To find your way, choose to follow another
I remember my first month at art college, when we ran though a number of experiments to make things with different and unusual media. Seeing what felt curious, what felt strange and unusual. At the time it was a very uncomfortable process - entering college as I did with a specific set of technical and research skills, but without any formal art training behind me. However, it was (or is) I should say a fascinating insight into your practice to move away from your comfort zone and try to do what you do but with totally different tools.
It was my husband who suggested I restarted my autumn studio sessions with an unfamiliar medium, and see what happens: to abstract or extend, to complicate, to minimise. My last collection of work done before the summer was working with ideas around minimalism, single strokes and single lines or words of (asemic) text. So this next set of experiments will be based on the opposite - maximal textures, rich and overlayed. Repeated motifs, layers of words. I’m starting with what feels instinctively like ‘excess’ and seeing what happens; I’m using rich heavy body acrylics and oil paints in many thick layers. It’s quite a contrast to my usual delicate watercolours!
These are the results of my first dew days of ‘mucking about’ as it were, getting my hands stuck in after the long summer break. Paint is still wet, no idea how long this sort of paint mixture is going to dry!
First reactions to the experiments:
The thickness and texture of the heavy paint is rich and spreads like buttercream icing on a cake. Aptly, I’ve been using palette knives rather than brushes to emulate the calligraphic edge I’m used to.
Colour mixing - on or off the canvas?
Adding a calligraphy layer - there many options to how to create writing: under the paint, on top of it, or through the paint itself. Each have their own place, which can be carefully planned in the intentional design of any more resolved pieces to come.
I rather like the little feathers I made with my writing paint, left over in a corner of my desk from a painting made back in April. Nothing ever wasted in an art studio!
So where do we go from this little set of experimental painting I wonder? All of these experiments so far have been relatively serendipitous (grab the first colour from the box to set the scene sort of thing), so the next piece I’m going to be a little more intentional and plan\draft it out first, seeing which effects are those best to recreate. I will avoid from seeking resolution or any sort of finshedness at this stage, as I know that tends to hamper the process. It is meant to be practice driven research after all. Back in 2014, this was the biggest learning I took away from my first college term. As a qualified scientific researcher I had already had a career in science (and a second in the civil service!) and starting an art degree mid-life came with all that mid-life baggage you have accumulated. Your brain is used to certain ways of thinking: let’s make a goal and achieve that, let’s make a hypothesis and test it. Practice based research is driven by practice, not by the objective of “a finished piece doing X”. Let’s find out what experiment number 2 brings to the table…
Angelique
