Context
After graduating from the National Art School in 2000 I spent many more years at University trying to get an 'education'.
I studied Marketing and Organisational Behaviour, Politics, Law, Sociology, Information Technology, Design, Finance and on and on, really I did enough subjects to graduate from 3 degrees.
No matter how I tried I couldn't 'undo' my Art brain.
I realised this most profoundly when coming across the theory of 'the state of nature' as described by Thomas Hobbes. A Social Evolutionary theory of humankind before organised society, whereby the natural state of humankind is animalistic - a constant fight for survival against the elements.
It was an epiphany of sorts that the Abstract Expressionists' creative 'mind' is born in a 'State Of Nature' and through will alone can make sense of the world in which we live.
This is what I want to represent in my painting.
Not just finding order in chaos, but creating order.
Methodology
When I explain my process I often relate it to Sport.
Imagine a game of tennis:
Although it's not a ball bouncing at you, it's a red.
We don't hit a top spin lob, we activate the picture plane.
In stead of struggling to overcome 3 match points, we might wrestle with 3 point perspective.
The joy, the beauty is that at the end of the match - at the conclusion of the painting - we are witness to the pursuit of creation, the 'manifestation of will'.
Working in Mixed Media (predominantly oil and acrylic), starting with a figurative drawing on paper I collage that drawing onto board or canvas. Sometimes collaging multiple drawings together, and then coming in with paint and pen layer upon layer upon layer.
I'm really passionate about Surface. It's chunky, Textural.
I like to work the Painting until it can't really handle any more, or it gets to the point that I am going around in circles - while simultaneously maintaining a balance of composition and metaphor.
In this way I am both the Conductor and the Journeyman.
Outcomes
'You have to have the time to feel sorry for yourself in order to be a good abstract expressionist'. Robert Rauschenberg
I think that this a great quote, perhaps now out of date? I think that it needs to be revised, 'You have to be an abstract expressionist in order to not feel sorry for yourself'.
The world is in the midst of a global pandemic for the first time in 100 years. As a result countless people have lost their jobs and their livelihoods - simultaneously we are on the cusp of a Climate Change Crisis - and multinationals like Facebook, Google and Amazon are changing the way we learn (fake news), the way we work (automation) and how ultimately how we feel about ourselves.
We need to learn to live with it. There are now more than ever an increasing number of people in this world with the time to feel sorry for themselves. I want a body of work that Celebrates the creative pursuit as a means and end to itself, not as a therapy but as a necessity - a celebration.
