November 2024 MFA End of Year

Artist Statement

 From the walk to my studio, I take in the sight and sound of the pavement, park, and distant vistas. The fragmented views of the landscape and sensory experiences of walking filter into works that move between traces of narrative and moments of abstraction. Canvases may emerge fractured, emptied of narrative, or become meditations on paint itself, embracing both specificity and openness.

 The challenge of not pre-planning or composing paintings lies in the continuous evolution of the image - a challenge I met guided by the principles of membranism, emergence, and provisionality.

 In the first instance, membranism speaks to the interconnectedness between self, environment, and material, emphasising the exchange of sensations and forms across boundaries. This concept mirrors the way textures and impressions from the walk become part of the painting process.

In the second instance, emergence in the work refers to decisions arising as evolving responses to initial marks, layers, or forms, guided by the act of painting rather than pre-planning.

Finally, because these works represent cumulative attempts to realise their forms, their provisionality underscores the iterative nature of my practice. Works remain open-ended, embracing ongoing discovery rather than finality.

Figure 1. Sally Barron, Green and leaves, Oil on Paper and linen, 2024.

Exhibitions of Influence

Notes to Self - Reflecting on Recent Exhibitions

How might recent exhibitions in Auckland, broadly labeled as 'Abstract Art,' reflect a shared but perhaps diffuse set of concerns? While certain themes—such as an interest in pattern, ornamentation, and the prominence of line—come forward, is there an underlying direction that unifies them, or are they instead a series of individual explorations?

Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckand

Three Approaches, Three Rooms 10 October - 7 December

In this exhibition, fellow Tāmaki Makaurau artists Christian Dimick, Dayle Palfreyman, and Peter Simpson transform the gallery’s three main spaces through painting, installation, and film. Each artist brings a unique, contrasting perspective, but Christian Dimick’s work is most resonant with my own practice. Dimick’s improvisational approach uses calico to hold residual marks after paint layers are partially removed. These works evoke the ephemeral nature of memories, dreams, and thoughts—concepts central to my own exploration of provisionality and the impossibility of fully capturing fleeting impressions. Dimick’s process visualizes painting as an open, continuous exchange, where fragments—a line, a dream, a layer—appear through surface, texture, and space (fig. 1).

Dimick’s repeated motifs of the house and certain animals is similar to the way I have currently been using more generic ‘iconic’ landscape motifs, hills, islands, stars, sun etc, in my paintings. I notice how he draws on childhood memories using a ‘childlike’ drawing style. This disinhibited, faux naive way of drawing is immensely appealing to me as it is an example of switching on the right hand side of the brain to allow imagery to become uniquely personal, in a way that so far I have largely kept to sketchbooks. Qualities found in the works of Cy Twombly spring to mind and at this point worth noting. Max Kozloff, American art historian and art critic, observed Twombly’s work, saying, “Without an inherent tone of struggle, or pretence of evoking the unconscious, his calligraphy assumes that it was nothing other than what it was.”1

Figure 1. Christian Dimick, WHERE WE STORE THE BLANKETS, 2024. Oil and acrylic, collage, calico on canvas.

Key experiments I have done since seeing this show have been printmaking, using collages I made earlier in the year and experimenting with layering and ghost images of these (see fig. 2-7).

Figure 2. Whitecliffe College printroom 2024

Figure 3. Sally Barron, footnotes, 2024, printed collage on paper, 210 × 297 mm.

Figure 4. Sally Barron, footnotes, 2024, printed collage on paper, 210 × 297 mm.

Previous Exhibition at Gus Fisher Gallery

DEREK JARMAN: DELPHINIUM DAYS

 

15 June – 14 September 2024

I was thinking about Jarmans collages once I made these, and remembered the layering of his tar and found objects especially.

Figure 4. Derek Jarman, Imperial Dreams, Material Nightmares 1988, Oil and mixed media on canvas

Figure 5. Sally Barron, footnotes, 2024, printed collage on paper, 210 × 297 mm.

Figure 6. Sally Barron, footnotes, 2024, ghost print, printed collage on paper, 210 × 297 mm.

