glueing to board

When I did the foundation course last year I produced six major works as a compliment to Audrey's Tessalation series. These works can be viewed here in The White Room.
They where all created on streched paper and I never found a way to present them, until now that is. These pictures show that process.
What has prompted this flurry of renewed interest in these pieces is that I am holding a retrospective exhibition of all my work ( and Audrey's) here at InterSpace before the 8th of May. I will send you a copy of the Invitiation soon.
I am very pleased to be doing this because up until now these pieces have been living in a box!
Now they live outdoors and have a finished quality about them.
Couple of nice photographs too.
You can click on the image for a macro view.

milk

perhaps it has a name now.

A friend came yesteday and wanted to see what I had been doing and was conflicted about what it was..she said she had no point of reference ( or something)......so now she has....it's called Milk.
I am not completely cynical however as I have been struck by the sensual quality of the plaster, a subtle but pervasive softness and creaminess which changes with the light and the textual shifts on the surface of each tile.

There is also some cross over happening with the fullness of the box, there is a challenge to viewing it vertically and there is visual tension when studying the functon of the wire etc.

goodbye to Sophie and hello to a new mentor

It has been on my mind for the past couple of days since I received the farewell letter from Sophie, the fact that I will be working with a new mentor. I will wait until I have confirmation of who that might be before i go much further but some thoughts come up.

I will try and just move forward from here, not keep referring back to the process that began last year, last term or whenever. I regret having removed all my postings over the past months and then again, think it's okay, we go forward, only.

I am leaving Westport in less than two weeks now 9and will be working from Auckland for the following two months, and then Canada etc) and working to complete the second of my 3D works.
As part of this idea of the 'formless'in art I am working against the elevation and the raising up of 3D work. I was pleased to create a support system that allows me to work on the ground ( horizontal) and which will still allow me freedom to work with mass/weight/density etc.
I am committed to using a stockpile of oamaru stone that I have here, and began this work the cutting today.
I am very much involved with process and watching this unfold with this material.
I have some ideas of what I might add to the mix at a later stage ( perhaps wax, more copper wire) but I don't want to spend too much time projecting what might happen.

I find myself thinking about it all continuously.

installation finished,

Pleased to have finished what began six months ago with the making of 100 unique moulds from clay.
No other coments here yet on the process.

100cm x 100cm plaster, waxed paper, kleerkast resin,copper wire, traces of clay in a recycled rimu box support.

some music

This is some of what I have been listening to while building these new 3D supports/boxes, it's streaming from David Byrne and particularily up, happy, stupid and open.

conceptual>>>>>>>>>>>>>back to process again

interestingly I spontaneously began working again today
when it starts is the right time
I woke up and knew what I wanted to do and spent all day doing it! Ever since I decided to do 3D for the coming term I have been grieving over not being able to use canvas supports and the whole process of preparation to easeinto the work. So I've been thinking in the place of doing.
This morning I knew. I built a new support for holding 3D work which is partof the piece and is strong enought to hold a total weight of +40kg, on a wall!

Solving this problem has opened he way for a whole raft of ideas/series .

from process>>>>>>>>>>conceptual

Last night I could not sleep and spent hours dreaming and thinking about Conceptual Art.
I have already signalleda shift in my emphasis next term and now I have begun thinking about it. Round and round, names, titles, whole concepts that I can create and yet I haven't a clue as to how to make them happen. It's completely an opposite operation from 'process'.
In french we say...ca ma prise la tete! ( it has taken my head)
Reading about it today.

Analogues.

I present these as examples of some art that I did while doing the training in Wellington last week.
They are analogues for leadership, vision and self. ( at various stages of the training)

Andy Goldsworthy.

Something else that happened in Wellington, was getting access to books at the central library.
This book by Andy Goldsworthy was fantastic. It has opened up all sorts of new ideas of how I can work, something I will put into action next term.. Once again serving to contract my 'studio' space and make myself more flexible for being on the road and travelling.

