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Idea

An abstract painting of a photograph that selects certain areas that are more in focus, texture and color over form, the impression of a moment and figures in that moment. Subdued and under worked

maybe my work is less about memories and more about the forgetting.

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Key words for my practice

Abstraction, intangible, past, memory, blurred, human condition, removal, reconstruction,

Rachel Kneebone ”The force field of 399 Days is built on this complex and contradictory directionality, and on the tension between form and fracture. Spherical shapes are distorted, cracked and collapsed by bodily sinews, torsos and limbs, as if the offer of a whole, complete form was being continually undermined.’”

the offer of a whole image is being undermined as when recalling something lost or forgotten, only fragments appear, colours, textures

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“Every time we bring back an old memory, we run the risk of changing it. It’s more like opening a document on a computer – the old information enters a surprisingly vulnerable state when it can be edited, overwritten, or even deleted. It takes a while for the memory to become strengthened anew, through a process called reconsolidation. Memories aren’t just written once, but every time we remember them.”

I find this article/topic really interesting, how complex the mind is and how we have to power to unwittingly change a memory in our hear from what really happened. Does that make the memory real if it is your personal ‘truth’? or is the original unedited memory the truth...

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I tried applying paint stripper to photos and depending on application and length of time I left it on had some really cool effects. It seemed to bring out the warm colors in most photos but had a really cool distorting and blurring effect.

I experimented with putting it over just figures, different sections or the entire photo. Putting it over the figures looks quite eerie like they are ghosts. The blurred scenes from inside houses are quite eerie too, almost as if those places are not the same as they once were- but in a spooky way not in an ordinary time passes way.

I wonder what will happen if i continuously put layers of stripper on once the first one has been removed, will it remove the image all together? I will try it out.

I think ill explore this further, maybe Ill paint the distorted photograph as a kind of re-re-iteration of the image. Painting it after its been degraded a few times could refer to the trouble of trying to recall a memory as each time you remember something, you don’t go to the original thought but merely the state of the memory the last time you remembered it.

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As a way of degrading or removing further detail from the image I applied paint stripper to the painting and did a few experiments on the way it would interact with paint on board.

The first image was taken 30mins after paint stripper was painted over it. On the second image I painted a few forms and divided it up into areas to test full strength stripper, half and quarter strength and the last section I added full strength only to a small area. This photo was taken after an hour or so.

In conclusion, paint stripper had little to no interaction with thin layers of acrylic paint, just a very small bubbling barely visible to the eye and a slight smudging to the top layer of paint, maybe it only works for thicker house paint?

I quite like the idea of paint stripper eating away detail as time does, the gradual decay of a moment or memory. Ill try it on some other things, maybe straight on the photographs themselves?

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Due to lack of materials I had a dig around in the garden shed and found heaps of pieces of old wood from the house and various old wooden breakfast trays and chopping boards. I thought using these could reference nicely to the home and the history of the object and the history of the photograph painted on top and their relationship as both belonging to the past.

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Attempting to get the general feel of a photo with watercolors, I feel the top one is the most successful due to a more relaxed approach and not trying to depict everything in the photo but selected areas.

I like the looseness of the watercolor in relation to my concept of time as its quite a washy and non-solid medium allowing for the flow and fluidity associated with time passing. Less rigid and more in transition.

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I really enjoy Bjorklund’s delicate and considered yet relaxed creation of form through color and brushstroke. His depictions of people specifically interest me, as they don’t allude to any sort of time frame, just that person existing in the seemingly ageless void of the page.

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Removal of detail, focusing on figures and structures of the photographs to different degrees. Trying to take a more minimal approach and not overwork

the opposite end of the spectrum to the photo album painting i did, yet still does a similar thing

Relatability- scenes of human interaction family/friends

This is more concerned with specific moments in time rather than the larger theme of time passing and the effect that has

The impression of a moment been and gone

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“What separates art from other timeless manifestations of human existence?  The triumph of Western art, Danto claims, is representation of human essence. “The truly astonishing history rather has to do with representing human beings through their inner states—suffering in the crucifixion, hunger in the Christ child nursing, and, above all, love in the way the Madonna holds the child.” It is Fra Angelico who, for example, “represents persons in ways that are to be understood only with reference to their inner states.” In other words, the conveyed meaning is one that is visibly hidden but instinctually perceived."

Ive been trying to understand what is it about art that grabs me and I think this article has made it clear to me, the presence of human essence and universal relatable emotion and experience. When you experience a piece of art that speaks to you more than others its because it touches on something you relate to or have experienced. The same with books, when an author puts into words an extremely specific feeling that you have had it makes you feel understood and part of something much larger than yourself.

I’m not sure if this makes sense but I want to explore this further.

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Idea

Using old photographs, like from the 1950′s and painting the people in a subtle way to make them timeless and vague enough that they could belong to any time or place.

Every moment is fleeting and unique but there is something about the human condition where someone at some point in history someone has felt the same way as you or been in a similar situation.

Universal ‘truths’

“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings” F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Album #1

I painted this to operate as a partially formless mass of memory, painted from bits and pieces from my photo albums. abstracting and blurring the images and only using bits and pieces attempts to refer to the fleeting nature of time and our inability to remember everything but merely bits and pieces that can end up illegible mash of images in our mind.

I was quite inspired by Zoey Frank’s paintings and also Rachel Kneebone with her porcelain sculptures delicate but still a partially abstracted mash of forms.

Its interesting but too tangible and possibly overdone/overworked, I think I’ll try play with understatement and subtlety next

At this point I’m slightly moving away from the importance of object and more towards people and the ephemeral yet repetitious nature of time.

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Rachel Kneebone’s intricate works address and question the human condition: renewal, transformation, life cycles and the experience of inhabiting the body. Kneebone’s sculptures operate in a near-subliminal space, oscillating and blurring the boundaries between the conscious and the subconscious, the real and the imagined, everything and nothing. Working in porcelain, the material properties of her work further heighten and convey an awareness of opposing states, appearing to be not only heavy, solid and strong but also light, fragmentary and soft. This fluid movement between states is reflective of the wide range of art historical and literary sources that inform the artist’s practice. As Ali Smith has written, in Kneebone’s work ‘Michelangelo meets Angela Carter, the renaissance meets the contemporary, while the future simultaneously meets, melts, alters and fuses with the renaissance.’

The force field of 399 Days is built on this complex and contradictory directionality, and on the tension between form and fracture. Spherical shapes are distorted, cracked and collapsed by bodily sinews, torsos and limbs, as if the offer of a whole, complete form was being continually undermined.’

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I find this work The Mothers by Jenny Saville is really beautiful in the way she has captured movement and what seems to be moment in progress. Not a snapshot but what happens in the process of a moment happening, rather 3 seconds of movement than the split second a photograph captures.

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I really like Leonard's works and its really inspired me to make more clay sculptures addressing my themes.

I plan on sculpting people and objects from old photos and partially blending them into one sculpture. I want it to look like a mass of things, both tangible and sometimes not.

The way the brain struggles to remember entire pictures/scenes but merely details and objects.

Methodologies and outcomes for this work:

Constructing and translating scenes from photos into abstract clay sculptures and/or paintings for a nostalgic outcome that attempts to mimic the psychological landscape of memory.

Naming the works could be vital for context e.g. for one work I only use photos from 2003 and name the work ‘remembering 2003′ or ‘2003 in a nutshell’