Sunday, October 23, 2011

This is exactly what I meant to say

Other people sometimes express better what I mean to say, so as a follow-up to last night's blog I give you a quote from Chuck Palahniuk's novel Diary. It's a kind of semi-surrealistic story where the main character is failed art student Misty Kleinman, and this conversation takes place between her and her boyfriend-to-be Peter Wilmot on their first date:

---
Peter gave her the blank canvas and said "Paint something".
And Misty said, "Nobody paint paints. Not anymore".
If anybody she knew still painted at all, they used their own blood or semen. And they painted on live dogs from the animal shelter, or on molded gelatin desserts, but never on canvas.
And Peter said, "I bet you still paint on canvas".
"Why?" Misty said. "Because I'm retarded? Because I won't know any better?"
And Peter said, "Just fucking paint."
They were supposed to be above representational art. Making pretty pictures. They were supposed to learn visual sarcasm. Misty said they were paying too much tuition not to practice the techniques of effective irony. She said a pretty picture wouldn't teach the world anything.
And Peter said, "We're not old enough to buy beer, what are we supposed to teach the world?" There on his back in their nest if weeds, one arm behind his head, Peter said, "All the effort in the world won't matter if you're not inspired."
---

Saturday, October 22, 2011

"Be yourself, no matter what they say"

This could have been said (and probably have, too) by many people but I had Sting's line from Englishman in New York in mind. It sounds so extremely simple and logical, so self-explanatory and sensible. To put the words into practice is another matter.

How do you keep the balance between getting inspired by other people's work without unconsciously trying to imitate aspects of their work? Is it really possible to take part in the art world by working entirely in your own little bubble, shutting out any outside "noise" that would affect your ideas or make you reconsider your project entirely? And if you do choose this path, is it valid to work up a confidence about what you're doing, or is it a sign of naivete? Should you take control of your work, or let your work control you; that is to say, go wherever your work decides to take you?

These and other questions have been crowding my head lately - my facebook friends may already have noticed that I don't exactly have the best of confidence in what I've been working with the past few months. A long period filled with lack of ideas and inspiration, paired with inexperience with a new medium, hopeless dabbling with other techniques and topped off with a diabetes diagnosis that drained me of energy for a lot of the summer, culminated in a sort of mini-breakdown this past week. I felt completely lost and like I had nothing to do in an art world where originality and provocative qualities are a must - just the fact that I slap paint on a vertically placed canvas is enough to make me reactionary according to some. So the question that comes to mind is: Is it better to keep doing what I'm doing with a conviction that after all I'm following my heart and then nothing can go wrong, or should I move onto something else, in the hope that I'll have better chances of "making it" if I give in to what the critics, curators and experts consider to be groundbreaking and important in art-making?

Just by the phrasing of the dilemma I'm giving myself away - I feel like I have no choice but to go for the first option, but still I would ideally opt for something in between the two. The problem is how to get from here to there.

Lately I've been working on a painting which started out as an experiment in blurriness and abstraction, but turned out to be more of a figurative study reminiscent of something I could have made years ago, and it upset me more than I expected. Had I worked so hard for years just to end up at the starting point? One could argue that yes, it is just one painting and it is just a part of a long, experimental process; results aren't as important as the ongoing journey...and so on. Of course I can see the point in such statements, but as I am approaching my 26th birthday and people who are younger than me are already graduating from the Academy, I begin to feel like my chances of any accomplishment in art is next to none. And it worries me beyond words.

That said, I will try to update my web site soon, but as I've transferred the site files to a new computer and I can't remember my FTP password, I can't promise anything as to when it will actually happen..I'm also considering re-building the site in another software which makes it more low-maintenance. However since I'm also studying for 3 exams (last one will be handed in Dec 16) it might take a while - at least you know what plans I have for the site..I haven't given up yet.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Yes - It's almost time for exams again. In art history I have one April 27th (way too early as lectures started in February) and one May 2nd - I suppose that I, objectively speaking, have it under control, however there's one thing that's bothering me: Here the other day I was made aware of an art program on TV and I thought to myself - I can't stand to watch it. I'm sick of everything that has anything to do with art.

Ideally I should be drawn (pun not intended) to painting more and explore more visual opportunities, to counteract all the dry, complicated curriculum texts on semiotics, post-structuralism, psychoanalytic feminist theory and whatnot - but just looking at a paintbrush and seeing the paintings I've been working on for over a month already (getting nowhere), I feel a budding nausea.

A teacher once told me this kind of insecurity and hopelessness is extremely common and an "occupational hazard". However I don't think I've ever felt so completely drained of confidence in what I do, and I have no desire to leave painting or art practice behind to spend my days in an office writing essays that explore this-and-this as sign or simulacral readings.

So there you have my career crisis, if it can be called that because I don't have a career per se. I suppose I'm in need of some inspiration (and a lot of energy). So if anyone has any interesting art or art history related links to share, I'd appreciate it - comment or this post or on facebook :)

Saturday, February 12, 2011

The Warhol effect



I can't help my fascination with Andy Warhol. It started when I watched the PBS documentary about him a couple of years ago, which made me think of him as more than a very weird artist who went out of his way to draw attention to himself.

