I've decided to give myself a few project titles to work on. The aim is for me to approach working in a new way, recording thoughts, producing work, evaluating and hopefully improving. With any luck, rigorous self-criticism will pay off and I'll end up painting a masterpiece. Right.
The first working title I've landed on is "Violence as Pleasure", so will be looking at all sorts of things from the spectacle of arena combat (gladiator, bull-fights) to violence in literature, the theatricality of violence in splatter films down to the sublimated exercise of being a sacrificial agent in some computer games. I'm hoping to produce some writing as well as visual work during this process, which will maybe inspire me to be more diligent in posting here.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tilda, Tilda
I've been wondering to myself lately if Tilda Swinton is in fact the most awesome person in the world. Apart from having a sort of fae beauty that is somewhere between enthralling and haunting, the way she leads her life is really refreshing in an otherwise boring, exhibitionist world.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Ivan IV
Today I started a painting based on Ilja Repin's great 1885 piece, depicting the horrific moment of realisation of Ivan that he'd lashed out and killed his son and heir in an uncontrolled fit of rage.
Having spent months fixating on how I'd like to be able to paint and how other painters are much better than I am I've developed a lack of confidence in my own abilities and really have to coach myself through a painting. I think the lack of self-certainty is actually quite refreshing. I've always been extremely self-critical, but to approach the process of painting as an exercise in avoiding perceived failures is quite new. Exhausting and fulfilling, all wrapped up in an emotionally unstable bundle.
I built up the eye in quite a bit of detail with an unusually small sable brush (detail destroyed courtesy of built-in webcam, thanks Dell) then worked on smearing the rest of the flesh on. I was quite consciously trying to figure out how a couple of other artists I admire work, so had a couple of Antony Micallef, Philip Gurrey and Benjamin Cohen images floating around (I was painting from my screen.)
Having spent months fixating on how I'd like to be able to paint and how other painters are much better than I am I've developed a lack of confidence in my own abilities and really have to coach myself through a painting. I think the lack of self-certainty is actually quite refreshing. I've always been extremely self-critical, but to approach the process of painting as an exercise in avoiding perceived failures is quite new. Exhausting and fulfilling, all wrapped up in an emotionally unstable bundle.
After about 40 minutes I'd got to the stage above. My brother was hovering while I was working, which put me off a little bit. I spent a while before applying any oil to the canvas trying to get the right shade of red smeared all over it, and teased it down the sides of the canvas a little too.
I wasn't really happy by the time I'd reached this stage so started generally destroying the areas I wasn't happy with and then working on them again. Semi-pleased with progress so far. Time spent painting: about 2 hours (however long it takes to listen to Gåte-Iselilja and Rammstein-Liebe ist für Alle Da.)
Bloody Canvasses
For the past year or so, I've felt like I've been living in a creative vacuum. I've moved around a lot; this time last year I was living in London, yet since then I've moved to two different houses in Norwich, one in Beijing and then back again to my parents' in Norfolk. I did used to think that the frenetic energy that moving around seems to conjure up could only be good for the creative process, yet I've singularly failed to produce a single piece I'm satisfied with over the past twelve months or more.
I guess there are practical reasons as to why moving around might be bad for productivity. Painting or creating generally requires a reasonable amount of paraphernalia: canvases, paint, etc. but also of course an environment where one has the space to move around and feel comfortable chewing through ideas in. I suppose this is why the artist is so often anchored to his/her studio; making forays far and wide to aid research, but always pinging back to the space they've grown to feel comfortable in.
All of this said, moving around a lot does give you the opportunity to hone your thinking processes, and when I approach working creatively now, I think I've benefited both from not having practised much over the last year, but also having a backlog of ideas and creative solutions to experiment with. Whether I'd still have a fairly positive attitude towards my creative practice had I decided to stay put for a year... I can't say.
All I can say is that I'm looking forward to bashing out some bloody, gory canvasses over the next few months.
I guess there are practical reasons as to why moving around might be bad for productivity. Painting or creating generally requires a reasonable amount of paraphernalia: canvases, paint, etc. but also of course an environment where one has the space to move around and feel comfortable chewing through ideas in. I suppose this is why the artist is so often anchored to his/her studio; making forays far and wide to aid research, but always pinging back to the space they've grown to feel comfortable in.
All of this said, moving around a lot does give you the opportunity to hone your thinking processes, and when I approach working creatively now, I think I've benefited both from not having practised much over the last year, but also having a backlog of ideas and creative solutions to experiment with. Whether I'd still have a fairly positive attitude towards my creative practice had I decided to stay put for a year... I can't say.
All I can say is that I'm looking forward to bashing out some bloody, gory canvasses over the next few months.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Universal Suffrage
Tomorrow morning MPs will debate the possibility of prisoners in the UK being enfranchised, a prospect that the Prime Minister has admitted makes him feel "physically sick."
I'm interested in why the prospect of extending suffrage to the prison population provokes such strong reactions, and why the argument that prisoners are denied their human rights as a result is so readily derided.
