The Cultural Tourist

It can always be a bit of a struggle to know what to write about each month, particularly when I have been carrying on with the same investigations and nothing new has happened. Normally I simply like to write about what I am working on at the time, the reasons behind it and what is going through my mind as I work.

This is the case this month when I have been working in my studio. I am still focusing on my ‘still life’ pieces, specifically on jugs and teapots which I own and exploring the idea of commodity fetish. I have been working with watercolour on canvas which is not my normal medium and a bit of an experiment within itself.

I am at the stage of having to give them titles and this is the subject I am going to briefly discuss today. Artists tend to have different methods in how they name their art pieces. Mine is not particularly clever. As I work on a piece I inevitably give it a name in my head for the purpose of functionality and reference – ‘I must carry on with my ‘Midnight’ piece today (a simple example) or ‘what is the next step for my ‘Urban desire’ collage?’. More often than not, this will form the basis for the name of the final artwork. Sometimes this system works just fine, other times it can be a bit wobbly. I must admit I do rather like a poetic aspect to the naming but this very much depends on the piece and it is very easy to go a bit overboard on this which can be rather cringe-worthy.

If I were to carry on with this naming convention, then my jug and teapot pieces would have the following names:

‘The teapot from Seville’

‘The purple gravy boat’

‘The brown patterned teapot’

‘The tall blue jug’

‘Charity shop find’

‘You can’t name a painting Charity shop find!’ exclaims my youngest son. ‘Why not?’ I ask. ‘It is how I think of it’. ‘It sounds terrible. It needs a much more sophisticated name’ says he. ‘But that would be pretty cheesy’, I reply. Thus for the time being I have settled for it’s title ‘The cream flowery jug’. It may yet be changed.

I have been taking photographs of jugs and teapots that I have in my household. This is the start of a new series of works in which I am exploring still life and the idea of commodity fetish. Why do we collect things and what does it mean for us? So often we will buy an item for the house that we deem as expressing a certain message, whether this be a fashion statement (oh, this is very Parisian looking) or indicative of a particular style (this is so retro!). Why do we care? Many philosophers will say this is to do with desire and our need to be perceived in a certain way. Some will say it’s all about sex; others; a more general requirement to be accepted and to be seen in a good light. Modern life is not just filled with objects that are created for functionality, but also ones that suggests something desirable. The objects in a sense take on magical powers.

Anyway I could wax lyrical about philosophy, the object and fetish but would rather write specifically about my art development I am currently working on. Still life as an art genre is a popular thing and whilst I think it has a lot to do with what we like and what it represents as a subject matter, still life does tend to be more accessible than other subjects. This perhaps makes it an easier subject matter to explore. Think about cubism for example and how Picasso and Braque were able to depict the idea of multifaceted objects on a flat plane. We all know an object has multiple sides but in art such as painting, traditionally we could only ever display one side. Cubism provided a vehicle to subvert this.

I recently went to a very good exhibition in the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester called ‘The shape of things: Still life in Britain’. This exhibition gave a wide encompassing range of ways still life has been represented and gave me the inspiration to start upon my new series of work. I chose jug and teapots, not just because I happen to have a fair number of them but also because I have them in a wide variety of styles and from different periods of time. Some I have inherited, others I have collected along the way.

As in the wider scheme of things I am exploring fragmentation and modernity, I see the commodity fetish of objects as being part of this. Hence I am trying to break down the certainty of these objects in the environment in which they sit. Its early days but I include here some images of some works on paper I have created recently.

I am staring out into the garden at the roses both blooming and drooping in the rain. There is the quiet hum of the fridge in the background and the only other thing I can hear currently is the tapping of my fingers on my laptop keyboard. These are precious moments. The foliage outside is starting to get overgrown, making it a haven for the wildlife. My garden laziness has some benefits thankfully.

This feeling of a hiatus or a reprieve is welcomed. My visits to the studio have been short and sweet without much new work being developed. I am preparing for 2 Open Studio events. One of these is connected to the KAOS Open Studios event taking place in the wider Kingston borough where I will be exhibiting some of my work at the lovely Fusebox Gallery (situated by the riverside in Kingston). This starts the weekend of the 18th May and is on until the 26th May. I have been calmly and diligently sorting through works, painting sides of canvases, adding D-rings and cords; all necessary activities and really rather enjoyable quiet, methodical processes. Then from June 21st-23rd, I will be opening my studio In Hawks Road as part of the wider ASC Open studio event. I am hoping between now and then I can get started on some new work and complete a couple of larger works that I have started.

In the meantime for my display at Fusebox, I am using as the basis, the following piece of text from my Masters dissertation.

‘As I wander, there may be something left behind, a memory, a scuff mark or perhaps a ricochet reminiscent of the beat of my heart. The surfaces I touch, the footsteps I take, bear witness to those who were there before. There is a coming together of nature, the body and of an ‘other’; something outside of and beyond myself. Gestural acquaintances, carved out murmurs, sometimes blended, crossing over in patches and sometimes colliding, creating accidental displacements and disturbances.

Reflections are scattered throughout my day such as in mirrors, windows and in pools of water. Like traces, they are the absence of the real thing; a copy or a simulacrum, like the flickering shadows in Plato’s cave.

There is evidence of something absent and of something present. An altered presence to what was there before. A stain, a residue, the suggestion of something disappearing. The death of what was. Vestiges and spectres, ghostly apparitions that remind us of our own mortality.’

The falling rain outside echoes this overall sentiment.

Progress is slow but I have been carrying on in my little studio playing with watercolour. I am deliberately not looking at tutorials in how to use watercolour paint as I am interested in finding out what I can do with it. It feels right to be playing with this medium as my interest in the fragment, the transitory, interconnectedness and transformation lends itself to this material. Initially I have been working quite small and on paper but I have decided to try working on large canvas which I have prepared with an absorbent ground specifically designed for the use of watercolour.

My subject matter is very ordinary; so far a potted plant sitting in an abstracted interior environment. I want to try to convey the idea of something not settled, but changeable and malleable in space.

The painting shown is unfinished. It’s quite a large artwork (121 x 91 cm) and I want to loosen it up more but need to disconnect from it for a few days before I try again. The other painting I show here is very small (21 x 14.5 cm) and is an imagined (rather hallucinatory) view from a window of a balcony and a tree.

It might be very chilly out there but I have been wonderfully ensconced in my little studio quite a bit. I have managed to fracture my toe quite badly which meant my plans to work at the theatre over December and early January all fell by the wayside due to lack of mobility. However, I can make art and this has led to a new development of work and ideas.

I have always had a fascination with courtyards and for years have been inspired by the courtyard scenes in the film ‘The Scent of Green Papaya’. I like the idea of a space that operates as both an interior and exterior, where it is private, enclosed and has multiple purposes. This could be a place to potentially dine, read, rest, work and also be a garden and a structure at the same time as well as a home and visiting space for different kinds of wildlife.

I have been playing with watercolours, pen and ink and have started creating imaginary courtyards. Sometimes I might introduce an insect or another aspect into the scene to emulate the thoughts and imaginings that float across my consciousness.