I just love the description of the work and some process. These are two photographs I took from the book before I was accosted by the security guard. This type of work I visited with my rock scape at Cape Foulwind last year. I feel there is much to explore here.
The use of text to support the work also appeals. I looked at his work a year ago and felt nothing at all. And now I am completely enchanted and inspired.

Telecom Prospect 2007

Here begins the story of my love affair with et al.
Last week I went to Wellington, New Zealand, and at the end of a brilliant week doing Genuine Contact program ( Train the Trainers) I spent two days focused on art in the city, whats on, standing in front of pictures etc. I had my first experience of an installation by Et Al.
I had just come from doing work with GC and Open Space Technology both of which utilize the mythological and dynamic meaning of the circle to inform subsequent beliefs and processes. The relationship between this work and my art is centred on some ideas of Adults as Learners, Left Brain and Right Brain Thinking and so on. Read this from the book by Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind. (2005)
I realized when I saw the Et Al installation that I could completely recontextualize my Art Vision and align it with my work with Open Space Technology and Creativity. Perhaps it is simply a way of contracting my current art model in readiness for travelling to Canada in a couple of months.
Et Al used found materials, common objects, music, image, light boxes and paper, masking tape, felt markers......these are all the basic tools I use when I facillitate Open Space Technology events/meetings.
There are some common threads that I am trying to weave into my work.

here begins the recording of weeks 7, 8 & 9 term 2

I've been reading this book to keep in touch with some New Zealand art. And of course I have spent a number of hours looking at New Zealand in Welington during week seven.

triganometer

100cmx100cm liquid wax, dye and india ink

Finishing off these works before I set off for Wellington to do some Genuine Contact Training.
Very happy with this piece and the possibility to do more.
150 metres of line. The piece has a powerful pulse working. there are strong forces at play creating figure, landforms, valleys and perspective. The detail however reveals a much more calm process.
Too soon to write in great detail what I think is going on.

screen triptych (completed)

,
180cmx40cmx3
hot wax on thick tracing paper, water soluble dye.

I'm pleased with the restored and completed screen. Considering that I started with the bare wooden supports it has been a satisfying process, one that I want to develop. I thought that when I go somewhere new, I might look out for more screens like this, repaper them and paint onto the support. the effect of the light shining through the relative opacity and transparency/translucence is beautuful and engaging.
The proces was interesting in the way I had to tell myself over and over to 'keep going' and 'don't give up' I create or encounter probelms both technical and emotional. I think I am of an age now that I just doggedly keep going. It continues to be like the cooking experience.....one just can't give up on ones cooking 'creations'.
Yes it is clear that I am still working with this transpapency theme which I picked up nearly 9 months ago, with those early greaseproof paper samples. I think it's beautiful. One part of the process is that past a certain point ( second layer of dye) I loose touch with the overall shape/sense/idea of the image. By the time the final layer of dye goes on.....it is impossible to recall/visualize the whole.
I like that...always being prepared to be suprised!

metre square of archaeological data

nearing completion, some structural reworking necessary and more cleaning but am still working towards a coherent end.....it has weight, mass, density and an imposing third dimension. it presents itself as a metre square surface and much much more. I have incorporated the usual surfeit of data, information, content, passage etc ( as I do on a painted surface) but it works differently with the extra dimension.

next term

I spent time today melting and casting lead...........fascinating process.
My thoughts this morning for next term were that I would concentrate on 3D and photography.
The term coming will be a transitionary period before setting off overseas. So I thought to leave the drawing and painting alone and get familiar with some of the challenges with doing 3D and photography while on the move.

supports and time well spent

It surprises me how many hours I put into creating the support for the paintings and drawings.

The issue is that it is not proper time and something to be gotten over with, that it's somehow 'irrelevant' or superfluous.

I am planning to draw and paint onto transparent paper using wax and dyes. The support in this case being three wooden screens each being 40cmx180cm. It has required experimentation with the paper, glues and heat. All this takes time. The screens will then be mounted in a free standing partition. There have been set backs and restarts. All this takes time.

