Beginning to think about Key Questions

Key questions within an art practice should explore meaning and value.

The point of a masters degree in Fine Art is to understand not only my relationship to contemporary and historical art practices, but also to build on investigation that has already been done. This helps build a thesis, a niche where what I make can challenge previous thought on what Fine Art is and what it can do.

To begin this investigation I will start with the two questions posed below:

1. What is the work opening up in this conversation?

2. How does it add, enforce, contrast, to establish discourse?

MY ANSWER:

My practice is beginning to speak to the idea that painting can be an object as well as a painting. After reading 'Specific Objects', I have become aware that because my works are not flat, because they do not necessarily have to be hung, and because they command space, they can be equally seen as painting and object. They are not sculpture, and they do not speak to sculpture; But they do speak to object-ness.

My work enforces this idea by being equal parts painting and equal parts object.

THINKING ABOUT POLITIC:

What am I messing with within the histories of neo expressionism?

Specifically I am messing with the use of industrial products to create Fine Art. This combined with my energetic and emotive painting style, my work evokes thought of neo-expressionism while being different from it enough to, (hopefully), initiate thinking around what a painting can be object-wise.

What more is there to say?

Painting as object has not been fully explored, and that is exactly my interest within my practice at the moment.

RELATED MOVEMENTS:

-Surrealism:

Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early '20s as a literary movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing, or automatism, which sought to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious.

-Dadaism:

Dada was active from 1916 to roughly 1924 in Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, Paris, and New York.

-Abstract Expressionism:

The first generation of Abstract Expressionism flourished between 1943 and the mid-1950s. The movement effectively shifted the art world's focus from Europe (specifically Paris) to New York in the postwar years.

-Neo Expressionism:

Neo-Expressionism, diverse art movement (chiefly of painters) that dominated the art market in Europe and the United States during the early and mid-1980s.

REFLECTING ON CONTEXTUAL ISSUES:

Issue: What does a pallet afford?

Question: What does my surface give to the image and vice versa?

Thoughts: Pallets can be hung and can be displayed free standing. They are usually made of cheap offcuts of wood which are rough sawn. They are full of knots, and loose their structural integrity over time. Their surface is not usually flat, but warped my use and misuse. They can have timber slats for the top, a simple sheet of MDF or Plywood. They roughness of the pallets design adds unique personality, and a certain un-cleanness to my work.

Issue: Really crack down into the processes, and what they afford as restraints

Question:When do I stop and when do I interfere?

Thoughts: This is an issue which will definitely clarify over time. My thoughts at the moment are that I stop when I can literally add no more paint for practical reasons. I let this dry and if no interesting pareidolia moment occurs, I add more paint which creates a thinker painting-object.

Issue: Childlike moment of storytelling

Question: How does something like Pareidolia initiate childlike imagination states?

Thoughts: Imagination is not usually asked for in modern adult life. Jobs, home maintenance and social gathering are usually quite similar to their last iteration. Imagination usage is more associated with childhood. By giving space for people to imagine by providing a platform, (my painting-objects), to almost hallucinate meaning and narrative, the enjoyable sense of childlike imagination is allowed to roam.

Issue: Narrative without a clear suggested narrative

Question: Suggestive narrative- How could I better suggest a story and how easy should I make it to find?

Thoughts: I would like to my work to inspire imagination and narrative without being overly obvious. Half of the fun is decoding the puzzling image itself. I think I may be being overly obvious at the moment with my images, and so I am currently exploring a more back seat approach to narrative. In a way I am combining Surrealism's automatism and Neo Expressionisms vagueness.

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND:

Questions develop over time; they don’t just die.

Their are four pillars of practice:

Questions

Field

Process

Ideas

These pillars, (and my awareness of them), are what construct meaning and intention within my making.