Andreas Serrano photographed, in the 1980’s, a small wooden and plastic crucifix floating in a jar of his own urine. We should not mistake this act as one to be seen as a purely controversial and anti religious gesture. Serrano is, after all, a deeply religious man. The image backs this up.

Beyond the shock of its production lies an image of powerful and arresting spirituality. The crucifix floats in a glowing ether, as if lost between two realms. Its projects the pathos of Christs suffering and transcendence as well as any of the great crucifix paintings which procede it. I can think of no better photograph of the subject.

 The image and its production should not be seen as existing in some kind of contradiction. The transofrmation of urine into a conveyor of spiritual depth seems to be an eloquent reminder of the journey from profane flesh to sacred spirit.

 The controversy raised by the works production is not an attack on religion but perhaps an attack on a certain systemmisation and blindness that Serrano saw as manifest in relgion of the late 20th Century. If his choice of materials provides an interuption and the image a deep spirituality then perhaps there is a chance for a recentering of priorities in a world which was becoming increasingly secularised.

Recent discussion with Paul, ANdy and Katherine has helped me clarify the direction of my current work. The small series of map, text and figure pieces have created more answers than questions. I don’t mind that. It is definately true that I need to not over analysis the why of my practise at this point but I do need to clarify the visual source of the next stage of exploration. The subject matter, if you like, from which I can find subject matter.

I have come to realise that the figures in my work are less and less improtant. In the recent series they provide a distraction as much as anything. I am thinking of the map figure works in particular.

 This does not mean I am abandoing the figure in my practrise, I still see it as a key concern. In fact I still think there are elements of the figure in these works which articulate some of the things I want my work to deal with. Yet there has beena confusion. Rather than createing an interesting conversation the figure and maps seem to be playing with seperate things. The maps seem to talk about place, on a metaphorical and literally level, the deal with space, the picture plan, with chaos and order. The figures deal with falling, floating and all conected associations. The point is that you reach a point where both need to break form each other. I have convinced myself I see the maps and figures as created dynamic and complex formal relationships. I dont think they overly do.

Anyway, to maps. I am going to work on a series of drawing snad then paintings from maps. The first set of drawings are going to be me working my way through a A-Z of Britain. The logic of this is two fold- firstly it provides me with someitnh gfamiliar to work froma nd secodnally it provides a clear fraemwork to explore, stopping me going off on tangents.

 These drawgins are just limited to pen and white/black paint on the pages themselves. I want these to be very much sketches, to allow me to race through ideas and develop and find aspects I could not pre plan or predict. I want to find direction not creat it for myself. I want the journey to be one which creates meaning and reason.

 I am imagining that from these drawigns I can take elements to translate to more considered paintings. I am not even worriyng about that at the moment. At this early stage some things have continually interested me aboutr the maps and their manipulation. 

 Windows and walls

 I have been doing some sketches which draw onto or fill in elemnetns from the maps gridds. This creates an interesting spatial relationship between the parts. The white squares read as walls, passages of paint which block our eye from reaching beyond the surface. As a result the areas withou paint become windows. They propvide potential deep perspectival holes down onto the mapped out landscape. What interests me is that this spatial quality only exist one you make these additions. Before this the whole plane is far flatter. 

 Oder and Chaos

The gridded systems of the map already provide a play between the organic nature of the land and the ordered nature of the grid. My additions look to continue this play. Andy and Paul have both spoken to me about one half of painting having assocaitons to Maths. This is certianly true, the ordred way in which we divide up a picture plan, into clear sections is of interest to any painter. it is what, for me, makes Poussin and David so create. I suppose, then, I am loosely putting this tendency into a camp we would call classicism. That being the ordering of the whole.

 I then see the other half of painting as being its total opposition (binary opposites again). That being a painterly aspect. Those happy accidnets, that delight in serendipity, that surprising twsit of a hand or flicker of paint. This being the romantic aspect of the painting process, the delight and surprise found in the procvess and the medium. That which exists agaisnt and in conversation with the more controlled and preconceived elemetns of ‘design.’ It is an opposition and relationship which exist in any painting, although generlaly we tend to favour one over the other. If we are inf ro crude labelling then I suppose we would call this a romantic tendency.