Of course he did also give that impression, but for me, studying Warhol has given unexpected positive consequences. Right now I'm in a kind of drought in terms of ideas and inspiration (That is to say, I have no idea what I'm doing or why). But looking at early Warhol works, from his commercial art years and the coke bottle pictures for instance, helps to remind me that a little playfulness and sense of freedom in sketching is a very good thing - I often tend to take myself too seriously and put pressure on myself to create nothing short of masterpieces and in general be very result oriented, but here the other night I sat down and just played with a bottle of all-purpose ink and cheap sketching paper.



Some of them are not even ideas as such but just plain splashing of ink, which may not look like much but felt amazing to do just because I wasn't thinking about what I was doing.

On the subject of Warhol I've also volunteered to write a summary of Benjamin Buchloh's article "Andy Warhol's One-Dimensional Art" to present in the modern art class next week. (As much as I admire Warhol, right now I don't understand why I did that - I'm terrible at speaking in front of people) It's not a huge task and there's not that much at stake really - no grades or direct evaluation, but my chief concern is if I have actually understood Mr Buchloh's arguments right (Good thoughts/prayers on Wednesday gratefully accepted).

On an off-topic note; in terms of web site updates, I'm planning on updating the site within a few days, however the photos are not the best quality and I will replace them with better ones later.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

dilemma...

A few months ago, like I mentioned in my last post, I started working with water soluble oil colours. I've now completed one painting with these new paints, almost finished with a second - and struggling with a third.

Apart from the smell these oil colours have the same properties of regular oil paints - easy to make smooth transitions between shades, a nice fluency, and it takes longer to dry; you can leave it for hours and continue to manipulate the colours without adding new paint.

However, the last few weeks I've wondered if the last point on the list is actually a good thing. The problem seems to be that the paint not only takes long to dry, it seems to not dry AT ALL. The painting I've finished was up on the wall to dry for weeks and when I took it down to wrap it in plastic and put it away, it was still not dry in places. The plastic glued itself to the painted surface like a magnet. It should be said that this particular painting is made up of half regular canvas surface and half textured (sand texture gel, plus modeling paste, both fine and coarse...) surface, and to get the oil paint to cover this grained surface completely I had to add unbelievable amounts of liquid paint medium. I suppose that could be the source of the problem.

On the other hand, should I refrain from using the liquid medium the paint still seems all but impossible to work with - dry, sticky and greasy at the same time, thick and unruly. So while in theory it's a good thing to experiment with new paints I feel slightly depressed and demotivated. One thing is to experiment - which I have always defined as a completely free, unafraid and enthusiastic approach to the work and not so much result oriented - but right now I feel like I'm just trying to do the same thing with oils as I did with acrylic and it's not working. I feel like I'm not doing anything productive or worthwhile at the moment, and at the same time the semester just started and I'm about to dive head first into a seething pool of heavy art theory.

Ultimately, I think I'm getting to a crisis of combining theory and practice - art theory/history teaches that there's a certain way to think about and practice art today (paradoxically they always seem to say that contemporary art history have several approaches and viewpoints, while on the other hand certain perspectives always seem dominant. Like the fact that aesthetic qualities are less important than relational and societal qualities, or in general a downplaying of the "aesthetic experience" which I find it hard to come to terms with), and when I see that I don't match that system in my so-called artistic practice, I get depressed.

So there you have it. I'm thinking of going back to acrylic paints for a while just to get some creativity and joy for the work back, at the same time I have some text ideas that might come into fruition.
Any advice will be appreciated.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

New year's resolutions...

I think I promise myself twice every year that I will be a more active blogger. Not that it helps - I'm either too busy with studies or feel like whatever is going on in my life (related to art or not) is not interesting enough. However this year I WILL make an effort to update this blog more often.

I'll start with a recap of what's been going on since last time I wrote (which I see is April. Oh dear..)

-I never finished the Caravaggio-copying-test project, however it was fun while it lasted.

-I took a class covering art from the baroque to the present and got a B, in addition to getting a B in psychology

-I was part of a 3 day exhibition at CC Vest shopping center (photo below), it was a disaster in one way and a personal victory in another.


-I've temporarily switched the acrylic paints for a new type of water soluble oil paint that doesn't smell like regular oil paint but has all the other positive qualities. I'm currently working on (or have soon finished) two paintings with this new paint, for process photos see this facebook album.

-I've signed up for two art history classes (theories and methods of art history, art from 1950-2000) as well as social/personality psychology, and lectures will start next week

And as always I'm just trying to figure out the balancing act between painting and academic studies.. unfortunately it seems that the theory based studying makes it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the theory behind painting. Like deciding what to do next, defining what I'm actually doing. As mentioned above, lectures haven't started yet but I have already bought all the books and started reading (one of the classes requires the students to read a whole book in addition to several essays before the first lecture, and I realised that one of the theory & method books seems instrumental in understanding the essays in the other class.

And I'm rambling again, which is what I usually do, so everything's back to normal. I'll keep you posted.

Promise.