect and disconnect, emerging and declining the image as it plays of the natural light.

Definitely a video to check out!

Art for Art Sake

This is one of the movements that I am currently looking into. 'Art for Arts Sake' is a movement formed through modernism around the 20th century. The Phrase Art for arts sake condenses the notion that art has its own value and should be judged apart from any themes which it might touch on, such as morality, religion, history, or politics, basically erasing the notion of weight to a lighter content.

" it maintained an art that had turned inward and away from everyday concerns, and it maintained the traditional structure of the art world - the world of galleries museums - that supported it"

I see this movement in formal terms of line, shape, colour, space composition which effectively remove the question of meaning and purpose from consideration and permitted whatever social, political or progressive statements the artist had hope to make in his or her work to be conveniently ignored or played down. In turns of my practice I see my works as the are a 'light' subtle illusion on the opaque colour field , where this emerge from the surface through a viewers movement. This concept leans toward abstraction but does not give away any heavy concepts.

Formless

Bois, A.Y, & Krauss, E. R. (1997) Formless - A Users Guide. Zone books: New York.

I was recently discussing Curate and Critic with Andy when he recommended that i should look at the book on formless. This reading was hard to get my head around so I first went to the dictionary to find what the term was to decribe 'formless' - it states without a clear or definite shape or structure.

I think in terms of my practice this is completely relevant, where there is no clear one structure, my work focuses you into a certain area but it does not give away the full image, this will only emerge with the attentive viewer. 

A quote that i find most useful is: artworks only "bear on the temporarily within the visual and on the body of the perceiving subject: pictures reveal themselves in an instant and are addressed only in the eye of the viewer."

I see this quote useful for my practice as it talks around this idea of emergence and how a painting presents itself to a viewer creating optical shift, transformations and transitions within the muted field. It is through this engagement with the work that this movement is revealed. 

Tomma Abts

Tomma Abts, Lubbe, 2005. Acrylic and Oil on Canvas. 48 x 38 cm

I am interested in Abt's process through the contingency of materiality.

Here is a quote that helps my process of making works from an essay titled ‘Is anyone there,’ by Adrian Searle. Searle discusses Abt’s work as a constant flux and reflux of certainty and doubt. ‘Whenever you think the painting is giving you something concrete, it takes it back, reverses itself, turns itself inside out’

The unfolding desire to know more is evident in Tomma Abt’s work Lübbe, (2005). As shapes appear to fold and unfold on the surface of the canvas. Through the many layers that are applied, the painting seems as though it is crystalized, but when caught in the light unknown forms are illuminated. The texture and edge of these forms are only an insight to the past, only to send a hint to the viewer of something created by trial and error. The work deceives the eye, as line and shape don’t appear to want to connect. The painting becomes somewhat like a performance when the viewer begins to question, ‘is that an edge? No, it's a line. That's a space? No it's a thing.’ These outlines create depth between the foreground and background, which generate limitless possibilities through subtle transformations. The work enables the viewer to know more, it is through the materiality of the paint that gives a sense of disorientation and change.

 

One of Many Favourite Quotes

"The calm of Martins paintings is a sea calm - despite the pacific horizontality, something on the surface still moves" Shiff, R, 2002. pp. 130 - 131

As you draw close you can see in my work, smoothness yields to irregularity. What you perceive is more incident, than disturbance. The small details in Anges Martin's work i find most interesting is when you fully engage with a work like Martins you see the artist hand at present as each individual line is carefully drawn by hand, resulting is minor hiccups and small wobbles upon the surface, sometimes razor thin, sometimes bumping the crests of the canvas weave.

Agnes Martin states: "A hint of imperfection is enough to make a painting alive"

I make my paintings through a process of failure as some colours don't respond to each other the way I wanted them to so they would be painted over, yet still remaining as a presence as there forms would emerge through the top layer of the painting. A painting that has had a long journey to the finish has a sort of liveliness demonstrated in my painting, the opaque hue of the paper has a subtle movement as edges of previous forms are made known.  As a viewer for both Martin and my work you are requires to stare and gaze at the works to cause them to reveal their faint brush strokes and make aware the random occurrences that happened along the way.

Jeena Shin

When looking at subtly I think of Jeena Shin as she creates depth and illusion through subtle changes in gloss and pigment, they are so subtly that they look like shadows projected on the wall.

I am interested in this similar optical shift as i use a gloss medium that catches the light as you more round the work. Shin states that: "this notion of inside and outside, fold and unfold is indelibly marked within an exploration of the ambiguities of spatial properties by the finely nuanced colour gradations, geometric symmetry/ asymmetry and layering is played out."  

I see this quote relating to my studio practice as there is a transition played out within this push/ pull, not so much geometrical, but there are prescience of geometrical forms and the edge of the gloss outline emerges through the paint.

I am interested in the medium that Shin paints with and how light controls these optical shifts through space as I too am working with gloss medium I intend for the light to reveal these shapes and controlling the movement of the viewer, which I think is also the case for Jeena Shin as her works are usually presented on the wall up a stair case enforcing the viewer to move through the space and engage with these transitions.

