mikeartblogyear3

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 9 ∆

A rest week. 

I am working on a few sketches at the moment but verbally I can’t find a way to document. It’s really strange and I don’t like it. And so I’ll hopefully let myself fall into sketching and return a bit more clear. 

Research: 

I’ve been going deeper into minimalisation in art. The focusing on the occupation of space around the piece, which is very different to how I interpreted minimalism. This description feels so flipped and external. My view of minimal is narrowing to a small space, but having something in contrast to something else shows the polarity in a really extreme way. My writing is so all over the place with this because I’m finding it hard to get my head around, but I think it’s so interesting to have what the artist didn’t create be what is on display... it also relaxes the created piece and perhaps makes it more accessible to the viewer. 

Reading: 

I’ve been going over the short stories by Clark Ashton Smith and thinking about how to contain a story with a smaller word limit. The worlds in the stories are so large and alien, and I feel like they’re larger because we only get to view a glimpse of their universes. I enjoy existing in these spaces for a short amount of time, and it’s ideal at the moment because I don’t have enough energy/strength to invest in a much larger narrative. 

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 12

The continuation of the work which I might call “How do I release you?” 

It’s being pieced together slowly, and is completely afraid of colour at the moment.... I never know what to do with such vibrant things, they seem to already be so formed and finding a way to access it and move it around is really challenging. 

The dots and lines are trying to play their own way, but I do like the areas that harmonies with the background the most. There’s a strange push and pull to creating a landscape that looks one way, but is also something else. I didn’t want anything to be settled and ready to change at any moment. 

Maybe that’s what I wanted to showcase... that state of change. Being someone that knows how to live in that space of things constantly moving. It’s definitely someone that I want to build towards 

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Research:  

I was given this recently from a friend and found it could be apt in some ways to somehow tie into my research. 

I’m finding it very similar to other various philosophical texts on witchcraft.  

This section in particular... the unifying and accepting of the inner and outer states is very much the nature of witchcraft - externalising and pairing external objects and recipes with emotions and finding some semblance of connection. 

I read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath last year and this reminds me of that novel, but with The Bell Jar I feel that I highlighted the inner entirely and was questing to find that external link but was never able to. 

Artist Research: 

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Semester overview: 

I want to spend some time in this space just going over the work I did this semester and attempt to see it with a bit more clarity.... 

I started my falling into a minimal space with Fallen Aurora. I wanted to focus my attention on a simple landscape setting and attach as much of myself to that space. I kept the structure of building and the terrain as simple as possible, and instead focused my attention on the flow of gradient. Narratively I kept the scene relatively minimal as well, a depiction of a person watching an aurora fallen to earth. I enjoy creating scenes that asks questions rather than answers... I prefer to live in that state of exploration and want my work to hopefully elicit that reaction in the viewer. 

This minimal scene continued with “Will I die before I figure it out” ... another graphite scene that depicts a figure lost in a maze and has now accepted their surroundings as their new home. I wanted the structure again to be minimal and the figure to be almost a shadow. This piece was intended to be placed in the middle of a much much larger circle, but I ended up making an irreversible mistake in the spray painting room and destroyed it completely. It was to appear as a focal point, as if looking at it through a telescope, somewhat voyeuristically. 

My practice became excited with narrative/ creating a short story in a surrealist way and how I could go about doing that. It was a really confusing and experimental project and I still haven’t defined it to one thing. Initially I wanted to draw three pieces that linked in some way that I hadn’t decided on during the initial sketching. As I continued with it it kept speaking to me - are they sisters or is it the same character that’s changing. Behind the creature in the first image is a home, and I feel like it reflects my struggle to see myself outside of the family dynamic and then the journey of individual structuring, the sword in the head being a masculine battle energy - piercing the inner sanctum of the character. The last image is afloat and looking more serene, perhaps contemplative or now more content with having fought for personal understanding. the three spaces on the bottom reflect images found in the top three- the rock being found in the third picture up above, the string from the red, and the third in black I never found. A lot of this project is still a question in my head, but I found that keeping the initial space of containing the story in a triple sketch meant I could relax more to viewing how it wanted to grow. 