Figure 7. Sally Barron, footnotes, 2024, printed collage on paper, 210 × 297 mm.

Coating the original collages with layers of printers ink made them begin to solidify into more sculptural objects (see fig. 8).

Figure 8. Sally Barron, footnotes, 2024, collage on canvas and cardboard, 210 × 297 mm.

detail

This in turn led me to visualise my smaller collages mounted on wooden platforms to give further depth to them as little structures, a key idea behind how they will be shown in the final exhibition (see fig. 9).

Figure 9. Sally Barron, Colour/Form, collage on canvas mounted on plywood.

Emma McIntrye - Objects & Vapours

(off site Coastal Signs)

McIntyre sees the alchemical process of sensory experience and memory as essential to painting, using the medium’s physicality to its fullest. She combines oil and mineral-based paints, including oxidized iron, creating rusted surfaces inspired by the experiments of Sigmar Polke and Robert Rauschenberg (see fig. 10).

Fig. 10. Emma McIntyre, Incantation, 2024, oil and iron oxide on canvas, 2490 x 1980 mm.

In Emma McIntyre’s “Note to Self”, her text from an artists talk accompanying the exhibition, she writes of “questions leading to more questions… and paintings leading to more paintings”.2 McIntyre references Roland Barthes’ idea that "what pleasure wants is the site of a loss, the seam, the cut, the dissolve, which seizes the subject in the midst of bliss," suggesting that pleasure is intensified by moments of disruption or interruption.3

These two ideas seem very pertinent to my end of year show, where I have worked and reworked old and new paintings, cut and sewn them together, explored all the iterations of each one, yet still could change every one of them all over again.

Smaller paintings that grow and accumulate layers have been an important accompaniment to my larger works. There is less pressure of them to be completed, and they may stay in the studio on the wall for months before I make a single or a few marks almost in passing, then leave again (see figs. 11 and 12).

Figure 11. Sally Barron, Raiders, Oil on canvas, 650mm x 800 mm, 2024

Figure 12. Sally Barron, Raiders, Oil on canvas, 650mm x 800 mm, 2024

wip at Demo

Figure 13. Sally Barron, starlight, Oil on canvas, 650mm x 800 mm, 2024

Footnotes

1 "In Contemplation of Lines and Scribbles – Cy Twombly’s Beautiful Writing," Art World, accessed November 15, 2024, https://www.artdex.com/about-us/.

2 Emma McIntyre, "Note to Self," Frog 21, February 2023, https://chateaushatto.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/2023-Emma-McIntyre-Frog-22Note-to-Self22.pdf.

3 Roland Barthes and Richard Howard, The Pleasure of the Text, trans. Richard Miller (New York: The Noonday Press, 1975), 7.

Post Medium and me

In his essay "Medium Specificity in Post-Media Practice," Alessandro Chierico engages with Rosalind Krauss's theories from The Optical Unconscious (1993), where Krauss examines Clement Greenberg's assessment of Jackson Pollock through his notion of "medium specificity."1 While Greenberg interprets Pollock’s work as a display of painting’s inherent qualities, Krauss argues that Pollock’s drippings represent a new artistic practice rather than a mere celebration of the medium. Pollock’s horizontal painting technique and distinct methods for creating his drippings establish a set of conventions unique to his work.2

Krauss elaborates:

To sustain artistic practice, a medium must be a supporting structure, generative of a set of conventions, some of which, in assuming the medium itself as their subject, will be wholly 'specific' to it, thus producing an experience of their own necessity 3.

Krauss suggests that, in our post-medium condition, emphasis shifts from the medium itself to "specific objects". Krauss, however, argues that artists must reinvent their mediums, merging the specificities of the media with their creative intentions through conventions that bring the artwork into being. This reinvention of medium for artistic purposes, she asserts, is crucial to contemporary art practice.4

This perspective relates to my approach in my next series of sewn and collaged paintings, where stitching, gluing, and configuring spaces or pauses between the works allow the medium itself to generate meaning and structure (fig. 1).

