Writing about writing about my practice.

Now, a concise version of my statement:

Catherine Wynne-Paton (b. Banbury UK, 1977) grew up in Wiltshire and moved to Wales in 2011, studying at Hereford College of Arts.   Her work is driven by investigation the relationship between the physical world and the world of text and is often a response to conversation, individual word collections and specific sites.  In her exploration of the gap between the perception of text and the reality of it she attempts to uncover visions locked away in words and phrases.
This is ok, and feels more professional, but doesn’t give a lot of detail.  I can always add detail relevant to each project at the end.

Website

Last time I edited my website I went for a title list of my works leading into details and images for various projects and works, but I don’t feel it works very well and previous to that I had a simple slide show of visuals,  keeping text descriptions to a bare minimum of title, media, size and year.  A variation of these that I think would work well now is having a gallery grid showing one image from each year as a cover image to the years’ gallery.

Reviewing my artist statement…

Current statement on website:

My practice is predominantly concerned with investigating the relationship between the physical world and the world of text.

In our digital world we are bombarded by increasing amounts of information via text on a daily basis. In my exploration of the gap between the perception of text and the reality of it I attempt to uncover visions we have locked away in words and phrases.

I believe that art, in mapping society, can wake us up, not only to reality but also to our dreams which, through art, can become real. I want to create imagery that uses and explores and is relevant to everyone’s imagination and dreams.

The investigation is often realised through an engagement between a word, phrase or body of text and another medium such as paint, print, mixed media, collaboration, video, installation or a combination of these methods.

This is where I am with the new edit:

Catherine is an artist working with words, using conversation as the root of new work; playful yet political. Her investigation is often realised through an engagement between a word, phrase or body of text and another medium such as paint, print or site-specific performance, installation or a combination of these methods.

Keywords:  Dreams, social infrastructure, communication, grassroots activism, site-specific, words, text.

Places of interest: library, water-fountain, footpath,

I work with text in part due to my contrary nature, if it is difficult for me – I want to do it.  And I find writing (for most purposes) nearly impossible.  Text is simply too over-stimulating.

What to do with the form of text that sends me into a tailspin?

a) Ration it.

b) Record conversations on audio and video.

c) Use different source material (video & audio).

d) Research through images, video and experience.  (How limiting is this really?)

e) How far can conversations alone go?

f) Could conversations stand alone as practice?

g) Why is text so addictive?

I’ll be considering for next time:

Limiting my source material to direct experience, video, image and audio is tempting.  Why?

And pondering the idea of whether conversation can stand alone as practice.