Much time has passed since our last meeting in November, and not much artwork has been done by me since then.
In my defence, aside from Christmas and travelling, on the domestic level, the world globally has been kinda crasy. The two things that come to mind (they certainly take up a significant portion of my attention) are the political situation and AI advancements. With this in the background, I had an opportunity to look as attentively as I could muster at my psyche in a state of agitation, my work patterns, my relationship to global and local politics (which I resolutely ignored until the Venezuela incident) and the new technology phenomenon. I`d love to know your feelings on these subjects. At the same time, I am aware that this might be an attempt to dodge the subject of art work.
In November, I visited Sagrada Familia in Barcelona for the first time, and then recently, I went to see the Turner and Constable exhibition at Tate Britain (Enjoyed very much seeing such breadth of work by the two artists and concluded that Constable looks amateurish next to Turner). These two visits confirmed my thinking that the most beautiful and accomplished work in the visual arts has been done. There is nothing that can surpass what has already been explored within the capabilities of the known media. The only point remaining for an artist is self-exploration. In fact, the self-exploration has always been the main point.
And this I have been doing with abandon, but not necessarily translating it into art work. Instead, I let my mind loose in finding distractions. Firstly, I signed up for an esoteric Telegram-based course on non-ageing and eternal life , from which I was kicked out mid-term – all very exciting and insightful! Then, I deep-dived into global news and allowed myself to react to it on Social Media, which was also insightful about how easily one can get sucked into other people’s agendas. In conclusion, the unstable nature of my art work that always frustrated me became apparent as my natural flow both in art and in life. What if I let it take its course instead of directing and containing? These meetings with you, intended as another instrument of enforcement, became something far better – an encouragement to understand my work and self as an artist.
The recent works are: two little portrait drawings of babies that are almost entirely commercial projects; a painting of a window with indoor plants – enjoyed exploring ways of painting light; the still life with hyacinths was less successful in my opinion; the gallery interior continued the contrajours theme; the following study of the door – an attempt to loosen up the realism of the previous study.
I look forward to chatting with you both!
What I notice time and again is that the work that comes from research is a successful piece (for me!); the work that follows is usually based on wanting to affirm the findings and/or commercialise, but inevitably I lose my initial interest, and it becomes a fail (for me!). Hence, steady progress is a concept that cannot work for me. The problem is, not every day do I find something interesting enough to paint or draw that triggers genuine research… Meh.
