Place

I was drawn to this exhibition by its intentions to loosely re-interpret a classical landscape painting in three-dimensional form. The piece itself didn’t suggest these painterly origins to me. However Cornaro also aims to explore our perception of reality, and walking inside the work to examine it from all angles engulfed me in Cornaro’s constructed reality, delivering an experience that was active and engaging.

According to the accompanying text, ‘Cornaro uses found objects imbued with symbolic potential or emotional value, which she presents in different types of display and media to reveal the subtle shifts of meaning provoked by processes of reproduction and translation.’ It was clear that objects chosen were carefully considered. They are offered for our inspection presented on plinths, but not all are easy to see; one has to balance on tip toes to catch a glimpse of some. The inclusion of rolls of fabric were unusual and intriguingly. Overall, I felt the objects themselves were perhaps less important, whereas their method of display and precise placement were not.

Cornaro intends a structured composition that ‘reinforces the illusion of perspective.’ As you move within the installation, dark plinth monoliths jut, loom, intrude and block one’s gaze. Copper reflections interrupt, subtly pulling the viewer into the installation.

This exhibition was thought provoking. It left me very aware of the relative passivity of the viewing experience of a wall-based piece of work in contrast to the more active opportunities offered by an installation.

Isabelle Cornaro, Paysage Avec Poussin, until 5th April 2015, South London Gallery

Images: Paysage avec poussin et temoins oculaires (version VI), 2014, 1155 x 670 x 280 cm

Nine months ago I made the initial version of To accrete n.05 movie stills which transfers a collaged physical artwork into a series of still shots. It fractures viewing into small slices that gradually reveal a whole, an exercise both in giving and withholding information.

Overall I was happy with the general approach of the piece but felt this early version didn’t balance offering initial details that gradually build to construct an impression of the whole before making a final reveal. The second version of the film addresses this by re-shooting all of the imagery and spending this additional time allowed me to become more familiar with the form and composition of the collage, resulting in better shots.

I’ve been pretty successful in getting the work shown – seeing it as a large projection amidst a series of other films made me realise its lack of sound was a missed opportunity. The sound track I then produced is simple – a repeated gesture relating to the making of the original collage – in this case the tearing of paper. It’s recorded on my I-phone and played back as two altered and slowed-down sound tracks. The results were fine through the computer but its showing at the 51zero festival revealed the audio was too distracting.

Version three of the film simplifies the sound to a single track and reduces the overall volume into a gentle wave of noise that starts as a subtle background murmur and builds to an assertive level in a short section of the film. I’m happy with this although experience tells me I need a full-scale projection experience to confirm it’s finally finished! This version is made in Adobe Premiere Elements 12, and I did discover to my cost to use MP3 rather than MP4 audio format if you don’t want it to disappear from the final film!

My thinking about what I’ve made has refined as I’ve worked with the piece. It’s really more of an animation than a film, and I view it as yet another form of collage; disparate fragments re-positioned to create something new.

The piece manipulates power / control. Film is a much more controlling mechanism than the original collage. I can’t control how someone looks at a picture on a wall, but a filmic approach fixes frame, order, and duration. Yes, the viewer may choose not to look at all, but if they do, they are subject to my will.

My approach plays with materiality. Original photograph becomes scanned digital information and then collaged physical object, returning to photograph to finally end in film. Obviously there is no reason for this play and dislocation to stop here – it could continue endlessly.

The work is also about the processes of death. Photographs only ever capture a moment that has gone and their inherent stillness suggests death, sitting in stark contrast with the properties of film which return what is dead to an appearance of life.(1)

Reference:

1 Sabine Kriebel, ‘Theories of Photography; a short history’, in James Elkins, Photographic Theory, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), p.34.

I spent an enjoyable last Friday on A-N’s Granted: Dodge the Shredder training session led by the fascinating and engaging Emilia Telese. It’s about improving the chances of successful grant applications but its lessons translate throughout one’s practice.

I got loads of valuable things from the session but the three most vital for me were firstly that I need to simplify the language I use and avoid phrases only the art-initiated are likely to understand. I must also be more focused when I write using an introductory paragraph to give a strong overview of something in its entirety and supplying additional information in order of importance. Everything needs to be edited down to be as succinct and clear as possible. Finally, I’ll start using Telese’s art eco-system to plan each project, teasing out its description, philosophy, technical details, timetable, location, and benefits to the public and artist in a kind of mind-mapping exercise that takes place at the start of any new project.

Hopefully adopting this strategy will strengthen my practice but it leaves me with quite a lot of work to do over the Christmas period!

I’ve discovered loads of great resources for new artists on A-N, particularly a Signpost document I’m working through gradually to uncover how I can be more effective in managing my practice.

This is the sort of project I love; concerns from my existing practice colliding with an external provocation (in this case, to respond to the collection of Maidstone Museum) to trigger a new idea.

I’ve chosen to re-imagine what a modern day Vanitas painting could look like.

I like to play the sound bite word game. In this case it’s helped me cut to the core of what’s important about the challenge. It’s a way to spend time exploring the idea – getting to know it better – similar to what takes place when making a piece of work. I used the approach on the process of painting itself and I realise I’m more interested in the visceral feelings the process of painting provokes than the skill itself.

The painting word game

Bleed, bloom, rivulet, disperse, feathered edges
Flick, drip, trickle, pour, drown
Immerse, wash, scrub clean
Perspectival manipulations
Erode, damage, obliterate
Translucent, impenetrable
Pearlescent, glossy, matt
Silvered, glisten, gleam
Decaying degradation
Archaeological traces
Black, tarry negation
Slide, slither, trickle
Dark, doom, gloom
Subtle haunting
Panic, despair
Sueded velvet
Soak; sodden
Gravity, drift
Control – not
Self-painting
Dance
Ruin

For this series of work, the individual pictures chosen for inclusion are vitally important. It’s easy to be sloppy with a collage constructed from lots of material but ultimately if each isn’t carefully chosen with a specific purpose in mind the overall impact proved weak and biased towards the graphic. In this case, the purpose is two-fold; the sort of material that appears in traditional Vanitas alongside a concern central to my personal practice with the fractured passive female form.

A method of composition is slowly revealing itself; painstaking layers built up gradually following apparently accurate perspectives that are in fact truthfully ‘off’.

After experimenting with various scales, I’ve settled on something that is small, jewel-like and demands careful looking at 25.4 x 25.4cm. I think the only alternative is something assertively huge in size – anything in between feels like a pointless compromise. The format chosen is square – neutral – a deliberate distancing from both traditional portrait and landscape formats. The work will be displayed unframed mounted on split-battening – another conscious break from traditional approaches.

I can see this series expanding, perhaps to six or ten pieces to see how / if the process shifts over an extended number of pieces. This should keep me busy over the winter!

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