March 19, 2015
This post, like the "Drawing Is Creepy" post from October 28, 2014 is an example of part of the thought process behind my approach to the art I create. This writing, like most of the blog posts, has not been highly edited and should be read as a sketch which might feed into further explorations.
The other day I sat down at the keyboard to do that thing all artists do now and then, or at least whenever external forces press upon them to do it: re-write, edit down, expand upon, or just start writing an artist statement and bio. It is something all artists have to do at some point, there is no way around it. But we torture ourselves with us. And the only torture worse than writing an artists statement is reading one; you can just feel the pain and agony the artist felt having to not just write about her or his work, but to also write about his or herself. Usually I try to avoid reading an artist statement when I go into a gallery, at least until curiosity gets the best of me. Then if the work piques my interest in some way that I think “maybe this person has something in the artist statement which will give me a bit more insight to what is happening here”, I saunter over to the reception counter to see what papers have been laid out to provide the validation needed to accept “this is art”. If I am lucky, beyond a price/title list, some reviews both recent and distant, and a formal curriculum vitae, there won’t be an artist statement amongst the offerings. Considering not every gallery or exhibition space can be a mini-museum wanna be, hosting exhibition events with viewers brought in by the bus load on a Saturday afternoon to gaze in wonderment whilst they extend their selfie sticks into the crowd; who needs to know what the artist has to say about the work in that milieu? Reality is that in most galleries and spaces where art is exhibited you will find an artist statement, so you better begin writing one that not only myself but hopefully the hundreds of others who will encounter your work and have their interest piqued enough to want to know more about the work and about the artist behind, will want to read. It is a necessary part of what we do, and we need to stop allowing ourselves to play the victim to its torture, and begin writing the artist statement we want to read about our work and about ourselves. Its time we begin understanding what artists statements really are and writing them in the way they deserve to be written.
What is an artist statement and bio? Sure, it is a couple of paragraphs an artist writes about the work she or he is exhibiting, either specific to a particular body of work or to the work in general. It might talk about the thoughts and process, both material and conceptual, from which the work evolved. Unlike the artist bio, the artist statement is often written in the first person, whereas the bio might be written by the artist about him or herself in the third person, as strange as that might sound. To sum it up, the artist statement and bio provides the reader, who is hopefully also the viewer, a written image of the work and the person behind it. They are in this sense a self portrait.
How can an artist write a self portrait of his or her art? Doesn’t there have to be some ‘self’ to go along with the ‘portrait’? Let’s face it, not every work of art an artist creates embodies his or herself. Does it? No, it doesn’t, and I don’t think it should. How bored we would all become if all the art we experienced was just about the artist. However just as it is the natural inclination of humans to put a name to a face, so to is it the desire of most viewers of art to put an artist ‘behind’ the work. Therefore what and how an artist writes about the work she or he creates begins to form an image of the artist behind the work as well as the work itself.
As an artist one of the most frustrating moments I ever experienced was in an art history seminar I was enrolled in whilst studying for a degree in that field after finishing up my BFA in painting. The postdoc leading that seminar on the European Avant Garde of the 1950s-1960s in prepping us on how to work with sources for the presentations and papers we would be delivering stated: do not use or trust anything an artist has written or said about his work. It is almost always untrue. I was personally offended by this statement. Not that it is false to say much of what an artist might write or say about his or her work is possibly untruthful or misleading, after all most of those whose work has had a lasting impact in the Twentieth Century have been coyotes whose work has been built on a precipice of manipulation and self-mythologization. But to say because of this fact of known obfuscation on the part of the artist scholars should dismiss what an artist has to say about his or her work is wrong. Often the best way to get to the whole truth is to first sort through all the halfs.
Does this mean as an artist it is okay to write about your work in half truths? No. Willful ambiguity that is genuine and supports the work and the image the artist is attempting to convey are justifiable, as long as it is genuine and integral to the work. The artist as creator, initiator, is intrinsic to the work; abstrusity in biography can be tolerated too, when it is genuine. In the words of Gustave Flaubert “of all lies, art is the least untrue”. Therefore within a genuine artistic half truth lies the potential of a whole truth.
As artists writing about ourselves and our work it is at times better to leave a door unlocked or slightly ajar, rather than wide open with a flashing arrow pointing the reader/viewer the way down the path of full comprehension. He or she might decide to try a door handle or take a peek behind to see what else might be discovered beyond the path the artist has seemingly laid out to the work. Or the reader/viewer might decided to stay on that path, ignoring what might branch off in other directions; that is for him or her to decide, not for the artist to dictate. Creating this space for the reader/viewer to choose for him or herself, surrendering control of interpretation, opens up a space for the reader/viewer to engage with the art on a more personal level. Both the reader/viewer and the art are enriched by this openness; the biography of the artist, the biography [statement] of the work and the biography of the reader/viewer are given the chance to combine in ways a directed telling of the work and the artist’s biography otherwise constrains.
Back to my own adventures in writing, rewriting, editing my artist statement and bio. Spurred on by a deadline to provide one for an exhibit I am having this June, and seeing how the various statements I had on file no longer seemed to fit with the work I am planning to show, I produced the following:
I make art as a means to explore existential questions of the mind-body relationship as they relate to neurological and biological processes, structures, language, and the understanding and expression of the self and all that is beyond the self, the other. I am a painter and it is as a painter that I approach all I create regardless of the final form a piece may take. At times these forms occupy a place between that which we think we know should be and how we are physically experiencing a place in the moment; a morphing occurs driven by both the concept, its manifestation and how the viewer stands in relation to the work.
The paintings exhibited here are part of an exploration of the image of self, embodied by the painting and subsequently fractured by the mirror frame.
Robyn Thomas received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art (Painting) from Kent State University in 1991. In addition, she has studied Art History, Philosophy and Pedagogy at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany and was a guest student at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design/Staatliche Hochschul für Gestaltung Karlsruhe in the Institute for Art and Media Theory/Institut für Kunstwissenschaft und Medienphilosophie. She is currently a candidate in the MFA Creative Practice program of Transart Institute/Plymouth University[UK]. Robyn Thomas has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions throughout Germany and the United States. She currently lives and paints in Providence, Rhode Island USA.
While I wrote the first draft of this I did not think of it as a self portrait. Placing the writing into the context of a self portrait came to me in the wee hours of the following morning, as I awoke to my usual mid-life, mid-sleep insomniatic moment with the understanding ‘this is what it is’ in my head. Later that morning I sat down with the previous days writing, and severely hacked away a significant portion of what I had written, hopefully leaving doors unlocked and ajar for the reader/viewers to try opening on their own. Could I have said more? Could I have said less? Yes. Am I being willfully ambiguous for the sake of obfuscation? Or is the beclouding a pick-axe I am generously offering the reader/viewer with the genuine intent that should he or she decide to take it into their own hands and apply it to the words and works, they will find the whole hidden amongst the halfs?
This remains to be seen. For now the statement and bio have been written and sent off to the gallery director’s email. This version has taken its place not only in the file with those that came before it and where it will undoubtedly be joined soon by others, but also amongst the self portraits.