Jacques Ranciere

 

 Jacques Ranciere is a french philosopher who wrote an novel on Intellectual Emancipation, lately i have been skimming through both 'The Emancipated Spectator' and 'The Ignorant School Master' as well as the Participation book on the essay by Claire Bishop -  Viewers as Producer.  

What i am interested in all of these readings is that it is part of our human condition to adapt to this continuous change. In reference to Ranciere’s writing The Emancipated Spectator, a ‘viewer becomes an active participant as opposed to passive voyeur’ (Ranciere, J, 2009). It is only through this encounter that we begin to realize that a work can be independent and all the viewer needs is what lies before them not what is added through interpretation. The way in which Ranciere describes the viewers as a performer is also interesting as i am interested in the viewers movement around the work causing forms and shapes to appear and disappear on the muted surface of the paper. 

Claire Bisphop write:

 That "art should actively intervene in and provide a model for allowing viewers to be involved in the processes of production." 

I don't see my art as an active performance with a subject mater and a rehearsed context, but as a subtle illusion that keeps the viewer moving and interested in the work as it is ever changing through light and layers. This become a sort of performance for the viewer as they may become determined to know more or see more. The viewer has a close engagement to the materials i am using and how they operate on paper, through their movement as layers from underneath the surface of paint begin to reveal themself as light hits the edges of the forms.

Drawing a shadow

This example of one of my previous works shows how I am trying to manipulate the viewer as they hand made etched line cause an illusion of a shadow along side the layers of paint that are applied, fail to cover lines and forms that emerge through the paint.

I was previously reading a book about 'Drawing a Shadow' written by Alan Johnson (2010) he describes a shadow as a "sensation more than a thought, a physical feeling of balance, of something restored with little awareness of what was missing."
I take this to mean that a sense of shadow creates a shift in perception as they become a sort of work in between a work.

<----My painting on the left you can see there is evidence of the past or the failure of the painting before. This can cause a state of wonder as the 'shadow like forms' generate over and under the surface of paint where they interact with light as if they were its product. the forms create the illusion of thickening and thinning the image according to its intensity.

The closer the viewer interacts with these ghostly forms the more interaction the viewer will have with the painting as light catches the edges of forms that emerge through the paint or marks that were gently etched into the paper, these two processes of mark making create these 'shadow like' appearances as they become the final work and the in between work.

Charles Esche decribe Alan Johnsons shadows as "A sense of dualism, which invades the work - balancing light and dark, form and void, positive and negative - so that neither are triumphant." Esche, C, (2010). This quote I think has a strong relationship to mine as these are the processes i use when making my work, i treat it as a sort of check - list that the artwork must involve. These things that occur create subtle illusions that keep the viewer active when encountering the work.

The work of Mark Emerson

untitled #506
2006, 16" x 20"
polymer on paper

untitled #106
2006, 16" x 20"
polymer on paper

The work of Mark Emerson, constantly strikes me as i always return to him when going through my research folder. What i find interesting about his works is that the us of pattern is exaggerated, as patterns upon patterns overlap and but up to one another.

Here is a quote that i stumbled across in a post from an article published by 'JayJay' (2009). They state that the work of Emersons present a 'method that is a mechanical approach to optical effects, as arrays of interlocking geometric shapes move in and out of view.'

This idea of shapes and forms interlocking and causing the static to become dynamic, where subtle optical shift form is what i am most interested in my practice at the moment. Emerson describes this shift in movement as "patterns seen on one axis give away to others, emerging from deep below the picture plane: and like a kaleidoscope, the paintings seem to generate new forms as long as you care to look."(2009) This active looking and being attentive is an interesting concept, the work endeavors to maintain your gaze as patterns appear to emerge through the surface of another. 

The colours and bold and bright and by turning up the volume of his colours there and more of them and they sit before you, independent and load - mouthed with no secrets to hide.

The originality of the Avant Garde and other Modernist Myths

Grids (1985).  p. 8 - 22

"The grid's mythic power is that it makes us able to think we are dealing with materialism ( or sometimes science or logic) while at the same time it provides us with a release into a brief illusion or fiction."

When researching into grids in Agnes Martin's works I came across a writing by Krauss, E. R. Grids in my own practice are not so precise they rely on close attention, where there is a push/ pull motion of fluidity of line against hard geometric line or shall I say mechanical line.

 Untitled (Close up), 2012. Mix Media - Acyric Paint, Watercolour and Gloss on Paper. 27.9 x 21.0  cm 

 This painting is one that I exhibited in the Year 2 show last Wednesday. When I begin to puncher the paper with a circular hole, or make an incision mark with a craft knife I begin to see a grid to unfold, only to send a subtle hint to the view that it is present.

As Krauss states: "... it makes us think that we are dealing with materialism" (1985)
The exploration into the materiality of paint has been my main focus for this semester and I think by combining these hard edge forms against soft fluid forms of watercolour paint emphases the presence of the grid. As there is no complete grid that is evident like Agnes Martins, the grids form through my intuitive process causing 'brief illusions' (1985) on the colour field.

