Memory is a funny thing indeed. whats the purpose of it and the way it taints and warps actual events? and how do we as artists contend with this idiosyncracy, to make this idea react to more than just ourselves (never mind even making it successfully react with our own emotions). i suppose we could say that it is an evolutionary device that allows the individual to make best use of past events, so if things have occurred which are painful to remember then memory warps the event to be used in the best way for the individual. but as is always the case, the truth is far more complex.
these thoughts have been provoked into being through my own rifling through old photo’s, just a few days ago. I was unsure what to do with myself after the hectic events of my show had subsided. so i went through some of the visual info i have collected over the past few years and some of the photo’s seemed to perfectly capture the gentle caress of melancholy that has been holding sway over my thoughts recently. as a result i’m just going to paint them fairly directly onto larger canvases. i pondered whether this was viable for a considerable time, and came to the conclusion that any alteration to these rather simple but various images would drastically affect that feeling which i wanted to capture. i’m still not sure whether they will end up as photoreal reproductions, if they do, well whats the point in doing them at all, why not just enlarge the photo and save the effort? well i think the effort is part of the fundamental point, why have i invested this time and effort into these particular images? but i feel the need to do it, to invest them with the sense of grandiosity and history that only a painting can achieve. i am finding something incredibly romantic, personal and powerful about this act.
i am increasingly coming to believe that our own bodies and minds are not so well evolved as to twist everything to our own benefit. more and more i see my mind works against me, or i work against my mind. the only dreams i ever have are nightmares of various intensities of horribleness, and i don’t see any positive effect from this continued onslaught, indeed i am convinced that although i have not always remembered my dreams throughout my life, that this has always been the case, even when a child. now i could say (and it is probably true) that these nightmares are responses to how i deal with events in the real everyday life, they are basically occurring because i dont deal with issues in the correct manner. but then, equally i can’t see how the dreams then cause me to change my actions in anyway, the only way they change my actions is by making me shrink more into myself and thus deal with the issues even less. and so this all acts to make me believe that evolution has not played such a big part in this particualr aspect of brain work.
freud would be proud in this fantastic conclusion don’t you think, really, this has not been an hour wasted.
The source of your paintings is not empty, however directly thew translation from original image to final result.
Reading excerpts of that Richter book has reinforced certain ‘truths’ in my head.
The creative process is just a series of yes and no descisions. The fact you have given a green light to this particular choice is justification enough in itself. Don’t try and make it feel more right through a need to articulate that choice in words. You need not understand it, just make it.
This is not putting you off discussing it, just saying you don’t need to feel any worry with not being able to fully explain it.
They sound fascinating. Ill be intriqued to see if they capture the kind of personal resonance and melancholy that you speak about. It seems like quite an honest way to work, free of overly constructed and pretensious production.
I would have thought that the various smaller yesw and no descisions you now make will be, subconsciously, a response to the qualities of the photographs and your experience and attachments to them. It will be impossible for you to be aware of this as the original photos contain these feelings for you.
For the bjective viewer those attachments and projections will not exist, not in the same form anyway. The process and translation from photo to canvas, however, might see you manage to attach them more intrsincally to the actually matter of the paint and surface.
Thus you move from a dialogue which exists in your head to one which exists in the image. For you, as I previoulsy said, it will be impossible to distinguish between the two. Fro the viewer it might be possible. Who knows. Just make em and ill be intriqued to see.
Tom
16 Mar 08 at 8:42 pm