MA Y2

MA Y2

Researching Hanne Darboven works based on the Gregorian calendar, in which she shows a way to represent time as both the constant flux of life and a clear framework of time-what she called “graphic equivalent for the basically no visual phenomenon of time” I was interested in examining how that could translate to a domestic framework, diary or timetable. 

I kept a detailed and colour coded weekly calendar of my families timetables as a matter of course and wanted to use that as a way of reflecting on the time I had available to make work- to see what that time looked like. When time (normally quite limited) was available for me to research or make work it was marked on the calendar but I also wanted to punctuate this somehow by making a quick piece of work to document this constrained time. 

 

 By taking images on my phone I was able to capture the very specific quality of image required. The images were intended to recall how rolls of film were finished before digital image making existed. When you needed to develop a roll of film it needed to be finished and rather than ‘waste’ any images left on the film one would take a photograph of something nearby: - a member of your family, a pet, the garden a bunch of flowers etc. it seemed to me there was a certain tension between the ‘value’ of the subject and the distance you were prepared to physically move to take it. I was also concerned with how creative that constraint might be.

What became interesting was how the images developed- what started as a fairly perfunctory exercise in recording something aesthetic- flowers, children, nature developed into an something very different as I tired of making similar images daily. 

 

The next set of images began to take on a different aesthetic as I went back time and again out of both necessity and proximity to the spaces my children inhabit and examined the tangle of their toys and ephemera- how things were placed and how they were left.

 

Over the Xmas holidays and with both my children ill I felt unable to leave the house and again out of necessity made a model of a calendar and had to work with what was available in the house. Using off-cuts of decking and a children’s craft plaster cast set I structured a 3D calendar hour by hour- the same size as the paper original. This piece later exhibited as, 15hours, 7days, 4weeks, 4months, utilised domestic and professional schedules as a starting point to isolate and pinpoint the limited time available to make work. These spaces of time are carved out and documented; defining a moment used as punctuation to record my immediate surroundings, wherever that may be. Rendered in materials and processes all found within my immediate domestic environment - the limited time I have to make work was physically chipped out of the piece inviting reflections on restriction of time as not only a necessity but as a creative tool.

 

Having used a series of different processes and techniques throughout this course- partly in reaction to my longstanding practice consisting of only painting and drawing. I have spent the last two years going against what I had done in the past and the immediacy of the action of painting by learning new techniques- all of which involved a series of processes, a rarity for me.

 I wanted a way of picking up painting again using a similar ongoing method and started painted and collage pieces on purchased diary pages- one per day. Again using the concept of a restricted time limit to make work quickly. As a result the pieces were made in my studio using a mixture of painted pieces, current magazines and newspapers and old memorabilia that was hanging around.

 

The idea of painting has never been separate from the idea of text for me- my early inspirations were graphic- Smash Hits magazines and Dada, punk and pop-art-: -images and words functioning together, ideas that are communicated quickly. My early work consistently worked with image and text- often I had would create a title first and the pictorial element would be almost an illustration of that. Inspired by this Nicolas Bourriaud interview  to research in a range of writings the idea of separating these two elements out as a way to start thinking about painting again began to interest me. There was something intriguing about a specific use of female adolescent language, outlined in this article, which identifies young woman as the leaders of linguistic change historically. Researching artists who had worked with text like Jessica Voorsanger and particularly painted text like Bob and Roberta Smith and Louise Fishmens “Angry paintings” I reflected on past work and whether instead of the idea for the painting coming from the title that it might be interesting if the titles WERE the paintings. I selected 5 titles and developed the paintings. 

 

As we moved into a large exhibition space and I needed to make these texts as large as possible using bed sheets with spray paint to make them both big and cheap. Picturing the recent occupation by squatter activist of a dis-used Bank of England in Liverpool and how that speed of execution of banners like that can make any message seem like manifesto or protest of some kind, this outcome seemed to recall similar statements/manifestos that I pronounced as a teenager. 

 

The finished installation recalls not only this but the protests happening concurrently at the Tate’s new opening where an activist group protested the exclusion of artist Ana Mendieta. These text pieces were displayed with the diary assemblages and some quick paintings developing shapes and colour from them- serving as a physical exercise in using paint again.