I didn’t know how to access the previous piece anymore. I felt like there were too many parts that didn’t know how to connect to one another and I could sense a slipping pattern in me, so I jumped out of it and creating something more illogical and automatic. This is definitely in line with my love for surrealism... I just wanted to focus on creating a space to play in. I quickly did a layer of spray paint, but then focused most of my time applying lines and dots to the scene. The minimalisation I’ve been building on felt a bit empowered here. I felt less pressure in constructive a visual when I only had to think of applying one dot and line at a time and not the image as a whole. I didn’t know what was being made and I went along with that unknown element. The pairing of positive action gave me a feeling of desire to expand... away from logic I could just enjoy. 

This piece showcases what I wish to delve deeper into with the continuation of my practice. Art is my way to finally be reactive, to not heavily judge a decision, to live without being plagued by heavy thoughts. I want to celebrate life and be in it and not spend all of my time contemplating it. 

Lastly I wanted to end the semester with the hope of illuminating my main desire for my practice. To develop a space where I can feel and be connected to. I can’t find that anywhere else, so I need to appreciate and respect it. I wanted to express the basic space of lines and dots again as they seem like the beginnings of a much more detailed piece. I wasn’t concerning myself with creating it to look in one way, but allowed the unformed to be much apart of the scene as the formed. A shifting landscape is what I desired to capture, one that is ever changing but vibrate and alive. 

Also, side note: experimenting in colour felt so uncomfortable and weirdly difficult to navigate, but it just meant that I had to fight harder to move out of that. 

Conclusion: 

I got stuck a lot this semester with my practice. I didn’t know how to attach and keep myself collected on it, and that has affected my ability to explore. Through it though I have developed an understanding that I prefer - questioning and analysing after the piece has revealed itself, as opposed to killing it with overthinking even before it has stepped out of my head. I want to strengthen this process more and feel confident that it’ll be enough for the viewer/audience. I still retain my graphite drawings as I need them whenever I’m feeling uncertain. I fall into their flow and allow myself rest in that space. Ultimately though I do want to just get better at making in an automatic way and build the ability to externalise more confidently. The minimalising has given me a small room to think about all of this. 

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 11

The image that I have sent off for printing for the collaborative Class of '23 Zine. 

This work explores the minimalising that my practice has been focusing on recently. I tried to construct a scene with lines and dots and not weigh too heavily on detail. 

The colour used felt a bit of an attack on my graphite grey space, but it is where I eventually want to progress towards so I tried to relax into it and not feel too overpowered by it and instead tried to celebrate. 

But I felt I rushed that project. 

I didn’t give myself enough time to sink into it, to feel and understand it. When I look at it it feels a bit prosaic and devoid of much intent and is mostly a vanity project/a release of energy. 

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So I wanted to create a new piece, one that I could allow myself to better apply myself to... 

I started as I did the last, with a spray paint background. I started applying small dots and lines, trying to slowly build a space and bring forth a landscape while also keeping it in the realms of abstraction. 

Here I was sucked down into a really confined space and I didn’t want to fight it, I felt more knowing about where to place the next piece when I removed logic and existed in a more automatic headspace. My relationship was there, and I guess even strengthened by those questions of alternative action. 

I want to keep sitting in this space and document what eventuates - and I guess the artwork is the documentation... I feel so much more able to connect to it than expressing in writing. 

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Another project I’ve been working on is combining a graphite scene with a short story that I wrote that reflects the drawing. I want to get better acquainted with writing, and hopefully understand it in similar way to how I draw/paint. 

I fall into a negative space when I express myself with words, because there are so many that can combine in so many ways and I never know how to apply desire and feeling onto the ones that are true. 

I wanted to find that same slow building warmth in writing, similar to how I apply strokes on paper/canvas. It feels so silly to say it out loud, but out inner space isn’t made of a language and I need to remember that and put confidence in these experiments that I lack the ability to convey verbally. 

I’ve been jumping back and forward between the written and the visual, trying to harmonise them in some way.