As a side note- this is where Gericault fascinates me. Daivd seems to have, in his design, that purity of Classical order. Delacroix, in his handling of paint and line, has that unruly and emotive romanticism. Gericaults work seems to be a titantic battle between these two tendencies. He seems to be so great as to have the strength of both, so unable to decide which avenue to pursue.

Anyway- back to the maps. The maps themselves provide a preordained order (which I then manipulate through drawing) which my painterly additions can then play agasint.

I have just realsied that I have attempted to put my silly little attempts in my maps up agasint Gericault. The analogy is there not in anyway to aggrandise my shit work. But if I could capture one percent of the complex and infuriaingly brilliant dialogue between these two tendencies that he plays with, then I will be a happy little shit painter.

Dstroying one signifier to create another

 I like the idea that in working over maps you are taking away their function, there ability to describe a specific space and place. I have no desire to totally remove this or to focus on this in a purely conceptual sense. ‘Art and Language’ have already dealt with this aspect of maps brilliantly. Added to that, I don’t have any desire to be an artists whose works deals with an aritculation of a certain idea. I think I am after, if I can ever get anywhere near it, something more poetic. Something evocative rather than descriptive.

Anyway, the paintings become new maps. Maps which depict the creative process, maps which locate themselves somewhere between reality and and art. Maps which struggle with an attempted escape from the self and which are about place, but a new place, a new painterly geography.

I am most probally being arrogant, pretentious and far to talkative about the work before I have got any great distacne with it. Hopefully this will not cause a paralysis. Hopefully this will not cut off the ability for the works to find their won direction, their own meaning. Hopefully I can still be a vessel through which this stuff just passes through. And back we are again to Keats and Negative Capability.

 On that note, and with apologies for the level of bullshit, I bid thee dearest blog fairwell….for a short time anyway.

The folloing is an excerpt from an email from our friend Katherine. With her bllessing I have uploaded them becasue they are of real use to me and I think of real interest. There is a clarity of analysis in writting.

…Had a look at your blog and saw the new works and comments. You seem to be very busy and you say stressed about direction? I know it’s easy to say from my end, but I really wouldn’t worry too much about your work. It really has moved on leaps and bounds, and you have got a real wealth of material already.

You seem to be still blowing this thing wide open though? (Your comment of wanting your works to be about everything and nothing in particular). But in doing this, you have an opposing task of narrowing down the fundamental concerns of your practice.

Just a thought but sometimes too much choice can manifest into a big problem? Sometimes we don’t actually need to look that far? I think what I’m trying to say is that you have an awful lot now you can respond to and perhaps finding your answers a bit closer to home, could be the solution for yourself satisfaction-wise?

Constantly searching and striving for something better, can be so stressful and destructive, especially as most of us creative types are so self-critical. And unfortunately, the longer and further we search doesn’t necessarily mean the outcome holds any more value than the first idea we had. Just be careful you don’t search so much for something, that you loose the one thing along the way that makes it all worthwhile; the fun!

When I first saw the map works I did find them really visually ‘attractive’. Yes very contemporary pieces, and in quite a ‘fashionable’ way. Not that I think this was your direct intention for them but they do have that feel to them.

Compositionally interesting, an intricate play of lines and form, tonally and geometrically they hold my attention and make me want to read into them. The sense of drawing you mentioned James said was lacking is certainly tackled with these and a maturing of your approach to it too.

However, I can see what Andy is saying when comparing them to what Mike Lill did with his map works. This brings me to the one area when looking at them that I have found crucial when considering using maps (for geometery of grids etc) in my own work in the past. This is that you have to choose a specific location (loaded with meaning) – and have also left the place names on. Suddenly the work has a direct association. The fact that I know you are not concerned with this place giving the work meaning, suggests the choice of place could arguably be random?

That’s where the concern arises for myself and where I agree with Andy’s comment on not being sure about what these pieces are trying to say. Drawing from everyday life is a common theme in many artists works today. But you are not an artist dealing with ‘randomness’ in your work. In fact (it seems) you are trying to do the exact opposite. You are at present an artist trying to pin down the specifics of your intentions.

