A Glimpse of Task Three..

Each painting is 60cm by 80 cm. I have completed four of them and the fifth one is almost complete. I am planning to complete more( about ten or more) where they would all be looked at as a whole. I like this idea of the space of a room containing one work.Right now, I feel lots of potential in this work. It is also exciting to have ideas emerging as I work on and to anticipate how the finished work would finally be like...  

Quick Making: The Spontaneous Feel.

"That which were born to become exists as a seed inside of us and the challenge is to liberate this potential" Susan Bello. The I.am. I

These some quick works (about ten minutes each) which were executed rather quickly as I wanted to experience "the spontaneous method".  This is where the mind becomes engrossed with an intense feeling to put fleeting ideas on paper and it is always interesting to note the output. The artwork exists on its own; it is not bounded by the judgement of others. Personally, these types of activities always makes me feel good, and also makes me confident to believe in the intuitive voice inside myself. Through these kinds of activities, I also find a sincerity: of meeting with my true self.

 

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.