It has been some time since I updated my artist journal due in part to the commitment of other work (the day job). I feel that the artwork I am currently developing is born out of an immense dissatisfaction with the way things appear to be, and I can’t quite reconcile what I want to say with what I have to do. Browns, greys and the associated metallic hues of bronze and pewter repeatedly invite me into an emotional state of raw clarity – as night invites dark contemplation. I also like the contrast of white – it’s ability to provide frame and focus to everything it surrounds – a soft, chalky white which does not startle but gently illuminates. I am currently working on a series of small works born out of some of these ideas using reclaimed wood panels – incorporating plaster, paint and metallic leaf. Since I am working on them at odd times of the day and night, their development is sporadic – I feel I am suffering in their intolerable silence to provide any substantial meaning.
I recently acquired a new gadget which makes me feel quite emboldened in my solitary journey – a mobile phone with a multitude of functions in the most compact of designs. I can add notes to a calendar (view it as a memo/diary), record transient sounds and voice memos, shoot clips of video, take photographs. The fact that I can also make and receive telephone calls is almost inconsequential. I feel a little guilty that I have succumbed to the allure of technology when what I am striving for is a purity of experience. Below is a selection of still images (click on to view in new window) – yet more found paintings…
A close up of an oil tank.. it reminded me of the paintings of Robert Motherwell or Barnett Newman. Taken with a Nokia 6111, taken (along with the others shown here) around midday between late May to early June 2007
Looking down onto the base of a metal structure, must be drainage holes – how very banal!
The side of another oil tank! Wish I could remember where…
The inside of the wall of an overpass. On this day it had been raining and the seepage was glistening with a mix of oil, concrete sediment and rainwater. The relentless noise of overhead traffic was unsettling to say the least…
A close-up of the aforementioned wall; I liked the near symmetry in its composition.
An even closer-up of the previously referred to wall… my enduring fascination with traces of detrital seepage needs to be addressed…
I had the idea that i might incorporate these images into an imovie or flash format with some overlaid text. The benefit of developing this website is that such works could be included in the creative mix. I feel that my 2D works sometimes do not engage at deeper levels, since there is no clearly apparent narrative or starting point (other than documented visual references) – they are material suffusions of the senses based on the relatively silent space of solitude. Quiet moments (of thought, vision) within the bigger noise of human life seem to provide a deeper awareness of oneself in their contrast. As I have written before, I also relish the slow unfolding of my work over time, their meaning only revealed by the subsequent, repeated visual engagements with them as material objects. Am I making any sense? Probably not, but this journal is turning out to be more and more of a philosophical retreat (rather than the geographical one that I might wish for) by each entry, and in that sense it cannot be any more clearly mapped until the final destination has been arrived at.