The falling figure is the key image and theme in your new work. Maps are an entirely different theme/motif. Although they work aesthetically together, I think because your practice is so rooted in underpinning your concerns at the moment, that mixing these two complex visuals may give you too much to work with and could cause you problems?

In a way, perhaps what you are doing with the newspaper figures more interestingly, closely relates to how you are dealing with defining your practice? In that you take a newspaper image, loaded with meaning and obliterate until you have what interests you. In the same way you are being as open to ideas as possible at the moment, but choosing what you are developing for your new direction, is an editing process in a similar way.

I remember searching for a direction for my new work in the second year and first half of the third year too. You can drive yourself mad with worrying about work and endlessly striving for a better idea, and still not feel satisfied at the end of the day. They say sometimes the destination is not the answer though – it’s the journey that is. (And sometimes you don’t have to complete the whole journey to find out what it is!) In that sense, perhaps a next step could be to stop!? That is stop bringing more imagery/ideas in for a while and start to look at the body of work you have now made?

You do have a wealth of material to work with already, in simply taking at the falling figure as your subject. There is a simplicity to this, but you have used such differing approaches already that they offer up a real complexity. This to me is a huge subject matter all in itself.

What has become apparent is that 3 types of falling figure are emerging, according to the weight of them, therefore body language and therefore meaning/reading. Each crucially defines the way a piece is received.

1.

Icarus in its first state is a figure not dissimilar to the new newspaper pieces. All weight is lost essentially. But more than that it becomes a more generalised form of a figure, illustrative, motif like - there’s almost a cartoon like feel to the newspaper characters. And that’s an interesting point because they do take on their own character. These figures sit on top of the surface. Texture of paint sees to that. They appear on the surface and even in cases before the picture plane.

2.

The re-worked Icarus saw a completely different figure weight. A sense of a real person falling, a real heaviness - in complete opposition to the first type of figure. This gave the piece its tragic quality, a solemness. Again in contrast, the figure moved back from the surface into the picture plane. It becomes an image to view.

3.

The map figures are perhaps half way between these. Weightless but also characterless compared to the newspaper pieces. They are more graphic like. Perhaps this is why they give the pieces a contemporary feel. They have the same graphic silhouette feel (from an illustrated outline point of view) as say the ipod advert silhouette. I hope not to offend in this way - its simply from an illustative point of view. I don’t think you are this kind of an artist though, wanting to create graphic illustrative work like this? They attract because the image comes across so stylistically its almost a brand. It’s fashionable today as a style, its akin with contemporary marketing and advertising, but with your appreciation for works that are classic, beautiful, universal harmonies that stand the test of time this could sit in opposition, if taken in that sense perhaps??

I think that great care needs to be taken when deciding what you want the figure to say, which one of the above styles you want to direct towards. Each way will give an entirely different feel to your work. It will say different things through its body language. It’s so complex in itself that I think this is where might be a good place to start this year? To just keep it simple and enjoy focusing on that might help?

Why, What and How to paint.A few thoughts!

My practice since leaving uni has been concerned with how to paint. Second to this is what to paint. There has been little why as there is no one to have to justify my work to, so I have unburdened myself with the self-imposed worry, of if what I am making has any significance, and just made what I want to make!

Having said this there is the, again self-imposed pressure, that I am accidentally on purpose, ignoring tacking the issue of why I am painting what I am painting; because I am totally aware of how crucially important it is in maintaining and developing any artists’ practice. However, I’ve learnt to not worry about this for the sake of cutting myself some slack, and stopping myself being over critical.

We all run through the different stages of why, what and how. At present I think you are in the why and what stage. I think what I was saying above is that maybe you should look to transfer your concerns to the how part. You will undoubtedly discover answers to why and what through dealing with how. It’s just that they will arrive to you rather than you consciously seeking them.

Well I hope that my blurb may help you a bit - I will leave it at that for now, but will comment on the diary entry of what kind of an artist to be in another email sometime; feel totally in the same boat there half the time myself!

Haven’t been painting much but have been returning to some smaller paper works that I did a year and a bit ago. Hoping like yourself, it will be easier to keep the practice going that way for a bit, whilst I adjust to returning to work full time this year. So difficult to fit in hey!

