' wall fungus, plug fungus and silver box fungus'

WRITING OF DECEMBER 2006

“I love the reality, the function of a paper ball, an igloo, linen shoes, a fern and the crickets chirping….I wish it to be known that unreality exists and the vulgarity of relations with this…” Pier Pablo Calzolari[1]

“ The likeness of an object is produced from the material of that object”Amikam Torean [2]

When does my painting become my reality?

Only when it is in a clean white room hung from various corners or scattered on the floor?

There are various questions I keep asking myself, why am I making this artwork, what relevance is it to art today, am I trying to make a physical and psychological statement with the materials I find and pieces I construct. I’m trying to break free from normality, searching for reasons for things, our society, the way we live. Challenging the way we think, the space surrounding us surrounding my painting: when does it become real. It is only read in this ‘space’, out of context, out of my mind. It is my nature of engagement with the world that makes me a painter. As Alan Davies remarks that what makes paintings real is“ in touch with something deep that comes flowing from within”

Space and time are very dominant in my ideas. The relationship with the past and the present are extremely important in creating my reality. The presence of an object that has been touched, handled physically, cared for or thrown out, battered up is something very attractive. Trying to connect with these objects by putting them in a familiar space. The time it takes to make something out of them in contrast to the time it took for that single object to be discarded, once loved and useful. In this essay I want to discuss the relationship space and time have to my work bringing in my influences and trying to understand how real my paintings become.

It is so complicated to explain how an artist sees the world, like a romantic, a philosopher; every thought is boxed in their mind, dreams, exaggerations, endless questions but no answers. Many of my interests in painting are the ideas why? That’s how I feel a connection with artist Alberto Giacometti his ‘sense of loss’ and Tapies. I am extremely interested in metaphysics, coming from the Greek meta meaning after and phusika meaning those of nature. A branch of philosophy explaining the nature of the world, attempting to clarify the notions by which people understand the world including existence, space, time and possibility. All these aspects I try to figure out through my ability to paint. The placement of objects, their relationships with the space, the different materials that I use (all very domestic) in contrast with the rough industrial tar like paint, placing pictures out of context. In a white room, in a wood: experimenting. Constantly in a little world: my real world. Example of using materials in unfamiliar spaces is shown in fig 1, by the artist Luciano Fabro, a member of the Arte Povera movement, hung metal frames in between trees. The space they are in makes the piece come alive: they are not meant to be. “ Art is the mirroring of one’s own consciousness. The artist mirrors his own consciousness.”[3] “ Art is doing: it is not only knowing, not only thinking, not only using. It is doing: constructing consciousness by constructing things.”[4] He remarks on our actions as artists so correctly. Art is all about making as much as you can, keep experimenting, exploring different ways of seeing the world by putting it in your own words, its as if your trying to write a poem or a novel. Whether it can actually be the truth and an answer for others or just seem it. Although why do we need answers?

Painting everyday is like seeing your face in a mirror, people read you like a painting is read. I what to understand what it is to be an artist, I feel like I have learnt so much this year in my practice. Ideas have become clearer to me; I feel I have developed an intellectual understanding and a connection with the physical elements of painting. As Angela de la Cruz (a female artist I have recently found some sort of bond with) states “ my works are very physical: they can sometimes become me…they are about suffering and pain.”[5] Her paintings, distorted canvas physically torn and bent in an unconventional way, “summon our everyday experience”. Fig 2 gives some examples of this destructive behaviour.

I feel I have a great connection with the Arte Povera movement of the 1960s and has become such an importance to the way I work. All the artists have some sort of physical involvement with their subject. Some sort of spiritual understanding of the materials they use and the space they place them in. Echoes of nature and history. Their paintings and sculptures depict a poem of the way they think. Their capacity to create from matter, natural, primary or industrial and the mental dimension of the artwork is what made such a contribution to contemporary art in our society. They have a more lyrical approach to artistic language and explicit reference to art of the past, examples of artistic freedom. Terry Smith (fig 3) has positioned pieces of a dismantled chair on a stone floor. I really like the name ‘disassembly line’ it describes the piece perfectly, such freedom in the statement he is making. The chair is not in function but spread across the floor becoming apart of something you walk on, challenging conventions of painting. I want to challenge how people see the world and make them see what I feel is art and how objects can bring each other alive.

“ I am interested in the object: in colour such as red, brown, colours of the body.. like faeces.” I love the way de Cruz describes her own work, the way she makes them: dragging the dirty canvas across the floor, ripping them, bullying their existence, something meant to be so structured and rigid. ‘ They fall on their butt” I get just as passionate about the way you describe actions and destructive behaviour towards the physicality of painting then I do about making work. My books are filled with notes and notes reassuring my reasons for things, all the ideas I have flooding, pouring out. It’s all about me. Does that make me selfish, thinking out loud, putting myself on the brush, on the rusty metal, beaten old shelf? The invisible transformation: magic. On watching a video on Tapies he is described as a magician telling an epic, cyclical story, he reaffirms the idea of an artist as a narrator. Thinking as I write maybe isn’t the way you write an essay but I feel some sort of comfort to it, so raw and fresh, sitting at a computer listening to music, thinking as I go, no structure, its to intimidating… does it make what I say less valuable. Art is your true reality as Tapies states “art is a source of knowledge, human behaviour and ethics.”