I want my writing and work to still exist in that minimal space/relaxed space, and not venture too deeply into any one topic. I even wanted the story to be about that observational, light perspective. A thing that is flung about by an unknown force and views the world in a unattached way. 

It is a melancholic state, because the thing does truly desire to connect but it doesn’t know how to go against that deep pull. 

I want to not have it typed, and hopefully handwrite the text then make a poster of it/ display it on telephone poles and such 

Class of '23 Zine: 

In class this week we all installed our works collectively in the Frank Moran Gallery. 

Briefly I talked about the work, how minimalising my practice to lines and dots allowed me to build a stronger intent on what I was doing in the moment. I don’t think I expressed the visual outcome was planned, but I tried to emphasise that it’s more a meditative practice of just going back and forth between lines and dots, the 1 and 2. 

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the piece as I don’t think I gave it enough attention. I wanted it to be a representation of where I want my practice to move towards, but in doing so I skipped over one of my fundamentals of allowing the space of attachment. 

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Artist Research: 

Winnie Sidhart’s artwork reflects a similar process of collection. Works that she felt weren’t successful or she intentionally destroyed are cut up, rearranged and unified on one canvas, bringing in multiple ideas into one space and celebrating the act rather than it being one thing. 

Winnie’s artistic practice celebrates all states and showcases through collage that we can be more than one thing. Her work begins with cutting up and bringing back smaller works and slowly applying all the pieces to a single space. Our current moment is so much more than just one thing, it’s everything at a time and trying how to be clear on where we stand in all of it is so difficult to see. Winnie shows through her art that we need to have a gentle and keen perspective to find a way to collect it all and move with it. 

Research: 

Outside of artist research I’ve continued finding practices of witchcraft. I don’t get heavily invested in any one, but I think I’m more interested at the moment in how they are all similar, what is the basic identity of their philosophies. 

In witchcraft and the gay counterculture, what is illuminated is what is unifying about the two. Both seek to leave a system that they don’t connect with and feel distant from. We both reimagine ourselves in a life that we want to live in. 

I think I research this for solidarity. An insight into another perspective and how their worlds are built. 

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 10

I’m trying to have a more focused plan for my practice but one moment I am confident and the next I feel it all slips away. 

Perhaps I need to stay mindful of this multiple direction....

The one that knows the loop (the structural piece for comfort) 

The one that needs to explore (the more fluid and instinctual) 

The work that I wanted to have as the poster submission wasn’t finished in time, and I was uncertain of it in the end so I decided to go with another choice. 

Still I need to find some clarity on what this is, and understand what I strived to find through the experimentation. 

I wanted to create a short comic strip - a character placed in each frame is interacting with the environment, like they’re hopping through different dream spaces. The narrative of it being a character changing from a creature that is bound by a family dynamic, to understand and building their own self through battle was a feeling I wanted to convey. 

The images below each were meant as gifts from one slide to another - 

Ultimately I think I applied too many ideas/ attempts into one space with each lacking a strong purpose, so it eventually fell apart in me. But still I enjoyed being experimental. 

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But now I think I need to return to the minimal, and just work. I think that’s all I really want is to just build a structure in myself that I can rely on and have trust in. 

Artist Research:  

Minimalism I feel is now my aesthetic focus and I’ll try to keep mentally active on the pursuit of it. Imbuing more energy into smaller spaces and creating with more intent. When I type this out it makes less sense than when it’s in my head for some reason. Strange. 

 I’ve been understanding the art by Persi Darukhanawala, a minimalist painter that stimulates feelings of connection with vibrate brushstrokes. 

I find the smallness of it a strength that I want to explore more of in my work. Persi paints mostly in a circular way, and it seems to encapsulate a world.  

The photographic work Lynne Douglas also explores the minimal in an abstract and experimental way. Her works are foggy and inviting in their relaxed state. I enjoy getting to and exploring this abstract space in graphite, but I always treat it like a background and layer in other elements until I find something. I want to try to be more content with appreciating that place that Douglas also explores. 