Figure 1, Sally Barron, Single memory, Oil and collage on canvas, 16500mm x 1800mm 2024

I have been considering repeating pattern and negative space, (in some cases literally blank canvas pieces), as an impactful way to create abstraction from other painted sources.

Figure 1. Sally Barron, second landscapes, 2024. House paint, acrylic, ink, and oil on canvas, 2050 x 900 mm.

The work of Jo Bradley and Sterling Ruby have been influential as both use an industrial sewing background to create their work (fig. 2).

Figure 2, Joe Bradley, East Coker, 2013, oil on canvas, 100 × 102 inches (254 × 259.1 cm). Photo courtesy of the artist.

Working on the floor allowed me to use long-handled brushes from a standing position, and walking over the canvas left imprints, showing the process of making the work on the floor rather than on the wall. Other methods, such as pouring, dragging tools, and imprinting with objects, also influenced the texture and marks (fig. 3).

Figure 3, Sally Barron, Weather Notes, Wip, Housepaint, pencil and collage on unstretched canvas 1500mm x 1500mm 2024

footnotes

1 Chierico, A. 2016. "Medium Specificity in Post-Media Practice." V!RUS, 12. [online] Available at: http://www.nomads.usp.br/virus/virus12/?sec=4&item=6&lang=en, [Accessed: September 28, 2024].

2 Rosalind Krauss, A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000), 26.

3 Ibid

4 Ibid

Reflection on Seminar and Metamodernism

"Metamodernism is a structure of feeling that oscillates between modernist enthusiasm and postmodern irony, allowing for a sense of hope and sincerity in the face of uncertainty."1

This concept applies to my work through my approach of learning from past artists while embracing the destruction of my previous works. By using the ‘anxiety of influence’ as a driving force, I can resist it and use it to fuel the creation of new work. I focus on the act of walking, drawing on other artists who have used this practice to mediate their perception of the world and their creative process.

“I want to show you the world, as it is, all around us, all the time. Only by doing so will I myself be able to glimpse it.” 2
― Karl Ove Knausgaard, Autumn

1.Vermeulen, Timotheus, and Robin van den Akker. “Notes on Metamodernism.” Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 2, no. 1 (2010): 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3402/jac.v2i0.5677.

2. Knausgaard, Karl Ove. Autumn. Translated by Ingvild Burkey. London: Harvill Secker, 2017.

Post 59 - Oral Presentation September Seminar

Power point link below

https://whitecliffecollege-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/r/personal/20230841_mywhitecliffe_com/Documents/Oral%20Presentation%20Part%203%20MFA.pptx?d=w4c2e50c65fc3470ca1b9e299d8b91181&csf=1&web=1&e=jxPCBm

Oral Presentation

The Impossibility of Painting

The tension that drives my work is living with the impossibility of finishing a painting. In my attempts to resolve this I have found three concepts to be helpful: membranism, emergence and provisionality. The central construct around which I situate these concepts is the daily walk to and from my studio. The walk taken as process allows me to position my body of work in Abstract art today.

My practice embraces the challenge of creating paintings largely without planning, allowing each piece to evolve organically. By welcoming the potential for failure, these works represent cumulative attempts to realise form, leading to intermittent or iterative resolutions as they guide their own development. Drawing and collage are essential for generating ideas, incorporating diverse elements, embracing unpredictability and layering, and mirror the artwork's gradual emergence.

 Talking the line for a walk

For me the urban walk offers a unique perspective on contemporary landscape painting. Every day I go from my home to the studio and back - a circular walk that begins and ends my day.

I explore the boundaries, edges and overlapping qualities between natural and artificial elements, finding inspiration in the contrast between park landscapes and urban surroundings like billboards and building facades.

Walking outside is the perfect antidote to what Virginia Woolf wrote of as “For there we sit surrounded by objects which perpetually express the oddity of our own temperaments and enforce the memories of our own experience..”[1]

I don't need to evaluate the process; it just needs to unfold.

Like the impossibility of declaring a painting finished, walking shows me that both painting and walking are open-ended acts, without a clear moment of completion.

