Mon, 19 Dec 2005
Dear Artist
Good news! I've recently had Edgescape #8 Heap selected for the annual Artsway Open Exhibition. If you go to see this exhibition, do drop by again to tell me what you think.

(click to view in a new window)

I have also just received a generic rejection letter from an arts organisation in which it was decided that your submission was not as strong as others in terms of quality. All artists have to deal with rejection, but on this occasion I am disgruntled with their use of the term quality since it is so subjective. I would rather they were more diplomatic by saying my application was not what the selection panel were looking for and then perhaps elucidate on their selection criteria. Does quality mean sophisticated materials or techniques, high-brow concepts, ground-breaking visual outcomes? Or is it deliberately elusive, subject to contemporary styles and tastes. Much of contemporary art is rooted in ideology or concept using very sophisticated methods of delivery, but I am concerned with the very nature of crude materials - basic, humble, unsophisticated. I hope to produce in the process of engagement, visual outcomes which question notions of quality or aesthetic in this material sense. White cube installations with video projections, light shows, sound loops or satellite links do not always convey much of the artist's reasoning behind the art, since the materials used are so impersonal - I have to read the catalogue to fully relate to the work, and even then the blurb is cloaked in hyberbole and curatorial art speak- but I'm wooed by the engagement with seemingly global issues in an often highly elaborate way. Is this an artform born out of a "virtual" needy generation, which relies on the abstracted reality of TV to give a true picture of the way we do or should live? Are we relying on technology to enable a fresh view of our world? My causal drips, erased traces and material scars provide physical evidence of a more discreet thought process- in response to a mixture of emotions and senses of a particular place or time. It is only made complicated by my own interaction with the processes, no more, no less. What am I trying to say? That my perception of the environment is not yet definite or resolved, but organic, transitory and open to change? I think perhaps less philosophical ramblings and more dogmatic realism would help me on my journey, but I take some comfort from Dear Artist using a capital A...

posted at: 19:09 | path: | permalink
0 Posts Read or add a post (opens in new window)