When I am preparing the supports for metre square works, this process sometimes takes forever.

I believe it is very important time spent, my finding it grounding, reassuring and practical.

At these times it feels like I am not doing art, which helps.

reading and watching

Here's a book that I'm reading, along with the Air-Conditioned Nightmare by Henry Millar. Great. Fantastic, click here to read a brilliant piece about the role of the artist.
And watching this.
The latter is problematic, but more on that later.

plaster poured finally....after 100 days

Well, the next phase of this piece was to pour twenty litres of plaster over the finished, waxed moulds/casts/tiles and now to let it thoroughly dry!!!!! Impatience at this point would see the whole operation kaput ( or maybe not)

Some satisfaction here and renewed excitement.

wood block and formless ( what I think I am doing)

100x100cm on brown kraft paper, water based printing ink, wax
This was begun some weeks ago and I decided to do more work on the negative spaces.
I decided to finish with it, finish it off.
After inking it up and running off some straight/simple prints, I was satisfied with the functionality of the block....then I began experimenting directly with the paper ( wax) and the block, coloured ink 'blobs', and the paper which I saw as a common, mundane surface/support.
I decided to not try and achieve crystal clear print definition, preferring to develop a direct spontaneous 'fluxus'. The addition of the wax to the paper proved to be a effective operation, introducting another layer sonmewhere between the more static wood block and the equally static or flat paper. Traces of a wax, repellant shadow ( are) present. The grid pattern ( of one hundred square) creates an information overload effect, that combined with the ill defined printing transfer, the random colour element and the etherial wax 'watermark' all conspire to subvert the passive viewing moment whilst supporting a shimmering moment of emptiness and formless quietude.





detail of block with wax gestural before printing.
( introducing wax onto the flat etched surface creates releif and a random uptake of the ink from the block to the paper; 2nd operation)



collage of block, ink, rollers, kraft paper and studio.
I'm pleased with the new studio which Niko and I built over the summer, nice views into the bush and over the river, I can hear it from inside. Big overhead lighting and white walls and wood ( sarking), nice. I've started using the liquid wax product, this after working with the hot wax on the NZ07 piece (posted below)
As to what I think I'm doing, it's ongoing, that question. Some reflections and soundings are posted here.



This is a detail of 1% of the whole metre squared print. Top left hand corner. I say, there is some depth and intensity present in areas. Sumptuousness, extravagance and meaninglessness.
It is not a wax seal upon an important letter. It is not a thumb print, and yet it does not stop trying to be.

NZ07

1000x1000mm wax, india ink, acylic, brick dust and oamaru stone dust

Finished the collaboarative work yesterday. We are both pleased with the result.
On collaboration, something going on there, some violence and boundaries, some rules and much more. There is letting go and there is control.
The end result is truly more than the sum of it's parts.
Shocking moments and new spaces opening up all the time. In the end it took over two months to emerge.
On the piece itself, I think it works well to undermine and also support a story about surface , about where the viewer stands, perspective and about the whole visual field.

Working with wax and taking away layers produces a dense medium, seductive and overwhelming perhaps.....

week two and it's still hard

It's poor of me to feel obliged to write here when everything about my work is static and irrelevant and I want neither advice or contradiction. These images are of an experiment which is not complete. I cant find my way back home.........................this is old hat.
What I was working with last year was an exciting adventure, searching for new ways to make marks, unfolding the unconscious, process, formless and working with chaos ...infinite,
and now I feel as if am standing outside and it is all foreign babble.
I am increasingly plagued with feeling that I should do figurative work, faces, people, landscapes, trees, tractors, cows, babies, shops, cars, waves, boats, sheep, boys, nudes, hair, skin...........


these images are details from a 1000x1000mm stretched canvas
using india ink and wax
unfinished
the detail at the top ( green) is roughly equivalent to a posted below.