 While not the sole intention, these daily walks help me gather images. Furthermore moving on foot seems to make it easier to move in time; the mind wanders from plans to recollections to observations.[2]

 If, as Paul Klee said, “Drawing is simply a line going for a walk,”[3] then my walk is like a ‘preparatory drawing.’

As I navigate the city, observing fleeting details and listening to both music and street noise, I engage in what can be termed “conscious languaging”[4] - a process where language overlays our sensory experiences, helping us craft cohesive narratives.[5]

 This ability of humans to construct stories from observations, utilising pattern recognition and emotional responses, drives the continuous creation and depiction of our experiences.[6]

Walking naturally prompts me to piece together stories from my observations.

For instance, a blooming flower might evoke thoughts of changing seasons and personal memories, illustrating our inclination to link experiences to broader discourse. Recognising patterns—like anticipating rain from people carrying umbrellas—further aids in making sense of our surroundings. Sensations of light, form, and movement enrich this retelling.

My urban environment, with its ever-changing forms and ambient sounds, continuously informs my work.[7] I measure it against every place I’ve lived and the many thoughts I’ve had along the way.

 This approach is a contemplative and personal way of creating, a synestheticprocess of absorbing both external and internal stimuli and translating them into the image. A process that can be explained in part by my first concept,

First Concept: Membranism
In her article "Membranism, Wet Gaps, Archipelago Poetics," Lisa Samuels argues that the Western paradigm of imagined order shifted from Time in the 19th century, to Space in the 20th, and finally to Contact in the 21st century.[8]Membranism emphasizes "wet" contact—an immediate, dynamic exchange between body and object, from the moisture of our fingers to the droplets of water in the air, this process flows from body to object, back to body, and then to a mental image, forming a three-dimensional, embodied, and active idea.[9]Membranism highlights the ongoing contact we experience, including the wetness of the eyes and brain as part of this interaction.[10]

 Everything I perceive during a walk is mediated through this "wet" exchange. My paintings extend this idea of osmosis through wet-on-wet techniques, using oil, watercolour, glue, and ink on canvas and paper.

 I am situated in Tāmaki Makaurau edged on many sides by water and find great affinity with Samuel’s term "Archipelago poetics"[11]. This refers to New Zealand and its unique relationship with the surrounding ocean, where islands are both confined and connected by the sea. It reflects the imaginative work that navigates uncertainty and unseen forces, challenging conventional notions of possession and control over the land.

Samuels speaks of “vibrant gaps”, positing the notion of the gap itself acting as a membrane through which sensation and knowledge can pass - of “ocean as fact and idea.”[12]

For me this mirrors the ‘gaps’ in seeing and perceiving and can be incorporated into my work, using my walk as an organising concept, and construct.  In this way I view painting as an autobiographical act. The tensions in my touch and gestures when painting are influenced by my daily circumstances and contexts.

 (I will note here that I have the sound of whales singing throughout the day from a city artwork outside my building– so the studio is permeable to external forces as well!).

My work reimagines and reorients a sense of locality, influenced by contemporary auto-fiction[13], stream-of-consciousness literature[14], and music, as I search for meaningful territories for myself.

Mental simulations also play a role in how I navigate my daily walk, from choosing the best route to avoiding crowds.

These predictions contribute to the ongoing description of my walks. Walking can be seen as a preliminary rehearsal—a period for organizing ideas, collecting impressions, and gathering images for potential use.[15]

 This process is not systematic but involves integrating ideas with the surrounding environment. In the studio, I translate these observations into visual forms through collage and painting. Art emerges from this process.

 Second concept: Emergence

Just as ideas and imagery emerge naturally during my walk, they also unfold in my painting through an extempore approach.

By this I mean I focus on intuitive art-making, where expanded consciousness, attention to specifics, and the fusion of artistic styles respond to light, shapes, and mood, aiming to evoke land rather than landscape.