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New Work: 

I tried to experiment in the minimalist abstract space some more but couldn’t control applying the layering of characters and marrying them with the abstraction. 

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Aside from that I’ve also started experimenting on a much larger surface... 

I began with spray painting the surface to form the landscape ... 

It’s called the 1,2 Step - a practice that I feel I need to return to when I become numb and all I can focus on is the 1 and 2, then I repeat that and it seems to build on itself. 

I find it a very opening experience to just exist in a realm of lines and dots for a time, but nothing really emerged from it in terms of a directional indicator, but that’s okay. 

I’m not sure if it’s complete, but I’ll let it rest for a bit before I consider sending it off to get printed. 

Other Research: 

I’ve continued research on artists that incorporate witchcraft or practice witchcraft as an art... 

Remedios Varo is who I return to every now and then to try to better understand her relationship with surrealism as a form of witchcraft. The meeting place between narrative and visual intrigue. 

A playground for her imagination to explore. I feel like I keep coming back to the most basic nature of art and I don’t have any desire to expand upon it just yet, and just fortify my connection with it in its most basic form. 

Obviously there is so much more going on in this piece than it being purely about liberation, but that state of mind is behind every stroke and action. 

Choices become more progressive in that state of apply choice without hesitation 

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 8

I started this week by creating another graphite piece. I wanted to return to having portrait as the focal element and celebrate the aura of a character instead of landscape being the main point. 

But I always leave these drawings unsatisfied. There’s little continuity in them and I don’t get any desire for future pieces. I used to be able to see the images in my head, pieces that I really wanted to make, but now it’s become a place to keep myself together and the love has faded. 

I want to dive into a new space where I can feel that unknown quality, or the unease of not being comfortable in the medium. I’ve tried oil before, and I really enjoy how slow the process can be. There feels like there’s a deep well of magic in it, but I just have never been strong enough to delve into it. So I am going to attempt something and see what eventuates. 

Frustration is definitely something that comes up initially. I am so used to knowing how to control the graphite space so now that I am suddenly in this new area I’m not sure how go about linking my inner structure with it. I never expected to be suddenly comfortable with it - I know that’ll take time. What I need to focus on is the initial weaving of a relationship during this early stage. 

Because I don’t have that comfortability, I don’t have much desire to return to it. Right now I am letting it dry, but I kind of like its foggy landscape. I do want to deepen it, but I’m not sure how I’m going to go about layering that. I also think I perhaps should have started with layering and blending just black and white, but I need to get out of that space of knowing. 

I also want to step away from banging my head against a wall, which is what I feel has been the primary feeling in art lately... stagnant state of rotational art. I don’t want this. Is it possible though to have a loop going simultaneously with an another system that is exploring the outer. Like being both hunter/gatherer and caretaker. I’m not sure if it was Socrates or Aristotle that said “A builder is only a builder when they’re building a house” - Like we can be more than one thing, and be in more than one state. I confine myself to only one state of being, because I think that’s probably the main idea of living - nestled in this space of a family unit - and existing outside of that lifestyle is ‘other’ . It’s just another way, but I don’t know how to operate it, because I fixate on the feeling of being different. 

So I can probably have art as a way to spread these sections of myself out- 

the graphite space: 

The main loop space - 

- where my structural side operate  

-  what I need to feel safe? 

Where I can keep the space above ground. 

The Unknown space: 

- Just experiments, play with anything and try new things.

- I always feel an instant sense of dread when I even think about venturing into this space, so I need to figure out how to balance it out. 

--- don’t spend too long in either side (creates the crash) ??? --- 

Referring back to past ideas in blog posts - I always arrive at exhaustion and the fear of slipping in that state of a more relaxed mind. Is this just another state of my and isn’t a negative reflection of/on the other? 

Research: 

Witch craft: 

Started studying various practices of witch craft, and artists who practice witch craft. I started reading Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, a story about her leaving her family unit to seek a space for herself in the country. 

These two pages near the end of the book stood out to me... 