beginning of term....colloidal

colloidal...1000x1000mm clay, ink and graphite on canvas

Technically the start of my second term today and these images are a work which I did over the break. I still had some fire smouldering in my belly from last year, now there are 'other' fires burning. Today has been a grief filled day, letting go, hating it, loving it....voices voices pulling one way and the other. All in all, disagreeable. I did never-the-less carry on and work with some materials and begrudgingly, some fresh ideas. this image is the finished item and the natural progression from a recent previous posting.




















detail (above)

More obsession with transparency and this time wax...drawing with wax.
It's appearing in the context of a collaborative work undertaken with Audrey.
This is a very early photo, there is tape involved which may be removed later, and wax to be scrapped off, more, more and more.

colloidal dispersion

1000 x 1000mm clay, india ink, graphite on canvas

AGENCY OF THE URBAN SUBCONSCIOUS

This morning while walking Audrey and I were talking about the Greenburg/Krause polemic and the idea that there was a limit to the ongoing creation of new art. What can this mean? Who could think that? Like saying there can be no more new pop songs.....
Too too complex....look here!
AGENCY OF THE URBAN SUBCONSCIOUS

and some people say that there is no new art

inchoate

hectorjo

formless in photography

coal dust, oamaru stone dust, newsprint.
Questions are being asked as to these images being fixed/made permanent. I say that it could be done but I'm more interested in photographing them. Their absurd impermanence is a significant point of reflection. The dust is so fine, it behaves like smoke....staining, creating shadows.

seal granite crema

continuing exploration of the formless in photography,
taken at Cape Foulwind, image sharpened a little digitally. Yum yum.

working the surface: stone dust, acrylic on stretched canvas

this is a detail of a metre square and a preparation for drawing (snapse#2)
The process is an extention of the coal dust exploration but here using the oamaru stone dust, sieved super fine, mixed with acrylic white and when dry sanded back with wet/dry. The surface is stunning really, marble like, hard and tight. It also remains a little transparent. this image shows the effect having applied india ink, stone dust and sanded back to the colour.
I've since applied more colour and more stone dust...eventually when this settles I plan to do more non figurative drawing on this support!

65 days to go

'
until the plaster goo gets poured in. Of course a very engaging process, each day making a new mark, like the days before, trying too hard to be original, clever....measurung enthusiasm, asking questions; what am I trying to say? why say anything?how do these marks relate, to each other, to me, to the viewer.....? It's a collapse really, getting out of my own way. The daily ritual rules and ultimately will out/manifest...I'm thinking a lot about negative space and how the plaster will appear, thinking in three dimensions each time I make a mark, relentless.
In a little over two weeks the project will be half way. Each morning I begin thinking about what the mark might be...look like but generally do not act upon any inspiration, leaving the gesture/mark til the late afternoon which usually is completed relatively quickly( a continuous flow/action.) The waxing takes place after ten days ( accumulated tiles)
It is a piece that holds time, genesis and the mundane.

japanese artists I'm looking at now.

By no means exhaustive. Inspiration comes from a great book called: Scream Aginst the Sky, Japanese Art after1945.
I see the non figurative, gestural quality in some of these artist/works. I also feel more free to explore some 'mysterious' traditions/forms that I can only intuite.....this moves me into a new dimension of understanding and history. I find the space more plastic/maleable/open/free.

Kazumi Nakamura http://www.kiaf.org/2004/special/KAZUMI%20NAKAMURA.jpg
Jiro Yoshihara http://www.andipamodern.com/THUMB/3907.JPG
Yoko Matsumoto http://metropolis.japantoday.com/xmg/593/593-A-wilderness.jpg
Sadamasa Motonaga http://galleries.absolutearts.com/galleries/artwork/artu/artu1141885039.jpg
Yoshishige Saito on artnet
Hisao Domotohttp://www.tokyoartbeat.com/media/event/2005/EC86-170
Yayoi Kusama http://www.artseensoho.com/Art/BLUM/kusama98/kusamaGIFS/kusama1.jpeg