 Jan Verwoert's theory of 'emergence,' in relation to Tomma Abts' work, helps clarify the understanding of extempore painting methods. Verwoert describes how Abts' paintings evolve through a dynamic process where unpredictable elements interact and gradually shape the final outcome.[16] In this view a painting is not bound by a predetermined or fixed conclusion; rather, it emerges organically through the artist's continuous decisions and adjustments, with each stage influencing the next. [17]

 This process aligns with André Breton's surrealist concepts of “the Encounter,” an unexpected discovery that captivates by chance, and “the Gesture,”[18] a more deliberate search for meaning. Together, these ideas reflect the surrealist belief in the interplay between chance and intention, a dynamic that has been integral to the development of abstraction, and that of emergence in paintings because it embodies the tension between the spontaneous and the deliberate.

In my own practice, the concept of emergence is also reflected in how walking influences my process, with different pathways or views shifting my perspective. Additionally En plein air painting and drawing alters my sense of pace, control, and distance, as light and weather impact the work. These outdoor experiences, once back in the studio, transform the external world into a remembered event.[19]

While I have spoken of the idea of conscious languaging during my walks, I intentionally avoid labelling or naming everything I observe. It is possible to describe without identifying. Language, and naming in particular, can never fully convey of our lived experience, which suggests the value of engaging with the world beyond the limits of words. This approach helps me avoid preconceived ideas and fosters a more direct and open interaction with my surroundings.

This process of openness to non-judgment also continues into the studio where I repurpose scraps and leftovers, which incorporates unexpected content into the work.

Constructing a wall of smaller postcard-sized collages, I acknowledged that the act of looking, of choosing and of making decisions was paramount.

I proceeded to scale up these ideas into an ‘Atlas’ of compositions using drawing and collage from past work, based on the landscape.

These in turn feed into my larger paintings. Each part of the process emerges from another.

What I see on pavements and in trees, as well as sensory details of colour, light, and sound are all visual information that can convey ideas. By focusing on abstract painting, I aim to suggest meaning through arrangement rather than definition. For me this process is assisted by collage.

Collage integrates the ideas of membranism and emergence by fostering a dynamic and fluid development that allows for continuous interaction, layering, and evolving meanings.

It is central to my work, engaging with notions of space, and memory. It combines Modernist principles with postmodernist elements like fragmentation, pastiche, and irony.

This approach reflects diverse perspectives, challenges fixed meanings, and aligns with postmodernism's focus on fluidity and ongoing dialogue. I consider it not merely as a technique, but as an action or a way of thinking.

 By layering and collaging pictorial languages, I engage in a dialogue with artists across time.

While my approach to paintings and collages are formed by everyday life experiences, the focus remains within a realm of abstract painting, where I work within its conventions and possibilities.

The reasons I couldn't finish a painting seemed to echo the idea of the impossibility of painting, as it emerged through abstraction in the 21st century.

Abstract Art

My work is rooted in the established languages of abstract art, yet the term "abstract" originally meant to withdraw or separate. In art, it refers to works that either simplify or schematise objects, figures, or landscapes, or use forms like geometric shapes or gestural marks with no external visual source.

Associated with virtues such as order, simplicity, and spirituality, abstract art has been central to contemporary art since the early 1900s, when artists like Piet Mondrian seemed to point the way to “the abolition of painting as a craft”,[20] in so far as the skill of mimesis was no longer needed.

I explore the relevance of abstraction today by engaging with pre-modernism’s ideals of mastery and modernism’s focus on progress, while also questioning these concepts. My work emphasizes connection, hybridity and exchange, moving away from the alienation often associated with postmodernism.

This mirrors contemporary painting’s hybrid nature, blending styles like digital "cut and paste" to integrate drawing, narrative, and experimentation.

Western abstraction ranges from avant-garde's revolutionary ideas to formalism’s focus on medium. Today, abstract painting mixes these with personal explorations of memory, identity, and emotional responses.

This pluralism reflects the “Indiscipline” [21] of painting, a term coined by Rosalind Krauss describing how abstract art evolved from modernist traditions to a more experimental and hybrid approach.

An example of this is to be found in Art Historian David Ryan’s description of Fiona Rae’s paintings from the 1990’s as a “pick-and-mix”[22] look and a “patchwork of quotes” which resonates with my approach. Rae’s references touch on contemporary culture, they also engage with art history, especially American Abstract Expressionism, even if they don’t address it directly.[23]Rae reconfigures these references into a “developed collage,”[24], giving them fresh meaning and moving beyond simplistic appropriation, and ornamentation.