- To have a life of one’s own, not an extension doled out to you by others 

It’s a really powerful book, most of regards Lolly being a compliant memeber of her family and an Aunt figure mostly. She tried to distance herself from that dynamic and sought the country to discover herself, but the threads were not so easily loosened and they eventually found their way to her again. 

Voo Dou has similar universal elements as surrealism/ using their craft as a way to liberate the self from slave mentality. Trying to relax and open that space and adopt more intuitive/magical powers. In Mama Lola’s ‘A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn’ she discusses the course of her craft and the leaving one self and constructing another. 

ARTIST RESEARCH: 

Gala Bent, a minimilist surrealist painter creates these seemingly small spaces on paper that focuses our attention on their strange designs. 

I’ve been struggling to progress in a maximalist direction so perhaps I should keep going to the minimalist journey and get smaller and simpler in concept. 

By narrowing my designs to an even smaller space perhaps that’ll help with understanding a more clear direction for myself.   

[mikeartblogyear3]

I took the pages out of the sketch book and I placed them on a new surface because I was trying to find a way to continue them on paper and nothing was happening. It then continued from there... trying to make it more conversational, by having these colours and objects relate and address one another.

In the middle pic the character is holding a thread. I wanted to externalise this by presenting the object but above one of the other pieces... like they’re sisters (a bit estranged) but they still have a connection and that bond affects them individually.

And I want the pictures in themselves to also have their own narrative. Who are they as individuals and then the project as a whole as how they are together and the net that is woven over them. Inside them individually I incorporated figures that are doing their own acts. I’m not sure why they’re pushing a rock, or maybe it’s touching it for some ancient knowledge.

Originally the narrative was a simple surrealism comic of a girl who escapes her isolation and searches for war in order to find her clarity, but they became these seperate people - or documented in her transitional states. But they still feel sisterly to me.

Research:

What I want to strive towards is to be less structured with my work and more open to celebrating impulses. I come back to this ‘wanting’ of more openness but I always revert to the structural side because I guess I need it in some way, but it’s good to remind myself that I can maintain both sides... nothing needs to be compromised in art. 

Jonathan Meese’s art is “To fight against reality” which for him is “one of the most needed tasks and issues of art”. It’s a place of total play for him and “Allows us a way out of ideological brainwashing.” 

I just don’t know how to be as liberated as Messe is with his work. I can only achieve that sense of liberation if I first devote myself to a somewhat strict structural element. I’m not sure why. I still have no urge in me to play with colours ... for the time being I feel black and white is where I need to be, but also I should start easing up my state of control before it becomes too cemented. 

Reading: 

https://biblioklept.org/2013/11/04/the-beloved-leonora-carrington/

“The Beloved” - A short story by Leonora Carrington, is a story I like to go back to every now and then so I can appreciate how a narrative structure can be created similar to a surrealist painting. The flow of the piece feels like each sentence is layered and builds upon each other. Her work doesn’t concern itself with explaining, so a dreamlike space of strange events take place - sort of similar to how Haruki Murakami writes. 

I want to create future works that play with creating short stories, and having them bounce off one another. 

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 6

In class:

The assessment has been completed - I’m not that happy with it, but I expressed how I feel about my practice at this time and I think that’s all I could do.

Reading back on some of it, I feel like it can be a bit artificial, as I was trying to make myself feel and express interest in what I was writing when I was struggling to do just that, but hopefully what I wrote translated.... I struggle to articulate that my practice is mostly about internal reworking, so documenting that externally is really the main quest.

Experiments:

Aside from the assessment, I’ve been thinking more about creating a comic series in an abstract way, or perhaps a series of images that can have some suggestion - I don’t want it to be anything too demanding, as I am still venturing into another experiment in how I go about working in a state of fatigue - falling into it instead of looking away from it.

I’ve started this narrative building in an exhausted headspace experiment by creating 3 figures, each containing their own stories, sisters that are so different from each other.

I’m not focusing too heavily on the aesthetic quality of these works (just yet)... I want to get their energies across, I want to find a way to see it and construct the space rather than fixate on the detail.

I don’t know yet how I want to extend from this idea - maybe it’ll suggest something along the way.

