Fourth Year Paper 2.1
Posted by Jona8than | Labels: art, drawing, essay, in progress, paper, reading, Work, writing | Posted On Monday, March 24, 2008 at 4:39 p.m.
Still needs some more revising...
My work deals with the ideas of death and loss, through the use of objects, space, and narrative. I use objects that have contain small memories and history to them, and by placing them in created and often neutral spaces, to convey the larger ideas of mortality and loss. I use the medium of drawing, for it can show the sensitively and vulnerabilities of being human. It is like a slow motion version of thought, for the process of drawing can be imprecise, and uncertain. Drawing captures this by the power of it being an unmediated impression of the artists hand and mark on the surface.
My research is very intuitive and habitual, a part of my daily routine. My research is engaged in areas of art, philosophy, gender issues, sexuality, sociology, literature and an increased interest in thanatology. Death and loss factor in my research in ideas dealing with how mortality and death are dealt with in western cultures, as in issues of confronting and overcoming. Ideas on desire and death have also become an idea of note as of late, the idea that death and desire are linked.
These drawings are a continuation of the drawings from last semester, albeit indirectly, a refocusing on the topics at hand. They led me through my research to a passage from Bill Viola
“I want to go to a place that’s seems like it’s at the end of the world. A vantage point from which one can stand and peer out in to the void—the world beyond…there is nothing to lean on. No references…
You finally realize that the void is yourself. It is like some huge mirror for your mind. Clear and uncluttered, it is the opposite of our urban distractive spaces. Out here, the unbound mind can run free. Imagination reigns. Space becomes a projection screen. Inside becomes outside. You can see what you are.”
This was an inspiration point for these drawings, to use the paper as a huge mirror for my mind. The emptiness of the paper would focus the attention on the objects, and create the mood associated with the idea.
The drawings are a collection of objects, and I am extrapolating from Christian Boltanski’s idea of ‘small memory’. For Christian Boltanski ‘small memory’, is memory about little things; trivia, jokes, memories about the little things in life. [ I’ll get the exact quote for this and footnote] The objects in these drawings have memory, but only about small things, small events. These objects however can be used, with their small memories to create larger meaning and ideas through the drawings of them.
The tie clip is a response to an event in my life; the drawing brings the words meditated passion to mind. I choose this specific object because it had personal meaning to me, but I felt it could communicate to others as well by drawing it. I drew this object existing in a neutral space, an empty space, as well as the other drawings. Luc Tuymans and Toba Khedoori both use large amounts of space in their works to a feeling of isolation and emptiness in their works, Khedoori in particular uses it to create a sense of placeless-ness and acute sense of isolation. The neutral space in my drawings work the same way, however they are not totally devoid of a referent like Khedoori’s or to an extent Tuymans, my drawings have a horizon line as a indicator of space and distance.
The tie clip is an object with social and cultural meaning to it, it is an object of restraint but yet also one of flourish. The ability of restraint is also seen as part of the flourish, the ability to restrain one’s self. The ties with its phallic connections play in to this.
Drawn in a realistic manner, from life, and surrounded it by a large mass of charcoal, the item has been marked with tape so it would not interfere with the drawing of the clip. The clip is surrounded with this greyness, to create a surface around the clip that is indeterminate and imposing, to equate it with death. The tie clip exists without the tie, so there is loss and inability to function. The desire for sex is often equated for the desire of death, for death holds the promise of release from desire.
The finger trap drawing is that of a finger trap in the empty or neutral space, hovering in the space and the drawing is split through the middle by the seam of the paper. Perspective and the horizon lines exist in the top of the drawing.
This object of the finger trap is a trick device, where you are trapped by your fingers, and when you try to haul or pull yourself out of, you only get more trapped, the trap tightens. The only way out is to push further in, and let go. The finger trap is made of pieces of bamboo, braided together; bamboo is often seen as a symbol of longevity as well as the twisting and twining in of braiding. The finger trap is a joke, not intended as a restraining device or such, but rather to be an example that one must think differently to escape a situation.
The split in this drawing is to change the perception of the drawing, an interruption of the braid, the linking of the finger trap. To escape the finger trap, one must push their fingers to the centre. If the finger trap is split in the drawing, can one escape when there is no centre to push to? Is one really trapped? So by giving the split, one can see the finger trap as complete or not.
The drawing of the hammer head is drawn in the upper half of the sheet, to place it close to the horizon line and give it a good expense of space.
The hammer head is a found object, was found with no handle. In a way it is decapitated, and remain useless. The head is still good, but it needs a new body, handle to work. I invested it with small, localized narrative through the use of the shadow; the shadow alludes to the missing handle, like the shadow of the handle had been burned in to the image, still there. The hammer head is scratched, and pitted from the activity of work. It is not the shiny new hammer of a store, but one with a history. By the look of the hammer, the lack of the handle and the shadow, along with its position on its side, all work to give the impression of the hammer head being dead.
The horizon line is included in all of the drawings, dividing the empty space up and giving ideas of distance and space. However this is all relative, for the space could be essentially a table top or a soccer field, there is nothing in the drawing to give accurate scale. This relates back to the Bill Viola quote stated above. The horizon line is also used for its placement of the vanishing points, which indicate where all things must go. An idea of Nietzsche also figures in to my including of the horizon line.
