Archives for posts with tag: dark

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I presented this painted black gloss shape on black matte wall at a recent studio critique. It was accompanied by this sound piece, played through a powerful stereo:

It was sufficiently loud that it caused objects within the room to vibrate.

The group discussion read the combination of sound and visuals as being oppressive and ominous, combining to create an atmosphere suggestive of religious cult rituals or sinister political gatherings.

It was felt that the work presented in this crit represents a departure from previous work. The black gloss symbol has nothing of the organic, gentle feel of the pencil drawings. It is extremely assertive and dogmatic; very oppositional and uncompromising in every way, to the point of feeling threatening. It suggests none of the time based creative process of the pencil drawing.

I am gradually assessing where I go from here. The shape is just an arrangement of painted lines, although I can understand why it was interpreted in these ways. I do feel that playing with sound and visuals with a certain charge and potency has potential, though I want to find ways to puncture the pomposity these signifiers carry, to promote recognition of their ultimate absurdity.

circle 24 3

Wall drawing is becoming more focussed and minimal, though I hesitate to use that word. Something is activated when multiple layers of chalk are built up, the form appears more solid and sculptural.

The wall turns black, ready for new drawings.

black

I talked about a need for new approaches to the ongoing wall piece in my last post. Since then I have been conducting experiments with new forms:

new forms

Responding to criticism, I have chosen an indentation in the studio to trace and repeat in the above rhomboid form. Care was taken to ensure the chosen mark’s shape could not be easily read as animal like, or to evoke many associations beyond it’s own pure form.

shape of itself

I am preparing for our MFA mid term show this Thursday night in the art college. Rather than try to seek a resolution, where the whole wall coheres as a piece, I have decided to heed one of my tutors advice and set up an experimental drawing ‘lab’ for the duration of the show. This will free me up, the idea of having to produce a ‘resolved’ piece fills me with anxiety. In my experience anxiety is a perrenial enemy of creativity.

One possible idea would be to use black as a framing device, perhaps with the repeated blob shape, as in this hastily mocked up photoshop picture:

mock

This would heighten the impact of the central band of marks. Another idea for potential development is sanding the wall. I like the looking through tracing paper effect of this, as seen in this small section:

sandy

The piece will continue to evolve in the coming days, over the duration of the show. I will be performing in a time based work. I’ll update this blog with what happens.

The Orpheus building wall piece has continued to grow over the last few weeks. I have employed the same rational, measured and almost ritualistic process of tracing and transferring marks in it’s creation.

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wall1

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Marks congregate around my eye level, the natural and most comfortable place to work. In this way I leave a trace of the mass of my own self on the space.

walle

Several sections occur where where marks are most layered and concentrated.

walld

A photograph of one wall inverted. I think it resembles a constellation.

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I could continue this approach until the end of the academic year, but I want to interrupt it and set new rules.

I joined several pieces of wood together that I had drilled, hacked and otherwise distressed.

One red lamp and long exposures create the impression of the room being bathed in a red, somehow primordial glow.

The assembled, glowing structure appears like some kind of hive ready to crack open to ooze lava.

hive2house

bones

This ‘difficult’ work was one of those that I gave up on and turned around to face the wall for about a month. When I came to look at it again I found I was more favourably disposed to it. The central image is a battleship. The dinosaur skulls were added later.

night falling on windows

I’m pleased to have reached my 100th blog post. Here is another large scale drawing from a long time ago. Layers of compressed charcoal build up the tones. I washed over them with a brush, which formed the drips. the perspective is off but the piece was more concerned with creating an atmosphere. It’s based on the Belfast Telegraph building on York Street.

grey granite morning

Here is one of a series of large scale images of Belfast buildings I made using compressed charcoal on cardboard around 2001. An art college tutor interpreted them as being akin to Western sets, appearing somehow hollow and unpopulated. This piece is around 6×5 foot in size.

My friend just pointed outed that the title refers to a line from “on your own again” by Scott Walker, from the incredible Scott 4 album. The haunting lyrics must have been floating round in my head when I titled this piece.

 

belmont

 

 

This is the last in the recent series of drawings from around 2001 that I have decided to post. It is a view of the old part of Belmont primary school in Belfast that I attended in the 1980s. It’s drawn from a photograph of the building in strong sunlight. The shadows and darkness have been exaggerated in my usual way, so that it appears quite oppressive and prison like.

 

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