Assessing the space, analysing the various photographs I have been collecting and documenting of my own work, in different compositions: in a white empty room, they become a whole. Just like some of Fabros work they are completed in their surroundings. Fig 4,5 and 6 shows some examples of his work in relationship with my work. I tried to curl up big pieces of my work on paper in the corner of this white room to enjoy the relationship with the space. What is real is what you physically see, a piece of paper in the corner, but what is true to me is it is there for a reason, there is a lot of energy and the intimidation of the big space is causing it to curl up and hide. The picture is no longer the focus but the whole room is. Similarly, Fabro has hung rolls of paper from the ceiling (fig 5) in combination with the bits of rough industrial metal. The rolls curl up at the bottom and the metal shapes seem to crawl up their sides. He has also experimented with hanging white sheets in fig 6, they are creased yet stretched across a wall, the sheets are transformed by being on display, folded in certain ways the artist choose thoughtfully.

Not every artist has the same reality; one person’s take on reality is completely different to another. Artist Martin Creed and Keith Tyson are two artists that I don’t really find a connection with. I don’t get a complete passionate attraction to their work; this shows that not everyone can understand my reality just as I don’t understand theirs. This is another factor that makes me get lost in my own world, worried about what others say, I lose my reality, I get scared. In fig 7,8 there are examples of Creed’s and Tyson’s work. A piece of paper in a glass cabinet in an empty room is of interest to him, although it is unique, I cant feel the connection and the energy within the space, I see no point in encasing a crumbled piece of paper, nor do I a goblet with pebbles in it like in Tyson’s work (fig 8). I guess I have to except that artists all have their own ideas and have to be satisfied with their own work before they even begin to understand any artists they cant connect with.

I hope to carry on working towards a purpose, I’m not to sure what it is yet, but all I know is I like creating pieces like unfolding the pages of a book, everything is read one by one but come as one. My most recent project has become more structured, working on hundreds of found square envelopes, all the same size, using found paints, paper, sand and grit to bring them together as a collective piece of art. I aim to display them all on a massive white wall. I don’t think I will ever be able to realise when my painting becomes my own reality because it is really hard to see the difference in what I think is art, to what others believe. It shouldn’t matter what people say or do, but in a way I what to be understood, for someone to actually appreciate my view on why. Painting is definitely true to oneself, some sort of force within the artist dragging you to the canvas, to the brush.

When the line between art and reality becomes a blur, I feel that’s the moment when I find some sort of reality deep within whether it is my ultimate reality I do not know. Standing before a piece another’s or mine and being in complete awe is the moment when they merge. Because they become one I cant separate myself from the piece and the piece cant separate itself from me. Once we are lost in each other I have the thirst to quest for more answers that will never truly be resolved because as an artist I’m always challenging myself due to influences around me. Maybe one day I’ll find the complete harmony between my reality and my work but as an artist I believe you can never discover everything, that’s what keeps me motivated. An artist reality is constantly changing due to society and beliefs.

“ Art loves to know. Everything. Art has never been innocent. Art has always been mediated. Life has always been complicated. All art eventually becomes Art, and solves nothing.”[6]

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[1] Arte Povera Art from Italy 1967-2002, Muesum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2002, p51

[2] Amikam Toren, Ikon Gallery, p6

[3] Fabro works 1963-1986, The Fruitmarket Gallery Edinburgh, archives of contemporary art p166

[4] see footnote 3

[5] Angela de la Cruz, Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, Katya Garcia-Anton p3

[6] Marlene Dumas, Phaidon, 1999. P114 ( extract from sweet nothings, Marlene Dumas, 1998 p47)

NICKS FACES

THOMAS SCHUTTE

NIEVES BOOKS, Misaki Kawai

www.nieves.ch

FOUR PAINTINGS OF A SERIES, COLLABORATION WITH JIM O'RAW

www.jimoraw.com

Projecting cinema of my drawings.

'riding a swan' using a slide enlarger

'Mr.Handy', newest painting, and 'Reebox classics'

http://www.stedefreund-berlin.de/sf_news_en.html

the dessert: harmony in red

SOME DRAWINGS/JAPAN BOOKS

Roger Hilton (1911 – 1975) was a pioneer of abstract art in post-war Britain. He was born in 1911 inNorthwood, London and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, London under Henry Tonks and also in Paris, where he developed links with painters on the Continent.

Roger Hilton’s ‘Night letters’ are examples of his conversations with himself on paper of everyday thoughts whilst he was ill in hospital. They are so powerful because they are short and sweet and quite humorous because they are offensive in parts, to his wife especially.

 

‘No egg cups

No handlers

No sheets

You have been at my whisky you swine.

Please leave it in here in future. At least I can witness your nefarious practices.

So get your priorities straight

Spagheti.Ravioli.Potatoes.Butter

Bacon Egg cups ham.”

 

 

These words may not make much sense to us, but it’s the little things that he notices and remarks observantly that make them interesting. It is so personal to him, yet become published in a book making it worth something. It’s like a shopping list. A note. A doodle. Has this essence of innocence and ‘one-off quality’. Almost like how I construct a piece of work, layered up and colourful with collections of bits and bobs, quick and careless.