My work deals with the ideas of death and loss, through the use of objects, space, and narrative. I use objects that have contain small memories and history to them, and by placing them in created and often neutral spaces, to convey the larger ideas of mortality and loss. I use the medium of drawing, for it can show the sensitively and vulnerabilities of being human. It is like a slow motion version of thought, for the process of drawing can be imprecise, and uncertain. Drawing captures this by the power of it being an unmediated impression of the artists hand and mark on the surface.
My research is very intuitive and habitual, a part of my daily routine. My research is engaged in areas of art, philosophy, gender issues, sexuality, sociology, literature and an increased interest in thanatology. Death and loss factor in my research in ideas dealing with how mortality and death are dealt with in western cultures, as in issues of confronting and overcoming. Ideas on desire and death have also become an idea of note as of late, the idea that death and desire are linked.
These drawings are a continuation of the drawings from last semester, albeit indirectly, a refocusing on the topics at hand. They led me through my research to a passage from Bill Viola
“I want to go to a place that’s seems like it’s at the end of the world. A vantage point from which one can stand and peer out in to the void—the world beyond…there is nothing to lean on. No references…
You finally realize that the void is yourself. It is like some huge mirror for your mind. Clear and uncluttered, it is the opposite of our urban distractive spaces. Out here, the unbound mind can run free. Imagination reigns. Space becomes a projection screen. Inside becomes outside. You can see what you are.”
This was an inspiration point for these drawings, to use the paper as a huge mirror for my mind. The emptiness of the paper would focus the attention on the objects, and create the mood associated with the idea.
The drawings are a collection of objects, and I am extrapolating from Christian Boltanski’s idea of ‘small memory’. For Christian Boltanski ‘small memory’, is memory about little things; trivia, jokes, memories about the little things in life. [ I’ll get the exact quote for this and footnote] The objects in these drawings have memory, but only about small things, small events. These objects however can be used, with their small memories to create larger meaning and ideas through the drawings of them.
The tie clip is a response to an event in my life; the drawing brings the words meditated passion to mind. I choose this specific object because it had personal meaning to me, but I felt it could communicate to others as well by drawing it. I drew this object existing in a neutral space, an empty space, as well as the other drawings. Luc Tuymans and Toba Khedoori both use large amounts of space in their works to a feeling of isolation and emptiness in their works, Khedoori in particular uses it to create a sense of placeless-ness and acute sense of isolation. The neutral space in my drawings work the same way, however they are not totally devoid of a referent like Khedoori’s or to an extent Tuymans, my drawings have a horizon line as a indicator of space and distance.
The tie clip is an object with social and cultural meaning to it, it is an object of restraint but yet also one of flourish. The ability of restraint is also seen as part of the flourish, the ability to restrain one’s self. The ties with its phallic connections play in to this.
Drawn in a realistic manner, from life, and surrounded it by a large mass of charcoal, the item has been marked with tape so it would not interfere with the drawing of the clip. The clip is surrounded with this greyness, to create a surface around the clip that is indeterminate and imposing, to equate it with death. The tie clip exists without the tie, so there is loss and inability to function. The desire for sex is often equated for the desire of death, for death holds the promise of release from desire.
The finger trap drawing is that of a finger trap in the empty or neutral space, hovering in the space and the drawing is split through the middle by the seam of the paper. Perspective and the horizon lines exist in the top of the drawing.
This object of the finger trap is a trick device, where you are trapped by your fingers, and when you try to haul or pull yourself out of, you only get more trapped, the trap tightens. The only way out is to push further in, and let go. The finger trap is made of pieces of bamboo, braided together; bamboo is often seen as a symbol of longevity as well as the twisting and twining in of braiding. The finger trap is a joke, not intended as a restraining device or such, but rather to be an example that one must think differently to escape a situation.
The split in this drawing is to change the perception of the drawing, an interruption of the braid, the linking of the finger trap. To escape the finger trap, one must push their fingers to the centre. If the finger trap is split in the drawing, can one escape when there is no centre to push to? Is one really trapped? So by giving the split, one can see the finger trap as complete or not.
The drawing of the hammer head is drawn in the upper half of the sheet, to place it close to the horizon line and give it a good expense of space.
The hammer head is a found object, was found with no handle. In a way it is decapitated, and remain useless. The head is still good, but it needs a new body, handle to work. I invested it with small, localized narrative through the use of the shadow; the shadow alludes to the missing handle, like the shadow of the handle had been burned in to the image, still there. The hammer head is scratched, and pitted from the activity of work. It is not the shiny new hammer of a store, but one with a history. By the look of the hammer, the lack of the handle and the shadow, along with its position on its side, all work to give the impression of the hammer head being dead.
The horizon line is included in all of the drawings, dividing the empty space up and giving ideas of distance and space. However this is all relative, for the space could be essentially a table top or a soccer field, there is nothing in the drawing to give accurate scale. This relates back to the Bill Viola quote stated above. The horizon line is also used for its placement of the vanishing points, which indicate where all things must go. An idea of Nietzsche also figures in to my including of the horizon line.