Been working a bit with acrylic too, intrigued by your praise for it as a medium and certainly enticed by the quickness and ease of drying and cleaning brushes!! Still not sure it’s for me but having some fun with it, and no horrid mess and no smell is great! I’m sure I will always use oils for my larger works though, just love it too much, but hopefully acrylic can give a bit of a quick practical solution for the moment…

Andy, your last post has got me thinking and has really helped clarify how best to approach my work.

 I over analysis my work at points and this leads to a paralysis of output due to overly literal modes of construction. The reason I over analysis, however, is actually the answer to the way I should work. I over analysis because I have a desire and a tendency to seek meaning. I am fascinated by the way images are consrtucted and how this process creates meaning. As such I search for this meaning and attempt, in written form, to convey it. Without sounding arrogant I think the visual analysis of an image, in this style, is my strength.

My weakness is when I analysis my own work and then try and distill and concentrate my findings into a more considered and literal approach. I need to actually return to a more fluid mode of working which mataches my natural tendencies. These tendencies being evidenced in my mode of analysis. I hope this makes some form of sense.

It is perhaps clearer is I elaborate on how I see myself moving forward.

I consider my ideal method of practise to be a poetic one. By this I mean something which seeks for evocation and the intangible, not description and the literal. It is a painterly process if you like, one which looks to find meaning from the process rather than the process being subordinate to meaning.

I have discussed how a painterly history of artists found meaning and direction from the medium itself, and I certainly think I need to recentre my search for meaning in the medium.

 However, my work is now also dealing with collage, imagery and a mass of ditritus which I look to bring together. I have some sense of what certain maps, certain marks and certain figures mean and suggest…but I need not search for more than this. Instead, as suggested by ANdy, I should try and put things together in a manner which feels right. Composing things so there is a harmony (or a purposeful discord) between the parts.

 The manner in which assemblage artists like Raushenberg and Cornell do this is certainly another strain of potential influence. Having recently been iontroduced, and increasingly growing fond of, painters such as Neo Rausch and Matthis Weischer I tihnk this is something they also do.

With Rausch it seems to be that the parts and brought together in discord and united thorugh overall colour tones. With Matthias Weischer the actual process of visual analysis seems to be what unites his work.

In both cases i think the work is not about specific issues but general truths, allegories adn meta narratives. For Weischer there seems to be a direct link back to Analytical Cubism, perhaps through the gaze of Hockney?

Anyway…it has made me realise that my work is not about particular issues at the moment, however much certain themes repeat themselves. But it is actually more prosaic. They are images (however weak) which are looking to address how meaning is constructed. My desire, therefore, is to create images which hover between clarity and nonsense, so that any meaning remains elusive and intangible but seemingly there. I suppose it is back to the old cliche of being both about something and about nothing at the same time.

 If this post seems a trifle lost then I am not to bothered. I am done with a need or desire to tie my work down to firmly.

Thank you very much Andy. A little light has come on.

ps Was interested to know what you thought of my new work when you saw it? Were you disapointed?

I was reading what you wrote a few days ago, it seems to me that you’re falling for the same trap and over thinking again, I know that what you wrote was fairly loose and not necessarily defining anything but it still is placing these thoughts into words which has a limiting, categorising effect. The main problem you seem to have is separating your critical practice/learning from the artistic, so it may be wise to simply collect those visual images you find interesting and arrange them in ways that strike a chord, not a literary chord but just a feeling that they’re right together. this way you’ll find other allusions may occur that actually end up meaning more to you. whether this is any use to you i don;t know.

Exclusive
quit
act slump

Fear
risk

One big property
shut doors withdraw
yesterday slump
panic seilling

move fears North-
run on
once high-fly
seen a safe haven
the on

sh, quit yesterday
all invest
fund able access
for a year.
the giant fund
in office blocks and shopping
centres across Britain, no longer
reserve meet demand
withdraw
money. down to
total ass the usual
10%-15%

lack of sleep
drowning in paperwork and struggling to fit tasks to time
stressing about my practise.
Your text about MAtthias WEischer (sp) , looking at some Rauschenburgand a re read of Gunter Grass (sp) have got me thinking. I am having flickers of what I want my work to start doing in my head but feel frsutrated an its intangibility.

