The paintings
First, continuing with the ideas from the cat paintings, i made a painting from a photo and then painted out the figure. I liked how it looked with it brushily painted out, so some of the face is still visible. Also i chose this photo because i thought it might reference a Franz Kline painting. But i don't really think it does.
Next i decided to "remove the figures in various ways. At this point i'm still kind of not into painting but i don;t know what else to do, and i'm under tremendous pressure (in a weird i'm-taking-it-personally kind of way) from the department to produce produce produce! And the catch phrase i've been hearing since arriving at this school is trotted out yet again- "Don;t think, just make!" I'm going back and forth on that and the whole grad school mechanism, but that ranting is for another day...back to these paintings! Here i painted on vellum and then scratched off the figure, and painted the "background" on the back of the vellum. Leaving some scratched remnants. This is probably the most violent intervention i've done, AND the only one in which the original image really no longer exists.
And in this one i painted it and then covered the figure with paper pulp...sort of embedding the paint into the paper, or sandwiching it. I think i like the paintings on paper better than on canvas, it seems to be closer referencing the photo.
So at this point i got fed up and put all the paintings and photos away and decided to start on more installations, even if they don't mean anything yet, this is the physical work i want to make. The weird thing about doing these paintings is i got so hung up on being accurate and realistic (not my strong suit, at least since i haven't been working realistically for about ten years) and "I'm a Conceptual painter, they can't be interesting in their making, they are just there to serve a point" -- where the hell did that come from, who's talking?? As Mat said in like the first two minutes of being in my studio tonight..."Isn't that the answer you're looking for? To make Conceptual work but enjoy the working and making interesting objects?" (well, i edited a little for clarity...) Yeah, i guess. More soon
Next i decided to "remove the figures in various ways. At this point i'm still kind of not into painting but i don;t know what else to do, and i'm under tremendous pressure (in a weird i'm-taking-it-personally kind of way) from the department to produce produce produce! And the catch phrase i've been hearing since arriving at this school is trotted out yet again- "Don;t think, just make!" I'm going back and forth on that and the whole grad school mechanism, but that ranting is for another day...back to these paintings! Here i painted on vellum and then scratched off the figure, and painted the "background" on the back of the vellum. Leaving some scratched remnants. This is probably the most violent intervention i've done, AND the only one in which the original image really no longer exists.
And in this one i painted it and then covered the figure with paper pulp...sort of embedding the paint into the paper, or sandwiching it. I think i like the paintings on paper better than on canvas, it seems to be closer referencing the photo.
So at this point i got fed up and put all the paintings and photos away and decided to start on more installations, even if they don't mean anything yet, this is the physical work i want to make. The weird thing about doing these paintings is i got so hung up on being accurate and realistic (not my strong suit, at least since i haven't been working realistically for about ten years) and "I'm a Conceptual painter, they can't be interesting in their making, they are just there to serve a point" -- where the hell did that come from, who's talking?? As Mat said in like the first two minutes of being in my studio tonight..."Isn't that the answer you're looking for? To make Conceptual work but enjoy the working and making interesting objects?" (well, i edited a little for clarity...) Yeah, i guess. More soon
posted by niki at 9:37 PM
2 Comments:
Edited for clarity? You mean he WASN'T coherent?
Huh.
Wonder if that runs in the family.
Actually he now says that's not even what he was saying...that my paraphrasing is a much better point than the one he was making. See, these are the non-listening skills i am going to school for.
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