After the conversation Laura Gonzalez and I had this month I began to re-think once more my relationship to drawing and how I define myself as an artist. Am I a painter? Am I a drawer? And how does the 3D/sculptural fit into all of this? Laura recommended that I check out the journal TRACEY and the Drawing Research Network. I have begun exploring both websites and submitted a request to join DRN.
We discussed the two installations I have been working on for the journal pages, with emphasis on the use of mirrors, the illusion/doubling which occurs, the relationship of self portraiture-portraiture and ‘truth’ that are brought forth in the installations. Where does our knowledge of self, the truths we know about who we are, reside? How can I challenge the symbolic sensibilities to push the boundaries beyond representation to presentation? This begins to happen with the mirror box, at least it is more apparent than with the tunnel. This could be because it is much harder to present online at this stage as it is a piece where the physical experience is so important. I need to carefully consider how I document the actual installation so that it comes across in the online presentation. I plan to bring the mirrored box to the winter residency along with the pages of the journal; the form of the container in which they will be brought and presented is still under consideration.
Another part of our conversation dealt with further progression of the paintings, beyond the journal pages and sketchbook. I am planning, once the journal is ‘complete’, around 100 pages and the installations have been documented, to begin larger paintings on paper which I plan to bring to Berlin. These will take their cues from themes, images and approaches I have taken in the journal pages, but be a larger scale and thus worked over a longer period with more careful deliberation. Laura asked if I was considering how to challenge the edges, the rectilinear/squareness of the picture plane. I am not sure how exactly at this moment, but the thought has now been planted in my head. It may start to sprout this next month in the journal pages. This thought and surrounding discussion led to my presenting another project I am working on, conceived separately yet related to what I am doing for my Transart project.
June 2015 I will be taking part in a two-person show in the Main Gallery space of AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island. The work I plan to show in the space consists of an assortment of paintings from various series I created between 2010-2014, prior to beginning my studies with Transart Institute. As I have begun to think about the whiches, whats and hows of this exhibit I came to a solution much related to the two installations of the journal. And it also challenges the ‘edges’ of painting beyond the square/rectangle. As a result of this connection along with the fact that these paintings were created during a period of increasing and intense seizure activity I have decided to include this exhibition, and the process behind it, in my project blog. I will be adding more information and documentation of this in the next month.