I’ve also been exploring creating spaces that don’t have narrative but just concentrate on openness. It’s refreshing to step aside from that other space for a while and just stretch my legs for a bit. I don’t want to be too indulgent in this state - I do want to create with more intent - but it’s sometimes nice to just make whatever.

Ideally I combine the two main states... the openness with the narrative... it feels like its more complicated than that though. 

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Side notes/Understandings: 

This is all leading me into the terrain of imposter syndrome again. It always lives there but recently I have been seeing my art and the practice as being this completely fake thing and nothing I’m writing or saying is genuine but just a past mode of myself that knew and had these ideals in the fresh. It doesn’t feel like I’m wearing it, and I can see that that is obviously affecting my art in a negative way. I try to look around it but its always there in really every action. 

Maybe look at it more in the face. Ask it what it is. This uncertainty is building up and making me weaker, so I need to address this. 

What is it? I don’t really want to explore it, it feels so strange to address it head on. 

I’ve been going through ‘The writing workshop’ by Barbara Sarnecka, just seeing it from another perspective, and she writes that it’s “not as the result of something going wrong on the side of the individual, but as the result of something going wrong in the environment. Those struggling with imposter syndrome aren't usually making bad inferences about their own abilities from good data, but good inferences from bad data. We overestimate the success of others, and so underestimate our own, because we're only ever told the success stories.” 

I don’t know, I don’t really find anything cathartic or relaxing about that. Externalising my reasoning has never worked for me, but maybe I need to reassess that. I don’t want to put blame or negativity on external factors that might be affecting my individual feeling though. I find that to be restricting in its indulgence. I don’t know, I’ll think about it some more. 

0 notes

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 5

This week I want to spend time going over where I am at with my work and trying to find a stronger focal point so I can speak with more clarity in my presentation. I don’t feel like I have a sturdy foundation and I am just constantly making excuses, so I need to move past the self-deprecating mentality and just put that energy into working.

I do want to start with the addressing of the feeling of uncertainty. Addressing where I am at at the moment is important for future progression.

Loops - mental looks - loops of my art practice - loops of my daily system. This is what my headspace is fixating on at the moment. The awareness of the loop and how I feel trapped in it. Stuck in a realm of my lack of understanding. Writing about it and making it external does help in some way, but I still feel like I fall back into its pattern so easily.

I want to make works that strive to move past that small world. Be more courageous but also respectful of my emotional limitations.

Consultation:  

The consultation time this week I found helpful. It was the first time I spoke one-on-one with my tutor and it was nice to clear some of my headspace a bit and verbalise where I am and where I am not. I don’t want to be struck in this graphite realm forever. I fell into this same limiting space last year and it took so much of me to get out, so I’m really hating on myself that I allowed me to fall back into it.

Sandra suggesting rearranging. Jumbling or throwing these pieces around so I can see them in a different way. Trying to get another perspective on it all and get out of my own way.

I’ve been researching artists that use abstraction in comic form. Having a continuity and a narrative without the written. Finding a story in imagery, but not feeling like I need to be strict in that space, and allow surrealism to enter so it becomes more explorative.

The comics by Moebius are so captivating because they don’t have a fixed narrative, inside focusing on world (or universe) building. Scenes don’t have much order, instead encapsulating a scene with so much life that invites the viewer to construct their own personal narrative.

This relationship between the artist and the viewer is something I feel I need to build upon, and it feels like my main quest as an artist to find that stronger connection. I don’t want to give it all away, but invite others to feel compelled by the mystery to incorporate their own unique narrative.

I want to create more alien landscapes, but I feel like my strength is low and they’re becoming faded and uninterested. How do I keep life in it?

Research:

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 4 ªªªª

In preparation for the presentation on Thursday I wanted to finalise one of my drawings by expanding it in some way. I took the structural piece I made that was an expression of surroundings and I wanted to place it in the centre of a much larger circle. In the end I just opted for a small canvas piece and I spray painted it black in the workshop, though with a layer of touchups with the drawing on the canvas I accidentally sprayed the drawing and ruined it. Oh well. 