New Zealand artist Emma McIntyre extends this further. For McIntyre, ornamentation elevates painting from mere depiction to a dynamic stage of activity and imagination, where abstraction and figuration use gesture as both prop and performer, driven by a private narrative.[25]

There is an emerging cohort of other contemporary abstract woman painters who explore these same concerns, with an interest in pattern and ornamentation and an attraction to painting mainly defined by line.[26]

Pam Evelyn’s paintings, rich in texture, line, and colour, embody the concept of emergence by embracing uncertainty. Her works arise from the balance between intention and chance, rather than a fixed plan.

Evelyn’s use of eclectic tools and collage to explore disruptions in communication and perspective reflects a dynamic coexistence of references within contemporary painting.[27]

Like me, she uses techniques to encourage spontaneity, such as turning the canvas, setting it aside, and spending time observing rather than painting.

Phoebe Unwin explores both the physical and psychological realms, relying on memory and observation rather than photographs. She captures a subject by focusing on how colours interact with form, scale, and material tension. Unwin also embraces the unpredictability of her process, allowing memory to filter visual, emotional, and sensory impressions. She paints the feeling of an experience rather than its appearance, exploring what she calls, “languages of time.”[28]

Jadé Fadojutimi is known for her large-scale paintings, which she terms "emotional landscapes."[29]Although her work is mainly abstract, it often evokes natural forms. She explores themes of identity and self-knowledge by employing grids, layers, and varied marks to convey transformation and the interplay of colour, space, and mood.

I see how she treats the studio as a performative space for creation. By clearing away studio clutter and focusing on being present with my work, I allow the studio to become a space where paintings can evolve independently of the external world.

These ideas converge in the work of Los Angeles-based artist Sterling Ruby, whose collages blend found images, sketches, and gestural smears of pigment.

The philosophical notion of collage is central to Ruby's practice. He describes "illicit mergers,"[30] where the collision of different elements, ideas, and materials creates a visual mess—a hallmark of his style. His work's spontaneity and apparent randomness reflect a provisional approach, emphasizing the studio process, materiality, and transformation, ensuring that even scraps and cast-offs become opportunities for creative renewal, leaving nothing to waste.[31]

 This brings me to my Final Concept: Provisionality

Key qualities of provisional methods include unpredictability, openness to change, and an embrace of impermanence. This action of countless revisions and revealed or hidden pedimenti, that prevent establishing any sense of finality, creates movement, a flickering in and out of resolution. If a painting is literally static its effects are not.[32]

These methods involve constant revision, a blend of familiar and strange forms, and a rejection of traditional notions of completeness or "strong" painting.[33]If an attribute of "strong" painting can be said to be that which is resolved, provisional works focus on process rather than resolution.

 Art historian Raphael Rubinstein noted this trend in contemporary painting in the 2000s, seen in artists like Albert Oehlen, Mary Heilmann, and Michael Krebber, who favour a more casual, tentative, and unfinished approach, allowing for unexpected outcomes and fluidity in the creative process.[34]

These examples illustrate how contemporary artists grapple with the notion of "impossibility"[35] in painting.

This might stem from a sense of belatedness or a reluctance to engage with traditional expectations of greatness.

Painting that embraces impermanence and the unfinished, has its origins in artists like Giacometti, whose struggle to capture his artistic vision, as described by James Lord in A Giacometti Portrait (1965), involved weeks of reworking and self-doubt.[36]

Giacometti’s lament that painting is "impossible", underscored his belief in the unattainability of artistic goals.

This sentiment aligns with Sartre's concept of "negative work,"[37] where true artistic freedom is found in the ability to abandon a project at any moment. A nihilist approach or sentiment that seems to permeate all of society today.

“The collapse of traditional artistic forms and the rise of new media reflect a broader societal nihilism where the boundaries of reality and representation are increasingly blurred.” [38]

I would suggest that today's art isn't made for traditional ideals like truth or beauty, nor does it fully align with 'negative aesthetics' like Dada or 'bad painting.'

