Thoughts to myself...

Fourth painted canvas completed.

 Is this work really a painting?

Good food for thought here because as I continue to think on; I feel that there is a connection to sculpture in terms of working towards a physical size of a room and expressing a sense of proportion to it (as I discussed with Caroline). By working on multiple paintings, I feel that the display of the work is very important. For example, by placing the painted canvases in particular positions, a kind of construction is being created involving the room completely as a sense of sculpture. It is only then that the work can be said to be fully completed. I feel very excited for this as there is this sense of anticipation of how this work can turn out to be. I would like to quote the words of David Tremlett (Talking Art) which has this aspect of how the sculptor, by having been "forged" to analyse things in a set of manner, tend to think as such:

" I studied sculpture and therefore thought in a sculptural way. The difference in thinking between painters and sculptors is often a question of the physicality of things. You can sense sculptural thought and you can sense painterly thought. I would say there is a marked difference between the two..." 

My concerns about space have always been a priority. I often like to project myself to the space where the artwork would be and I think there is a kind of wholeness that comes to it at the end; a "sense of belonging" to that space in time.
Another possibility is to involve the paintings in a performance. Just a thought... What if the audience was to be invited to participate to fill a blank gallery space? What if the audience was given the choice the responsibility of displaying the paintings in any way they would want to?  

 Some recent experiments/makings.

Interesting ideas to note down:
1. I like my works to be linear and intuitive and I feel very comfortable with that.
2. I feel so inclined to work for details that I feel wary of techniques; I just want to move on quick and get to the level where I can work on the last part of the sculpture (here: another soap carving). 

Why do I make "difficult" works?
Nice question to think about.. While reading on Anish kapoor I was stuck by his response:
 

 “ I think it is important that they should be difficult, yes. Because,especially now, we live in a world where the art object is consumed on such a vast scale, and that simply makes it another commodity. I feel that it is important to resist that. My work used to be too fragile, now it’s too heavy. I think that’s important."

 I think the human mind is complex as well as our thinking process and it is not always easy to understand what is going on.. in a way it is only what is inside that comes out (to copy the ideals of the Surrealists)...

Soap Carving.

One day making. I wanted a break and some spontaneous no stress activity. These are all about three hours' work from different soaps that I found at home. I wanted to "connect" with something to change my mood and I really enjoyed the activity.

Looking back, I can totally understand the undertone of such an activity. It is primarily a projection of a state of mind. Here the abstract visual language that I am engrossed in is present in a different form; informing me of my own making:the actions, the rhythms, decisions, the changes, the compression and the reading of new information. I am reminded of the commentary of the art historian Jack Flam when describing Henri Matisse's Goldfish and Palette: “The whole of reality appears to be compressed within this mysteriously shifting space." Though totally different in context, this is totally true of my own making which is forever linked with an ensemble of compressed marks and signs.  
 

Talking Art- Talking about my recent discoveries...

Putting myself in a situation to rethink about myself, I found out that there is a strong need to enlarge my possibilities by making further discoveries and changes. Anish Kapoor is an amazing artist that I have started to grow fond of after reading his interview. Though his artworks are very far (in concepts, styles, etc) from my way of working, his approach and thoughts on art are simply delightful. Here is an artist who is formulating the right words to what I am feeling right now.

“I think I am a painter who is a sculptor. My view is that sculpture has been about presence in the world, a kind of emanating out of the world- physical, here. What I have always been engaged in- which is what I think painters do- is to deal with an illusory presence in the world; one that isn’t necessary here. That’s the nature of painting. It’s a mindscape or a soulscape, whereas on that level sculpture would be a bodyscape. For me the two things somehow seem to have come together, so that I am making physical things that are all about somewhere else, about this illusory space. Even with the early work, that was very much there. The powder pieces were like islands sitting on the floor, icebergs, partially revealed, partially above the ground. That seemed to be implying that the rest of the object was under the ground or the other side of the wall.”

To copy his statement, I would like to formulate my own: “I think I am a sculptor who is a painter”. His word has the rightness that I was seeking for; words that I was struggling to put on paper: Are paintings meant to have a logical thinking, even when one is working intuitively/on a personal plane?. I felt close to his ideas, especially what he says about the painting being much more, the “soulscape”. When discussing about his own making, he says:

“Making art isn’t an intellectual or theoretical activity, it is deeply rooted in the psychological- in the self.”… “As if I was dealing with some kind of personal truth, with something I instinctively knew about… I didn’t think of it in terms of lasting or not. It was just that I was doing then and that was what mattered. I could only see it growing. I began to leave some old influences behind… That time was a time of feeling that I was closer to myself than I had ever been before...

“I think the art work isn’t as important as the artist. It’s a question of ‘seeing’ the process of art-making as being a process of self-discovery. Let’s say the work is a kind of reflection of some inner processes out of which the work grows. It also has to do with the feeling that the last work I made is not as important as the work as the work that I am going to make. I think this is crucial. Every time I do a show there is this feeling- can I do this again? In the end it doesn’t matter whether it can be done again. What matters is saying ‘yes’. How do I keep myself agitated enough in order to keep growing and not stop with what I’ve done already.”

Deep thought-provoking concepts here to reflect on. To the question: “What has success meant to you as an artist? , He replies:

“One of the most important things that showing does is that it affords opportunity to make the kind of work that you may not have made otherwise, and to work on the kind of scale that I might not have worked before.”

Extracts from: TALKING ART, Interviews with artists since 1976.Patricia Bickers, Andrew Wilson