Instead I decided to take another piece and follow the perimeters of ‘Adaptation’ by incorporating it into another piece. Fran was very kind to allow me to include my piece in with hers, which was a hanging installation containing various pieces of art her daughter made and gave to her over the years.

Only until I mentioned it did anyone realise that it was tucked in. I really enjoyed showing my work in this way as it felt like it was belonging to something rather than standing on its own. Fran mentioned that you had to look at it close up to see what was happening, and that intimacy is something I am definitely striving for in my work between work and audience. 

I’ve been struggling with continuity, and all that I am wanting is to create small spaces. This is a bodily reaction I desiring rest, or perhaps enduring spaces that don’t make sense. So even though I do want to find out a way to progress, I think its beneficial to listen and express the headspace I’m in at the moment.

Homework: 

Last year I touched on concrete poetry. Trying to figure out how to incorporate words in a way that didn’t feel tacked on, instead flowed with the piece and help build its narrative. 

I want to create something sculptural with this sketch and have this as an idea, but I’m still constructing that (it seems that works aren’t able to get out of their idea stages this semester).

The works by Tom Phillips in particular have been a source of inspiration for how text can be displayed. The writing and the imagery in his work find unification that takes emphasis of either side and creates something more cohesive and more captivating. 

Assignment preparation: 

I’ve been looking back at the artists that I’ve been inspired by and I have noticed that I have failed to document them in my journals of the past couple of weeks - not sure way - lets just call it being lazy. 

The artist I have the strongest connection with at the moment is Loie Hollowell, an abstract artist that expresses the body through swirling and vibrant imagery. Her acrylic/oil work documents the personal journey she goes through, it’s about her bodily reaction to the external world, and because it’s a documentation of her space she feels open and confident enough to discuss it without the consuming feeling of doubt taking over her work. 

Her portrayal of truth and the confident expression is what attracts me mostly to her work. She dives into analysing the self and makes it an external act for others to appreciate. 

I won’t to build a stronger and more confident external space in my practice, one that I know I can return to and enter. I need that bit of security in art.  

Naudline Pierre is another artist that I have admired for a long time (also somewhat envious of). Her works are so open and free. Figures roam around the space, over landscapes that aren’t there to impress but just existing in their own way. This naturing of the imagination is something I feel strongly about - having he canvas as a sort of religious act in worshiping an art god (though I try to distance myself from god-mentality, it does feel very religious). 

I want to venture into more pieces that allow the unexpected to flourish. To not feel ashamed by free form, and understanding why shame even exists in that space to begin with. 

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 3 •••

Uncertainty is in me, I still have no clue where these sketches are taking me. All I want to do is just stay in the soft gradient space.

Nothing makes sense in it, but I still want to try and work on it, try to find a way to build a home for it. But I find it suffocating. I crave more connections.

I was thinking about creating the perspective of someone looking through a telescope and spotting something they shouldn’t have. I also wanted to explore space more and design something that is more enterable.

As I went along with it the thought of our surroundings became prevalent. Like how we shift internally depending on our settings/the people we surround ourselves with. This shadow creature has been lost in this maze for too long and I guess it now accepts its surroundings no longer as a maze and now possibly home. I’ve been thinking about what I surround myself with, who I am depending on the people I work it, where I live, etc. It turned into a strange/dark feeling when I realised that it isn’t fixed and I have the power to shift myself into different surroundings. Now becoming a question of ‘why don’t I’.

Any yet I keep myself chained to these drawings.

Continuity for this work, I want to place it in the centre of something much larger and then see if the dialogue changes. will it weaken the piece or give it emphasis?

Study/ Research:

I started researching miniaturist artists, and through articles I came across Persian Miniaturists.

**

The most important function of miniature was illustration. It gave a visual image to the literary plot, making it more enjoyable, and easier to understand. Miniature developed into a marriage of artistic and poetic languages and obtained a deep and sincere accordance with poetry.