Perhaps as painter Amy Sillman suggests the key quality today is ‘awkwardness’ in art, reflecting a mix of control, discontent, and clumsiness.[39] She favours “metabolism” over “style”, describing it as a process where things change, become uncomfortable, and must be confronted, repaired, or risked.[40] In her paintings, each layer reveals the one beneath, with dissatisfaction and doubt integrating into the work’s substance. Rather than paralysing, doubt persists and contributes to the final composition. Sillman’s approach, therefore, transforms this standstill into an opportunity to introduce risks, culminating in a final state that, while uneasy, is her definition of resolved.

It is this persistence of doubt that becomes action in in my work, and by rejecting the idea of finality, of truly finishing a work, provisionality emerges as a vital aspect of my painting.

The concept of unfinished paintings is that which values incompleteness as a source of profound impact.[41]  Unlike "last" paintings, which suggest a narrative of surpassing past works, provisional paintings may present preliminary works as finished.[42]

Provisional paintings can either reveal signs of struggle or appear effortless rejecting monumental, high-production art in favour of negation or lightness,[43] both of which resonate with a nihilistic perspective that finds meaning—or the lack thereof—in the process rather than the end result.

While some of my smaller works reflect simplicity and nonchalance, (an idea reminiscent of Matisse's appreciation of an ‘effortless’ style),[44] I mostly connect with the struggle and the 'unfinished' aspects of provisionalism.

Membranism, emergence, and provisionality all embrace movement, change, and incompleteness. They describe how boundaries are fluid, how complex outcomes arise from simple interactions, and how things are subject to continuous transformation. These concepts can also be applied to both walking and painting, reflecting how both activities involve ongoing adaptation and exploration, where nothing is fixed and everything is in a state of flux.

I often leave and return to paintings, labouring over them repeatedly. In this sense, my work could be considered provisional, as it involves self-cancelling actions - overlaying new paint, scraping back, adding, and reworking.

This kind of provisional painting acknowledges the potential obsolescence of painting while still valuing its possibilities. I work with the possibility of ‘abandonment’ while continuing to paint.

 As Philp Guston reminded us, "Painting is impossible. Yet we continue to paint."[45]

 


Footnotes

[1] Virginia Woolf, "Street Haunting: A London Adventure," in The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (London: Hogarth Press, 1948)

[2] Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking (New York: Viking, 2000)

[3] Paul Klee, Notebooks: Volume 1: The Thinking Eye, edited by L. N. M. C., translated by H. W. W., (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), 53.

[4] Amanda Preston, "Artful Deception, Languaging, and Learning—The Brain on Seeing Itself," Open Journal of Philosophy 5, no. 7 (November 2015): 343–350, https://doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2015.57049, accessed August 4, 2024.

[5] Amanda Preston, "Artful Deception and the Brain," Open Journal of Philosophy 5, no. 7 (2015): 343–350.

[6] Preston, Artful Deception and the Brain

[7] Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, [1929] 1957), 51. 

[8] Lisa Samuels, “Liquid State, Membranism, Wet Gaps, Archipelago Poetics”, Journal of Contemporary Poetics 10, no.2 (2024): 75-89

[9] Samuels, “Liquid State”, 75-89.

[10] Samuels, “Liquid State”, 160.

[11] Samuels, “Liquid State”, 160.

[12] Samuels, “Liquid State”, 160.

[13] Karl Ove Knausgaard, So Much Longing in So Little Space: The Art of Edvard Munch, trans. Ingvild Burkey (London: Harvill Secker, 2021)

[14] Virginia Woolf, The Waves (London: Hogarth Press, 1931)

 [15] Francis Alÿs, As Long as I’m Walking, ed. Nicole Schweizer, with texts by Julia Bryan-Wilson, Luis Pérez-Oramas, and Judith Rodenbeck, (Geneva: Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts of Lausanne and JRP Editions, 2021), 160 p., 277 ill.

