So, it’s the first official week of my residency at The Muse gallery/studio, Portobello road, London. The gallery is open Wednesday – Saturday each week + Sundays during this period, whilst our group show is on the walls. I had been due to be working alone, manning the show, today. It would have been my first day in the studio. Instead, having fallen on my back on the ice outside, I’m sitting at home amidst the tangled edges of my trains of thoughts, aching all over, somewhat frustrated. Also because I have 4 drawings currently begun, yet am unable to see their endings and therefore to finish them. Their beginnings seem poignant but…
The endless stream of my thoughts is backing up regarding my objectives in respect of all the drawing I’m trying to do.
During the Renaissance in the North of Europe artists employed a technique called Disguised Symbolism. Essentially this referred to the employment of allegorical iconography, that is, the placement of specific objects within paintings meant as allegorical metaphors. Fruit, for example, symbolized material and biological wealth (fruitfulness). A dog in a painting was the disguised symbol of loyalty. An old man with a beard, wings and an hourglass would be representative of the concept of time. Personifications were always attributed the gender of the word they represented, so personifications of time were always masculine because the word time (tempus) is.
Whilst works of art by, for example, the Abstract Expressionists primarily plan to project and provoke emotion, art that employs Disguised Symbolism is meant to be read like a book. In order to relate fully to such a work one needs to understand that every example of it (in every museum in the world) is in code. One must then learn how to read the language of that code.
I’m endeavouring to infiltrate a similar dynamic, of hiding/revealing, into my work.