In the 14th Century, there were enlightening and romantic works by Amir Khosroe Dehlavi, Khajoo Kermani, Hafez, and Kamal Khodjandi. While the 15th Century was the time for the many faceted poet Jami, who wrote the seven epic poems called "Haft Owrang"(The Seven Thrones or Ursa Major). His poetry embraced all the different categories of preceding literature. This great wealth of inspiring literature gave rise to the emergence of many important miniature schools, each with its own unique style, creating a great diversity of paintings. It was through these schools that miniature painting achieved its splendid development both in Iran and central Asia. Three of the most influential schools were in Shiraz, Tabriz, and Herat.

**

How they are designed is so fascinating, it’s so alive but doesn’t concern itself with adhering to a firm realism. It’s more about the conversation and the space.

I want to create more conversation in my work. Having pieces talk to one another and not treat them like various shades of grey.

[mikeartblogyear3]

WEEK 2

Installation week. I only have sketches and I really don’t want to just place a piece of paper on the wall again so I need to think about how I’m going to present it.

I thought about displaying the process rather than focusing on the piece itself for my install idea. 

In the video provided I placed 6 sheets of paper that showed something of a timeline, from the flower I guess being the beginning of a work, which is not necessarily true as that stage can be really uncomfortable and uncertain, I just didn’t know how to signify that early stage. 

The rock was definitely a big part, that is what I find a lot at the early stages of working, this fixed idea that I fight to be malleable and more playful but for some reason wants to cement itself as quick as it can. 

Other pages show various squiggles and lines that might just be variations, or layers. 

Page 4 exposes the work and revels its aesthetic. One thing I want to strive towards with my art is my lack of concern for aesthetic, but in a weird way love it more. I feel a stubborn weight of expectation that really doesn’t stem from anywhere, instead I really want to appreciate it and be in it. I don’t think I can ever annihilate that part of me, because I do enjoy showing, but I do want to get to a point where it doesn’t hurt me if it doesn’t look nice. 

And then the blank page at the end, which is a lazy way of me showing either the cycle or the continuity in something fresh. 

Presentation was very minimal, as I didn’t put enough thought into this as I should have, but I’m happy that I got to display a piece in a way that wasn’t about the piece. 

Study: 

I’ve continued making more sketches just waiting for something else to rise, but so far nothing has emerged, but maybe I’m being too demanding. 

I’m really craving simplicity at the moment, I feel a bit tired in my soul, so I need to go gentle. 

I’m just putting my mind to soft gradient work and trying to allow that to be my world. For some reason detailing in a realistic way makes me go rigid, so I prefer expressing myself in a space that is more about softness. 

I know I can’t stay here for the rest of the semester and I need to find some continuity in the work, but I honestly can’t feel anything pulling me. 

[mikeartblogyear3]

Week 1

The start of a new semester and I’m not very confident in the direction I want to head in over the next few weeks. 

I ended last year with a realisation that the graphite drawings I spend time on are places that I go to in the middle passages when I need somewhere to be, just to build a space so I don’t fall into other spaces that are a lot more toxic. 

So I will continue doing that this semester, and hopefully something will develop from the process of building these spaces. 

Right now I feel a pull downwards to focus landscapes in a really small way. 

I’ve been experimenting more with gradient relationships. Finding that soft continuity of light to dark. There’s something in it that I find fascinating, and it helps relax my mind a bit so I can become more open to creating a narrative. 

In this one I found a ray of the aurora fell to earth and inside there’s someone watching from their house. I think I enjoy creating scenes more than full stories. I don’t know why it fell or what the person in the house might be thinking looking at it, but that unknowable I find captivating and I hope that I can translate that. 

I’m enjoying the mix of structure and natural fluidity, though it is something I’ve done a few works on in the past so I don’t want it to be a central theme again, instead I’m trying to find continuity in feeling open and comfortable more and more with my work. 

Research: 

The structural graphite artwork by James Lipnickas has been an inspiration for a while, and I tried several times to create with a purely structural intent but I’m never quite successful. There’s a quality missing that I really do need to convey in my work, a mix of the hard and soft elements that I can keep jumping back and forwards to.