Agnes Martin - Square Format

Agnes Martin
Aspiration
1960
in "Drawing is Another Kind of Language"

My Formats are square, but the grids never as absolutely square; they are rectangles, a little bit off a square, making a sort of contradiction, a dissonance, through i didn't set out to do in that way. when i cover the square surface with rectangles, it lightens the weight of the square, destroys its power.  
Agnes Martin, 1967 - "homage to the square" Lucy Lippard, vol 55, no,4, p55.

Although Agnes Martin's paintings look simple, they are far from, every mark she makes has a reason and this is evident here in the quote above where she talks about the square format, the images do give a sense of shifting in shape, giving a work potential to create a subtle shift in perception. 

I am currently working in rectangular portrait format, but when reading this quote from Agnes Martin it has given me the incentive to work in square format and try to push the boundaries of this even scale, buy off setting forms and line.

Anges Martin - Abstract

Agnes Martin has been a big influence of mine for most of this year. The subtly of line fades and comes back into focus, alike the writing of Jan Vanwoert's 'Emergence'  - things begin to unfold on the surface of interpretation. What i also appreciate in her works is that they speak poetically giving them a 'light' appearance.

She states: That her work is a "simple experience, you become lighter and lighter in weight, where you wouldn't want anything else." (Martin, 1966)

I find this quote interesting in terms of my practice as I too want to make work that is light in conceptual ideas. Martin' s theory is that it is not until you encounter the work, where the subtly of the lines give access to 'memories' and possible 'inspirations' of interpretation. I take this to mean that a work of art is not purposely conceived, the response depends upon the observer.

This idea of the artwork unfolding to the viewer is an idea that i have been really interested in. In terms of my practice i want the viewer to create a movement as things begin to fold and unfold on the surface of interpretation in a constant flux, it is through layering and light that things become clearer as line and form begin to move through transformations and optical shifts. In Martin's paintings they display a slight hiccup or wobble in perception, this is in both viewer and making, when you engage with the works you begin to realise that this subtle wobble in the picture plane is because each individual line is drawn by hand. Her paintings exhibit duration as she fakes time to repeat these forms. This fracture in time is particularly important as the patterns require careful control and attention. Some maybe overwhelmed when having a close intimate engagement with the work you will begin to see that every line was drawn individually (free hand).

Agnes Martin, The Islands c.1961 acrylic and graphite on canvas, 72 x 72 inches Collection Milly and Arne Glimcher, Courtesy PaceWildenstein

What is most interesting is that when viewed from far it gives a sense of a square hovering in the middle of the canvas and the viewer, creating this blurring of what we perceive familiar.

Drawn to Paint: Materiality and Transcendence in the work of Kathy Barry

Jan Verwoert and others argue for grounding criticality in materiality and process. In his ontology of painting, Verwoert uses the term ‘emergence’, by which he means its structure, derived at through a slow, searching process of becoming. The emergent property (water’s wetness for example) cannot be deduced by examining the individual elements (hydrogen and oxygen bonds) and so the finished (art)work represents an unanticipated outcome that only reveals itself once the work is done. ‘Emergence’ describes a condition under which something arises out of crisis, moments when a decision is required. In a critical environment where painting no longer enjoys implicit justification and its discrete taxonomies have been dissolved, the artist sets up criteria, rules to guide the process and to facilitate a state of receptivity and self-reflection, rejecting blanket solutions in favour of contingent decisions.

Barry’s work expresses this in emergent, it(in)errant, fractal folds, her original ascetic criteria becoming increasingly complex and deconstructed as the materials and composition assert their own logic. Both her graphite and watercolour drawings express folding and unfolding in the Deleuzian sense – a sense of iterant accumulation, of contiguous movement.

I recently have been looking into Jan Vanwoerts writing on emergence, and Kathy Barry's review was the perfect way to decribe the process of emergence in my paintings. It deals with the idea of of “becoming, and this becoming is in a constant state of flux. I see it is part of our human condition to adapt to this continuous change. In reference to Ranciere’s writing The Emancipated Spectator, a viewer becomes an active participant as opposed to passive voyeur. It is only through this encounter that we begin to realize that a work can be independent and all the viewer needs is what lies before them not what is added through interpretation. This exhibition will reflect upon how the process of materiality in painting can form an emergence through transitions, transformations and optical shifts. this can occur in both making and viewing.

In My painting practice i see emergence as a painting unfolds through its materiality, this is where 'painting happens.' Painting ‘happens’ is a quotation by Sigma Polke.  I want to highlight the process based around the contingency of materials and how they reveal a sensation both in making and viewing, through this happening which occurs in my painting. I see it as an artistic perspective both imagined and experienced. As Polke puts it, “this ‘happens’ not when you try really hard, but in the moment when you let go. Things can fall into place in a way that you couldn’t have conceived before” (1960).  It is through this moment that it becomes an exploration of materials; and how they operate through layers in making and when exposed to light there detail becomes something other than what it was before.