The reality of juxtaposition.
It has been just over 3 months since my Degree Show at Wimbledon College of Art (UAL). I had so much planned once this was over, so many projects I wanted to get started but in truth I have been like a fly trapped in a milk bottle – buzzing around wildly but achieving very little. It has been said to me that in order to make progress it is best to focus on one thing at a time. This is all well and good, but I think for many of artists this is just not viable. I need to earn some income, I need (and want) to produce some art, I want (and need) to collaborate, exhibit and experiment. I also have a family, so hence have all the activities and responsibilities that entails. So my mission in respect to my art practice these days is to try and focus on just a few things at a time, and to try to relax into it more.
I have recently been playing with making small collages, physical and digital. They have tended to try and evoke a sense of place, a quick escape route in my head. One is based in Spain; Andalucia region. I have juxtaposed and transferred images of photographs I had taken on past holidays onto a solid oak wood block that I had previously primed with a mixture of rabbit glue and marble dust. It is relatively small; approximately 27 cm square. In keeping with my usual practice, I painted and drew upon this. I wanted the surface and image to be deliberately rough and incomplete in parts – as if an artefact with the surface showing through in places – like touching the walls of an old city, the heat of the sun bleaching the paintwork and drawing delicate cracks upon its history.
The other is a ‘New Zealand’ digital collage -in a wildish sort of state. I am from New Zealand originally but have not been back there for quite a number of years. Living in London, whilst I love it, there is a reassuring primal ruggedness about New Zealand which I miss and wanted to capture.
There are days in the studio when I don’t have anything planned. Maybe I have finished exploring a particular concern, or I am waiting for something to arrive, to dry or I am just fed up with it for the time being. On these sort of days, I tend to have a ‘go to’ practice. It usually involves taking old packaging or an old art piece I want to cover over and working with collage, painting and pattern.
The work is kind of instinctual. I rarely have a rigid plan, other than I often use interior design books to get ideas for different colour combinations. I tend to create some sort of wash background. If it’s a previous art work, I will use bits of that for the background. Then I add the collage pieces. Sometimes I rip up pieces of magazines or old photographs of mine and sometimes the collage pieces are actual cut out shapes (and I think of Matisse’s cut-outs when I do this). Finally I paint within it, using the shapes and the colours to suggest patterns and rhythms. I play with ideas of juxtaposition, connections and interconnections, complexity, absence, repeating motifs and so on. I tend to leave these artworks for a day or 2 and then may return to paint and pattern within it more.
I love making these. Often they are a bit bonkers – a bit like creating the ultimate doodle. It feels appropriate to be using recycled materials, particularly old packaging as in my head I think of systems, globalisation, commercialisation, the banality and excessiveness of mass production. The patterns I make in a sense represent this. But they are far from perfect and I feel there is a preciousness to the errors and inconsistencies. Just as there is a preciousness to those unseen processes, people, relationships and consequences that create the original packaging and their contents.
I have a few exhibition opportunities coming up for the rest of the year so I have been busy in my studio, experimenting with new possible work. At the end of June we have an Open Studios weekend in the ASC Studio complex. I only have a small studio, so it’s always a matter of deciding what I am going to put on display and how I am going to manage to hide everything else. I think I will be mainly focusing on my mixed media art this year and will try to display a varied display of works– perhaps displaying a couple of each subject matter. It will be like a mini Noah’s Ark of paired art works.
In September I hope to be part of an exhibition showcasing pets and the curators are looking for more expressive interpretations of our furry loved ones. The problem is though, for various reasons, there are no pets living in my home (more’s the pity). Not to be deterred, this has set me off on a cat series which I have named ‘I don’t own a cat’. Firstly because there is no cat, secondly, because as cat people know, cats cannot be ‘owned’. I have taken to photographing the visiting cats to my overgrown garden as well as using old photos from a cat book I won in a competition when I was a kid to create collages and montages of cats in different environments, enhanced with watercolour paint.
Also in November, I will be involved in a curated group exhibition called ‘Truth and Lies’ in the ASC Gallery in Vauxhall. Whilst I have some possible work ready for this, I am keen to work on a new series exploring this, to give me some more possible options. I’d especially like to include some writing as part of this as the subject matter ties in very nicely with aspects of my Masters of Research dissertation called ‘My grandmother’s plait’.
There may of course be other exhibitions that come my way and I look forward to those too if that happens.
I have been fairly prolific in my studio this month, playing around with collage and watercolour on recycled cardboard. My current favourite method of transferring an image onto cardboard is using a gel medium and then once it is dry, using water to absorb into the collage. It gives quite a ghostly effect and to me, it suggests alternative realities and possibilities.
This multiple dimensions effect is something I keep returning to again and again in my art practice. I like the idea that one can see and imagine a transformative process going on right before one’s eyes. Nothing is fixed but there is a continual ebb and flow and a kind of shimmering takes place. I add watercolour or acrylic paint to highlight, to deepen; to somehow contribute to this mysterious effect.
I am not quite sure what my next steps will be but I like the idea of trying different substances and powders in my efforts to create drifts and fluctuations.
It has been a few months since my last blog and to be honest I haven’t been in my studio a great deal due to other work and illness. Nevertheless when I am I continue to play with recycled packaging, watercolour paint and occasionally collage. This includes physcially cobbling together pieces of cardboard (a bit lke a patchwork). I enjoy the way that this adds a different texture and feel to the piece.
Before Christmas I paid a visit to The Photographers Gallery in London to see the photo collage exhibition by Deborah Turbeville. This certainly has inspired me (and reminded me) of how much fun one can have with one’s own photography and so I am on a mission going forward to reintroduce this back into my work alongside what I am currently doing. In the meantime the art pieces on display here are of watercolour on recycled cardboard where I have used as a basis digital montages from various sources of urban interiors and exteriors. I have also included some other very simple pieces of still-life.
I don’t have a very big studio – in fact it is quite small as studios go and it is crammed to the gills with materials, artwork and necessary furniture. This means that I have to be quite considered when I go to make new works in terms of what size it is and what materials I use. Also there is the whole issue of sustainability and recycling. It is a bit of a dilemma in deciding what materials to use. I ideally want to make art pieces that last, but unless they are actually on someone’s wall and/or being used in some way then this is rather wasteful and not very sustainable. Also I just don’t have the room for bringing in lots of new surfaces. This means I do re-use old canvases and boards as much as I can. I also like to use found material on occasion such as bits from skips and cardboard packaging.
I have been continuing on with my still life series but using very ordinary materials such as old food packaging (basically raiding my homes recycling bin) and watercolour paint. Much of the work is exploring the idea of simplicity, mindfulness and pleasure. I have quite a few things I want to try such as including writing or different types of substrates.
One thing I also want to explore is alternative ways of displaying the work or even different kinds of framing. Often when exhibiting, the gallery space only has a hanging rail system with cords and hooks which can be quite restrictive. Currently I am just reusing existing frames that I have in my studio and I often scour the second and shops for old frames.
The benefits of using recycled packaging to make artwork is also contrasted against the fact that the artwork will not last as long. It doesn’t seem right to expect people who buy the art to pay the same sort of prices for art made on more perishable materials. But maybe adjusting the prices accordingly will make the art more accessible for all. It will depend on the amount of work put into a piece I think but I like the idea of keeping it simple.
