This work grew from a tranferred tracing of a map of London. I feel allowing space lets work ‘breathe’ and balance.
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Fine artist, MFA graduate and former Catalyst Arts Co-Director in Belfast
This work grew from a tranferred tracing of a map of London. I feel allowing space lets work ‘breathe’ and balance.
John Macormac 
I agree – and it really works well here! =D
The colors are so soothing. It’s like breathing.
Thanks, I love that description!
I love this one John, really delicate, what size is this?
Thanks very much Ciara. This one is quite big, approx 2m by 1.5m. Hey, don’t you sing for Blue Whale? 🙂
Lovely.
thankyou!
I agree with Gina M – soothing. But still my eyes are dancing.
Glad to hear it makes your eyes dance!
This is why I started my own site so that I could find out who in the world was playing around with truly 21st ideas that reflect my own interest in what I refer to as inter-subjective art in which the artists use their art to have a dynamic conversation with both the history of art and the present art in the objects and ideas of the world. What I like best about your own work is that you understand that making art isn’t some grand enterprise to be done and forgotten but a constant process of coming together and coming apart. It is a game to be played with energy.
Thanks for such a thoughtful and inciteful comment Bo, I agree about the process of making art. Play is a vital part of my approach.
One day’s work may be scrubbed away at the end of that day, but traces left behind contribute to the overall richness of an image.
But… can it be any other way, Bo? It is the entire process that leads to the end product. It’s not like one second there is nothing and the next, you have an artwork.
It’s a funny coincidence that you wrote this, as I just wrote something similar with regard to the work of another artist (about Sibyl Heijnen, on my web site touchesby.com).
I agree that it can’t really be any other way for the artist. The creative process is always a series of gives and takes between the mind of the artist and what’s happening on the paper.
The confusion occurs when no evidence of that process that is accessible to the audience but the end product. This then creates the misapprehension in the mind of the audience that the end product is something that occurs in the mind of the artist and then is transfered intact to the medium. Critics, curators, customers love to say that all great artists knew exactly what they were doing and why even before they laid the pen to the paper or the brush to the palette. That is true for craftspeople but not for artists.
What interests me is the conversation between the artist and the end product and I think most artists would agree that what thrills them is this back and forth between the work and the worker that brings them back again and again to task of art.
The new art, which I call “intersubjective” or “conversations” or “process mapping” depending on whim more than surety, leaves evidence of the process in the work so that the audience gets drawn into the creative process rather than just the end product. It frees audiences from the imaginary tether that critics use to “explain” art to non-artists and lets the audience into the conversation itself if they are inspired to make the effort.
All this is fuzzy still thinking on my part so I’m very open to conversations that help me gel my thoughts a bit more.
Thanks for visiting my blog. Glad you liked my painting. Love this one from you. RLTE
you’re welcome rlte, thankyou.
I really love this image. It makes me think how much I need to create an image with maps – I’m from the UK but live in Spain, and I think doing something with maps and space like this will help in my continuing investigation into all that. Thanks.
Thankyou Ben, I’m glad to have set you thinking. Maps are often so beautiful by themselves I find it’s hard to know how to use them.
Not many words…but find this a very emotional piece. Also: am a fan of your work – Transcendental. Thanks for your vision.
ALXSw
Thanks very much for the praise ALXS. I don’t think the work’s been described as transcendental before, I’m glad it provoked feeling.
Thanks for introducing me to our work (via wordpress). I enjoyed your description of process, particularly your note that you scrape, add, take away and add again until you understand that it’s time to stop. It was great to read, particularly because I’ve spent several days scraping away layers on a piece! Your work has a wonderfully spacious feel to it-as if someone entering it would find many areas to roam in.
Thankyou very much Hannah. Yes I sometimes work on a piece then sandpaper away everything I’ve done that day-I find it’s all part of the creative process.
Lovely. Thank you for leading me to your work. Always nice to see what beautiful things others are doing with similar themes.
thanks very much for the compliment rglowry. I like how you talk about the inevitability of nature reclaiming things. It reminds me of the wonderful “Time Passes” section in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse where nature takes over the summer house in the book. Keep up the good work!
like your work very much – thank you for reaching my work!
Thankyou jenkm1!
Really like this piece John – like looking at land/sea from the air.
thanks very much Laura!
Thanks for the like on Ephemera – really appreciate the work on your blog, some beautiful stuff.
Just discovered your work and like the delicacy of touch and intriguing use of maps and much else besides…thanks for liking my post so I came across this!
Cheers for the kind words David. Yeah I’m always on the look out for intriguing pieces of visual detritus to stick in my work!
Color, texture-beautiful, but I love the gutsy fold or line down the center-great.
John,
I love this…the color is stunning and there is such an ethereal quality to it. I feel mesmerized when I look at it…
Thanks very much Sued51, I’m really glad you find an ethereal quality to the piece. I love sky blue.