Feedback – Exploratory Practice

A few weeks ago I received some feedback which focused on the work I produced from June to November 2012.

I got a lot out of producing work on location and immersing myself in the landscape but after the hand in I felt stuck and rather unsure as to how to take the work forward.

Cherry Cob Sands, Sunk Island

The excellent advice I received from my supervisor in my feedback has helped me to reconsider and evolve my work in a more challenging direction.

Here are some of his comments and my thought on them:

The ‘problem’ of representation drives your work and is an essential and critical centre of this work. Your considerations of marks, gestures and surface maintain a dialogue with the legacy of abstraction, which is healthy. Your challenge is to find a language that is yours and doesn’t derive heavily from the lexicon of painters exploring this idiom.

I belive that ‘my own language’ is evolving steadily. Certain shapes, compositions and colour choices are emerging and evolving naturally. 

What is crucial is that you continue to push your engagement with process and action both within the landscape (to record directly) and to return to the studio and recall these experiences and use your sketchbook as an aide memoir or visual prompt.

I have continued to enjoy producing my digital drawings see the latest one above. The silk pieces are ongoing but do not seem as important at the moment.

Expand your field of working especially in terms of scale – become immersed in the activity (what Pollock speaks of being ‘in the painting’. Immerse yourself fully and be aware of the phenomenological approach to space/locale/object? You are making paintings – therefore consider the relationships between your images, scale, colour and space between.

I have ordered 6 large stretchers to be made to work on over the next few months. I have booked a studio to work in everyday over the Easter break. It will be a real luxury to have the time and space to focus for such a length of time on my own work. I intend to surround myself with my visual props; drawings, paintings and photographs and of course my own memory of experiencing the landscape. I imagine all this will provide me with the inspiration to express myself by way of spontaneous investigations into colour, line and form. The new scale is very daunting but I will enjoy the physical application of media using. I am looking forward to this immersive experience and exited to see what I create as I do not have a plan, and don’t know what my staring moves might be.

Drawing is important, keep using your app, the results are satisfying and analogous to the larger works. Draw with paint. Perhaps make your own tools to paint with.

I love the process of drawing and will continue to produce paper based work.

I will be posting updates as the next two weeks progress, I would love to hear any comments, suggestions or advice you have to offer.