Wednesday 14 September 2011

ideas,

i hate manifestos, and i will never stick by any rules, other than that one. In fact, making a list of dos and don'ts is the best way of getting me to do the don'ts, because i am a child.

But it struck me just now, looking up from the polished and perfectly framed images of the tv screen, that the room looked emptier, more subtle, less constructed. That well composed image, that streamlined, graphic designed perfection which invades every sign and symbol, every bus and storefronts, is draining the world of its own beauty. A world which is very much chaotic, and very much undesigned, badly composed, and all the more beautiful because of it.

So, as i've already been heading in that direction, it seems a natural progression to reject perfection, which was always overrated, and to plump for erratic, chaotic, acidic, and generally bad compositions. I don't want my work to be in any way associated with a storefront.



My three ideas, of work not about me, are coming along quite well.. in my head. So far i've only done a few sketches and notes.

The Percentages Agreement. i originally thought of painting churchill and stalin as if it were a bright sunny day and they were sipping lemonade on deckchairs whilst deciding the continents fate, then for some reason i liked the idea of churchill with donkey ears, so i drew them, and they reminded me so much of Bottom from A Midsummer Nights Dream that i drew Stalin as Titania, apparently (as upon talking to someone else i understood) that is quite a good analogy, The Dream being the war, and this completely unexpected and strange relationship blossoming within it. So i'll carry on with that idea i reckon. it also allows me to paint anthropomorphic characters, which i always like.

Bonnie and Clyde seems to be leaning towards photography, not of me taking photos, but the idea of photography. It seeming that they captured the imagination of the public, and have lasted so long as mythical people, because of those amazing photographs of themselves. Also, i recently came upon a load of family photographs, in which my parents seemed to have unknowingly reproduced these photos, of themselves in each others (and other peoples) arms, leaning on cars.. no guns though.

The Periodic Table. The more i find out about the periodic table the more interesting it gets. Firstly that it was made with holes where it was predicted as yet undiscovered elements would slot in, and they were right, when these new elements were discovered they fit perfectly into the gaps left for them. That in itself is fascinating, simply leaving gaps in a story, predicting how it may turn out, fate.. Then there's Antoine Lavoisier's story, one of the guys who helped develop it, how he was beheaded in the French Revolution following being branded a traitor by Marat (the guy David painted after he died). How the judge at his trail said "the republic needs neither scientists or chemists", and how only a year and a half later he was exonerated by the government and his possessions were returned to his widow with a note of apology.. And the nice idea that most of these elements are named in honour of the people who discovered them, Marie Curie naming Polonium after her native Poland, Mendeleevium named after Mendeleev, the main person responsible for the creation of the table..

All very interesting. and what is the point? well...as much point as anything else i suppose.