I know I want to start drawing things from many sources which create mini narratives with underlying meta narratives, allegories if you like. I know maps, art historcial references, various painterly marks, figures in general, text, gridsa and lines of perspective, architecture, small elements of illustration of ‘objets’, floating, falling and submerged forms… I know I want all of these to come together to form poetic narratives. Where elements draw us beneath the surface and other pull us back across. Where meaning seems both intense and allusive, where we can flicker between a multiplicity of potential conclusions- where there are basically painterly, spatial, pictorial and analytical disjunctions. (fuck knows if I know what I mean)

I want to create the kind of feel we have when we skip between elements on the internet, or when we slip through memoreis in our head. i want it to be about now but equally to be about issues of time, concenrs of histories, elements of the sefl indulgent personal, touches of the purely formal, to be both concise and articualte whilst also utterly non sensiscal. To be romantic but pragmmatic, to be everything adn nothing. To have lose, time, tragedy, rise and fall, transcedence and witt all rolled up together like a sweet which can be quickly consummed but then makes you vomit up your insides.

At the moment though, im worrying due to not having painted for a few days. I am created small, weakly paintede, pretentious, pastiche and meaningless little scribbles. I am progressing but now way near getting close to this undescribable thing I am chasing. And now I am on heere when I shold be compleing a lecture plan and constructing paragraphs and sentences which are confussing me more than helping me.

I really wish i did not care about all this pointless crap- but it keep knocking at my head

She was a wet veil
Which quenched the roads thirst
Puddling and eating yesterdays memories
Footprints drowned in browning milk

She was those falling dancers
Rhythmically breaking and spraying across that screen
Window to wall and a road lost in a haze of beauty

She was rivers running down your face
Heavy feet and an oh so slow journey
Slippers by the fire just a mirage

Lemon Twist

Ever seen a lemon
Twisted by one juicer?
Its flesh dissect then disintegrate.

Lap it up

The bitter life’s-blood
That slides over your skin
Like Archimedes through your mind.

Lap it up
It stinks.

A Short Trip Up The Ganges With Graeme Greene

Your rose-hipped fella there
With wistful eye’s and scruffy hair
Looks all fine, flippant and fair.

But he’s a thin jonny two-bob,
A paddler true.
Doesn’t stick his oars in right,
Doesn’t look to you.

And when you look to him
Through his mane of sunship flip
As the needle-point stitched light
Turns to sulphurous green night,
And his leprous diamond trumpitt
Doesn’t sound quite so bright.
When his hessian filled mouth
Fails to ignite…

…Would you look to your feet?
Observe a stench quite oblique?
That stirs a memory quite unique.
And see my snivelling, repugnant mass
Still resides there repleat.

On the subject of poems, have you read any T.S.Eliot, specifically his wasteland poems? I’m thinking in particular of A lovesong to Arthur J. Pruefrock. I may have got that wrong but its something similar. That poem was a revelation to me, its astonishing. I’ll try to remember to bring it with me when i come down.

Diary entry 07/01/08
What type career artist do i want to be? I always have the most respect for an artist who seems ambivalent to current trends, an artist who bravely trudges his own path. I am thinking here of examples such as David Hockney and Auerbach. Their practices are poles apart, Auerbach has been stoically banging his head against the same wall for 40yrs or more, whilst Hockney, like a hummingbird has flitted from one area of concern to the next in a never ending search for… well… everything. However they both seem to transcend the earthly problem of style (style being associated with fashion here). This I can see as being a slightly naive statement, particularly with regard to their early careers, both were certainly aware of the artscene around them, however, they never seemed defined by it, yet, particularly with Hockney, the work has for the most part appeared current. I think this is the area that this entry has moved into now, how do you create art that matters (that has the appearence of being culturally relevant) whilst not falling into a dogmatic copy-cat of current styles? To remain true to yourself doesn’t seem to quite cut it, what exactly is true to yourself? It doesn’t exist because we are a product of our time and environment. So again it seems to be a balancing act, perhaps this is thereason why artists are naturally wary of power structures, governments and such, because it thus places us on the outside of something giving us just a bit of objective space in order to find our voice, a voice that whilst heavily influenced by society is not totally reliant upon society. That said, I’m stuck in my parents house in the fog of middle-class suburbia, i’m kinda failing miserably in my efforts to see anything.