looking back over my blog I can reflect on my creative process. My art essentialy comes from somewhere inside of me and is an attempt at expressing raw emotion. I have written about some of the prominant artists who have attempted to create paintings which express their feelings in a way that links us into the primitive part of our brains.
This is maybe a reaction against the alienation we experience in life when we are detatched from nature. It is an attempt to access something real. It is a state of mind that I attempt to achieve whilst working whereby anything which is hidden can be brought to light in the artwork. the pencil marks can highlight different mind states some meandering and thoughtful others sharp and agressive. The paint has a different effect whether it is applied with paintbrush or fingers or agressively thrown onto the canvas.
My work is more about the process that the finished effect although that is also important and I have to make judgement on where a painting is or isnt working. I have done alot of research into the psychology of art and aesthetics and this has been interesting in terms of why we feel the need to paint and what happens when we are the observer of a piece of artwork.
Many people view their art as a kind of retreat or sanctuary. I’m not sure about mine. I think that my artwork is a nessessary struggle. It sometimes feels like a sanctuary but other times it is a real mental challenge. It is just something I have to do.
My paintings have got larger and the painting style has become more free, I have started to spend less time on my paintings, leaving them in their primitive state. However the piece which was made out of old canvases is different. This is because the structure of the canvases and the texture of the paint from the previous paintings meant that I had to approach it in a different way, and it has become more busy like my previous work. I have another of these to finish.
Writing my Dissertation and my blog has helped with my art work, The theory I have learned has shaped my art practice and the blog has forced me to reflect on my work, this is an ongoing process which is by no means finished.
