ground - over ground + underground (plus scoring)

Today was quite productive. I didn't make anything that made me go wow but I feel as if I was able to clarify some things. I think I'm trying to play with plans of colour / tone generating depth like Rothko did but do it in photography too. I found this by cutting sections out and then overlaying them on other colours but it wasn't enough. It was much better where there were more layers or that the colour underneath was also above.

I got into cutting into shapes where the inside dictated the outside. But, still with the same arrangement liked the architectural landscape view as well as the top down flat abstract plan view. Can't figure that out or whether I have to (decide on one or the other).

Then I got really into the black paper and started scoring into the paper. I liked how these lines were not physical and easier to see when photographing along the surface of the paper. I worked on top with pencil small squares. It was cool because I was into them as objects, the photography had inspired the actual diagram as apposed to the other way around - making something to be photographed. The black paper diagram curvy line thing was really cool because in the light it changed, you had to hold and move it to see what was good about it - it would be crap in a frame. Would be good on the floor where you could walk around it.

Also been reading a lot of Flusser today - but more on that another day.......... tbc perpetually.....

Progress

currently giving myself 1/10 for progress. Not really pleased with my images. I did some more with string yesterday but not crazy about them.

I have been checking out Paul Sietsema's images on the internet. I saw and really liked one of his videos at the Berlin Beinialle last year. I couldn't see enough of his drawings, but liked the simplicity of them, and the foundness of them. Still feel that I have something different to contribute. Though I like found stuff, sometimes I find the sentimentality attached to them an aesthetic that makes me cringe, and a strange sort of insipid kitsch.

Today is going to be super art day. Mainly going to be cutting things, and less photographing, I think, but I just can't help it, even if the light isn't perfect I still want to photo beautiful arrangements. Looking forward to buying more paper, as today I have to use up all my paper - but in a painfully minimal way that feels that I haven't finished.

Pop Life - personal reflection - (on a review of it)

"Pop Life deserves to be a hit, though, because it tries so hard to get the genie back into the bottle – to distil, as far as possible, a whole chapter of modern times in which a particular kind of art turned itself into pure commodity. " Laura Cumming, Observer Oct 4th

It was so pleasing to read this review. Sorry I haven't seen the exhibition, in the wrong continent, or right one depending on your location and desire to see the show. I was pleased with how, according to the review Pop Art was continued from the historically confirmed Pop Art period of Warhol to the present day Hirst's diamond encrusted skull. It felt good to finally see condensed in words how commodity and commercialism really have been something pervasive and present in the art works produced recently. Personally as an artist I have always found the pressure to brand myself and produce work that fitted nicely into a box frustrating and some how an antithesis to what I considered being an artist involved.

I got tired of the obvious tricks being used in a lot of contemporary art, visual puns that are words based or the blunt conjoining of two things e.g. diamonds and a skull /wealth + death.
"composed of fast art: nothing to detain you for long"  
 Laura Cumming, Observer Oct 4th

It is about time for something new, something more considered more subtle with an positivity other than wealth seeking. I know the art world is all about money, but for artists like myself who actively decided to stop making artwork that was commercially successful to seek something else (and not the only one), it is about time there was some sort of transition from, or re-equaluation of this, or at least more writing from this point of view. I felt that Cumming's review did acknowledge this. Recently I went to an artists/designers talk, one of the speakers said, no artist now makes art 'after working in the paddy field all day', but in reality the majority of artists I know all have jobs to support their art work. We talk about 'professional artists' where we expect the word professional to mean that they make money from it, we should obviously not consider earning money from their art as validity of their role as an artist in society.

I want to go back to the quote  "composed of fast art: nothing to detain you for long".  We need to consider how the internet is affecting us, changing us. Personally I love the internet and have to fight off my surfing addiction. As good as it is, our attention spans are changing, we all have ADHD, flicking from one window to the next. I doubt anyone has read to this part of this post (I doubt I would have). Things around us are not faster, our duration of focus has changed. Things are not considered, conversations are text messages. Please don't think of me as an old fuddy duddy conservative seeking stop change at all costs, but think of me as someone who wants you to see slow life - consideration - empty space, as something new that we can earth to allow us to look at the world with fresh eyes.

some work today

with this picture i drew lines on the paper first but then felt that there needed to be layers, more depth so I cut sections out. Now the lines are edges as well as lines on the paper. This one again refers to the Suprematists.

 This one was just cut up bits of black paper. I was interested in the arrangement and if i up the contrast of the image using photoshop the space or depth would have been flattened more so imperceptable. this one really needs to be in a post of its own. It doesn't work surrounded by other images. I like the human quality of these lines, which is a contrast to my normal ruler lines.

 this one i liked because, hopefully at a first glance it is a cross then you can see that the pencil line travels over the paper.

suprematists

Got really into the Suprematists today. I especially liked Malevich's Suprematism with Eight Rectangles because it was so simple and because it has so much potential for my own work. I'm imagining remaking it or many variations by laying red rectangles on a white piece of paper and then photographing it. This way playing with surface and depth.