Monday 20 September 2010

The Jitters

ahem.. cough, cough cough cough. it's been a hwhile.

Landscape,

window,

painting,

photograph,

film,

computer.

i mean i guess there are other things with screens, animation, but that's similar principles to film, mobile phones, but that works on similar principles to computer's, so i tried to pick just the bare essentials. Because knowing what painting originated from is a good starting point into making original work. so i tried to pick all things with frames, and screens, i was in two minds about whether to include theatre as well, as it has a kind of frame, that being the curtain, and i could include it, i'm not attempting a definitive list, just something which makes me think... but theatre seems to me more attuned to film than painting.

So, the Landscape - the actual world out there. Windows - still able to see the world, but now it's slightly removed from you. Mirrors - now you can see yourself, and your place in the world. Painting - you can attempt a faithful reproduction of the world, or get lost in the paint. you can alter the world, copy it, attempt to improve it, or express it, and yourself using a mirror. the world becomes a world. Photograph - a near perfect visual reproduction of the world, only not where it's supposed to be, and not the same size as it's supposed to be, and it's not moving.. and although it doesn't want to admit it, it might not be as faithful as it first claims. Film - a photograph that moves, the world somewhat removed from where we are being in the midst of the blackness of the auditorium. though if the film world is reality, then why am i sitting with complete strangers? trying to hear it over their crunching of popcorn, and whispering, and groping. Computers - like the photograph and unlike the cinema i can hide it away, it's mine, all the things on it are in my personal space. i can see the world through it, see many worlds on it, travel into deepest space, it turns mirrors the right way round via a camera, i can watch films, talk to friends, if it started to breathe for me and i could feel through it as well then i mightn't miss this world at all. this has it's own laws, rules, reality , in which i can express myself, or a different me, accordingly.

Painting does seem quite a way down the evolutionary ladder doesn't it, but i try not to think of it like that, rightly or wrongly. painting is different, there isn't really a betterment, each step is simply different to the last one, comes with alternate ways of viewing the world, new pros and cons.. painting allows you to express yourself, a computer allows you to organise your week, a mirror allows you to comb your hair, not only do each of them work on different levels, they are almost unrelated in day to day life, except for this, admittedly quite flimsy, idea of the frame and screen. But the point is it makes you think, for instance, frames, a window, what do you do with a window, if a painting was like a window, or a door? would that painting take you places, allow you to see far off lands without actually going there? or would a mirror best suit your way of painting, do you reflect yourself, expressionistically maybe, the world as your world, altered. or finding your place in it.

painting is for me a way of summing up. thats why i think it's important to look into different subjects, like science, language, cinema, dance, opera, pop culture, geography, history. painting isn't just about painting, to me it's taking life, every single aspect, and displaying it, talking about it. The idea that a painting can 'sum up' life is stupid, at the very least. But that's the way i think about it, as a sort of binding together of different ends, good ideas come from pushing two already formed yet opposing and far reaching ideas together, nothing else. it's a fake, you're not creating something out of thin air, just responding with pre-formed elements. It's a jigsaw, as is everything else, which gives a general air of creation, but it's not really something new, you've just rearranged things.

and if you don't see any of this in my paintings? why should i care. these thoughts are here to help push my paintings along, the next paintings, i don't constantly stew over what i've already painted. i reflect of course, see if i can steal an idea from my past self, redo something better. and as this constant reflecting and redoing and researching goes on, you hopefully find a few strands running through the work, things which you can identify, or someone else identifies for you, which is yours. which comes from you. and you will have made your mark. but you borrow from everything, without worry, without jitters.