The revulsion that the prospect seems to provoke seems to stem from the idea that those who violate society's codes of conduct should be denied the capacity to participate in shaping society's values and laws by being allowed to cast votes to elect lawmakers. Is it really so nauseating an idea that those who have committed crimes be permitted to vote?
I would argue quite the contrary, and go so far as to say that denying suffrage to criminals is the only nauseating feature of the debate. Universal suffrage, that is the freedom of all to determine the means by which they will collectively be governed should be the basis of a free and fair society. Once it was the untitled and the unwashed who were excluded from the electoral process. At the beginning of the last century, the vote was still tied to property ownership and in 1928, finally 'universal suffrage for all' became a feature of the UK electoral process. Yet a blanket ban dating from the 1870s endures to this day, apparently overriding the legislature passed since, and ignoring the enshrinement of universal suffrage for all in Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), in 1948.
By denying suffrage to the prison population we remove those convicted from the electoral process and from society; and more disturbingly, remove their human right to participate in government. It is not for us to pick and choose which rights we will choose to extend to different individuals. We must remember, that according to Article 2 of the UDHR, every right must be extended to everybody without any exceptions.
Deriding the argument from human rights sets a dangerous precedent, and undermines the value of those rights in our society. By ignoring Article 2 in this case, can we assume that it will never be ignored in other cases? Only by adhering to the value of human rights in all cases, regardless of any personal gall we may feel about doing so can we protect the fundamental dignity that all humans ought to enjoy.
Furthermore, lawmakers eager to exclude prisoners from the electoral process demean the meaning of democracy in our society, and serve only to degrade the validity of their own positions. Only an election conducted under true universal suffrage should be classed as a valid expression of a society's democratic will; which is another issue altogether.
I'm interested in why the prospect of extending suffrage to the prison population provokes such strong reactions, and why the argument that prisoners are denied their human rights as a result is so readily derided.
The revulsion that the prospect seems to provoke seems to stem from the idea that those who violate society's codes of conduct should be denied the capacity to participate in shaping society's values and laws by being allowed to cast votes to elect lawmakers. Is it really so nauseating an idea that those who have committed crimes be permitted to vote?
I would argue quite the contrary, and go so far as to say that denying suffrage to criminals is the only nauseating feature of the debate. Universal suffrage, that is the freedom of all to determine the means by which they will collectively be governed should be the basis of a free and fair society. Once it was the untitled and the unwashed who were excluded from the electoral process. At the beginning of the last century, the vote was still tied to property ownership and in 1928, finally 'universal suffrage for all' became a feature of the UK electoral process. Yet a blanket ban dating from the 1870s endures to this day, apparently overriding the legislature passed since, and ignoring the enshrinement of universal suffrage for all in Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), in 1948.
By denying suffrage to the prison population we remove those convicted from the electoral process and from society; and more disturbingly, remove their human right to participate in government. It is not for us to pick and choose which rights we will choose to extend to different individuals. We must remember, that according to Article 2 of the UDHR, every right must be extended to everybody without any exceptions.
Deriding the argument from human rights sets a dangerous precedent, and undermines the value of those rights in our society. By ignoring Article 2 in this case, can we assume that it will never be ignored in other cases? Only by adhering to the value of human rights in all cases, regardless of any personal gall we may feel about doing so can we protect the fundamental dignity that all humans ought to enjoy.
Furthermore, lawmakers eager to exclude prisoners from the electoral process demean the meaning of democracy in our society, and serve only to degrade the validity of their own positions. Only an election conducted under true universal suffrage should be classed as a valid expression of a society's democratic will; which is another issue altogether.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Big Society
I find it difficult to imagine two words at present that make me feel quite so sick.
Devoid of meaning, this term mutates and distends like a grossly swollen, malevolent tumour, metastasising through society (small S) at the whim of its distant masters.
These two vulgar little words are being used to justify everything from the privatisation of the UK's heritage woodland, the decimation of the public sector and disembowelling of the welfare state at a time when the Big Society's masters have force unemployment to the highest levels in a generation.
We're all in this together, but some are more in it than others.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Portrait Prizes
I used to enter the UK's portrait prizes whenever I had an opportunity, and usually didn't do very well. There was the National Portrait Gallery's (NPG) annual BP Award and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters (RP) annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries, both in London. I also entered the Bulldog Bursary, again at the RP
For the most part, I now think my portraits were/are terrible, mostly cartoonish or faux-Bacon pastiche. That said, the last time I entered I managed to get to the final round of judging in all three competitions, which I should take as a compliment I suppose. I spent a long time before the competitions looking at the way I work and trying to figure out what makes a painting at least a little bit successful. I still don't know what that is, but I managed to come up with something reasonable. I learned to push the paint around in new ways and worked with the images I was using differently too.
For the most part, I now think my portraits were/are terrible, mostly cartoonish or faux-Bacon pastiche. That said, the last time I entered I managed to get to the final round of judging in all three competitions, which I should take as a compliment I suppose. I spent a long time before the competitions looking at the way I work and trying to figure out what makes a painting at least a little bit successful. I still don't know what that is, but I managed to come up with something reasonable. I learned to push the paint around in new ways and worked with the images I was using differently too.
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