Sat, 09 Jun 2007
Solitude and other brief encounters
It has been some time since I updated my online journal due in part to the daily commitment of other work. 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 real 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 diary), record transient sounds and personal memos, shoot 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 occurences.


In time, I want to incorporate these images into an imovie or flash format with overlaid text - for no other reason than I think it will fulfil my desire to fully explain why I need to function first and foremost as an artist, when there are pressures on me to fulfil other roles. The benefit of developing this website is that such works can be included in the creative mix. I feel that my 2D works sometimes do not engage at deeper levels, since there is no 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.

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