MARKING TIME
Revealing the painted mark through the act of creating, copying and mimicking a simple action belies the complexities of the act itself.
The painted mark presupposes a strong history in art as do similar kinds of artworks where the importance of detail is a material one. This current series of artworks I create employ the material of the painted mark in turn characterise a process of adapting my art practice to creative necessities I require as an artist now, and integrate aspects of both the mental and physical placement of oneself in this present time. This process is realised through the creation of artworks that are literal through their construct, incorporate an intuitive factor through the unpredictability’s of both fixture and form. Visualise the artists hand through a simple visual assemblages.
Creating artworks that are literally marking time.
Looking through my own history as an artist in summery, I could say it was defined through the idiom of geometric abstraction. Particularly hard edge abstraction I created works that were mainly painted directly onto a wall. Through time I realised I needed to evolve from that position because it reached a point of becoming static for me even though I was still committed to the language of geometric abstraction and creating works that were temporal in both their reading and construction. It was time to loosen up the hard edge an action I felt could progress my art practice. Wherever I went to from here, I still desired my artwork to suggest a similar language and began to realise the simplicity of the answer.
Clearly, it is not what I create but how I create it.
Photography has always been an important element in my art practice through my hybrid approach to this discipline I utilise the process and material form in favour of the pictorial depiction of a subject. The early works that venture into this newer territory as examples show (fig.1) considered the painted mark through the qualities of both material and light painting and photography.
20 x 20 cm, 2009.
These works were challenging as they present the material of the painted mark in variation through transitions of light. The intuitive process of making these artworks creating further readings of fluidity and speed of movement conditioned a quality of time through what were essentially very simply constructed artworks. The final presentation of one of the first series of Marking Time shown in (fig.2) retains the geometric form overlaid with variations of painted markings. Simple as that process may seem the painted mark is mimicked through a photographic process and each segment reads as a variation in time through the look and construction of their markings. The experience of these artworks is primarily visual imitating a tactile one.
Here is where the complexities begin.
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(Fig.2) Marking Time series (Installation view) Photogram prints, 9, 20 x 20cm each, 2009 |
Continuing Imitations.
A desire to continue interpreting the act of painting influenced the next phase of works I created which played between the physical constructions of materials layered and dialogues of thought promoted through the continuing imitations of the painted mark. Materiality is more forefront in the viewed experience of these current works which were equally visual as they were tactile, in contrast to the previous works shown in (fig.2).
Fig. 3 Examples works from Marking Time series, Adhesive tape, acrylic on paper, 30 x 40 cm, 2009
I experimented with materials like masking tape and arranging cut lengths of painted paper (Fig.3). My aim was to further imitate, mimic the gestured painted markings arranged through the first Marking Time series (fig.2). Using and considering the nature of materials such as masking tape, it became evident that the final appearance of the artwork was not an absolute it was becoming realised throughout the act of making. Upstaging the final presentation of the artwork and giving precedence to process. A strong intuitive element was becoming evident in my art practice it was enacting questions of value in my artwork. What is of value here the final so-called resolved artwork or is that counteracted by the temporal nature of both the material and its presentation? Was the viewer now in a position to visually experience and understand the process over the finite resolution presented as the resolved artwork?
I have a problem with the word resolved and believe it is too much a fixed notion that restrains my creativity rather than progress it.