[16] Jan Verwoert, “Emergence: On the Painting of Tomma Abts,” trans. Hugh Rorrison, in Tomma Abts, ed. David Zwirner (Cologne and London: Galerie Daniel Buchholz and Greengrassi, 2005), 41–48.

[17] Verwoert, “Emergence,” 41–48.

[18] André Breton, Mad Love (New York: New Directions, 1961), 25–30.

 

[19] James Ambrose, "Pam Evelyn: A Conversation on Process and Painting," Emergent Magazine, 2023, https://www.emergentmag.com/interviews/pam-evelyn, accessed September 10, 2024.

 [20] Russell Ferguson, The Undiscovered Country (Los Angeles: Hammer Museum, UCLA, 2004), 53.

[21] Daniel Sturgess, "The Disciplines of Indiscipline: Rosalind E. Krauss’s Legacy," Art Journal 75, no. 4 (Winter 2016): 15–25.

[22] Cordeiro, Conceição. “Times of ‘Cut and Paste’: A Hybrid Reading of Painting.” Journal of Contemporary Art Studies 5, no. 2 (2022): 45–60.

[23] Cordeiro, “Times of ‘Cut and Paste,’” 45–60.

[24] Cordeiro, “Times of ‘Cut and Paste,’” 45–60.

[25] Evangeline Riddiford Graham, "Emma McIntyre: Big Crafty Angels in the Garden," Art News, September 25, 2023, accessed February 10, 2024, https://artnews.co.nz/big-crafty-angels-in-the-garden-emma-mcintyre-spring-2023/.

 [26] Sam Cornish, "The Reason for Painting," Studio International, June 6, 2023, review of The Reason for Painting, Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, May 4 – June 25, 2023, https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/the-reason-for-painting-review-mead-gallery-university-of-warwick.

[27] Ambrose, "Pam Evelyn: A Conversation on Process and Painting."

[28] Phoebe Unwin, Slow Movement (London: South London Gallery, 2021), exhibition catalogue.

[29] Habiba Hopson, "New Additions: Jadé Fadojutimi," Studio Magazine, April 5, 2023, https://www.studiomuseum.org/magazine/new-additions-jade-fadojutimi, accessed September 10, 2024.

 [30] Scott Indrisek, “Making Sense of Sterling Ruby’s Beautifully Grotesque Art,” Art, November 1, 2019, 9:56 AM, accessed August 17, 2024, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-making-sense-sterling-rubys-beautifully-grotesque-art.

[31] Indrisek, “Sterling Ruby.”

[32] Russell Ferguson, The Undiscovered Country (Los Angeles: Hammer Museum, University of California, 2004).

[33] David Joselit, Art Since 1980: Charting the Contemporary (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2013), 45.

[34] Rubinstein, “Provisional Painting,” 53–59.

[35] Rubinstein, “Provisional Painting,” 53–59.

[36] James Lord, A Giacometti Portrait (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965)

[37] Jean-Paul Sartre, "The Imagination and the Negative," in Existentialism and Human Emotions, trans. Bernard Frechtman (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957), 83–94.

[38] Paul Virilio, The Original Accident, trans. by Julie Rose (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), 41:

[39] Amy Sillman, “Notes on Awkwardness,” in Amy Sillman: The Shape of Things to Come, ed. Laura Hoptman and Robert Storr (New York: The Drawing Centre, 2021)

[40] Amy Sillman, “Notes on Awkwardness”.

[41] Rubinstein, “Provisional Painting,” 53–59.

[42] Rubinstein, “Provisional Painting,” 53–59.

[43] Rubinstein, “Provisional Painting,” 53–59.

[44] Rubinstein, “Provisional Painting,” 53–59.

[45] Philip Guston, Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations, ed. Kristine Stiles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 114.

Post 58 - En Plein Air & the Role of Spiritual guidance in Women's Art

After my plein air drawing sessions, I return to the studio. The extensive notes I made about the outside world shift inward, becoming more psychological. Each painting develops its own personality, and the white walls offer little distraction, leaving me with these self-realized forms.

See previous Blog Post 18

Visit to The Tate Modern Exhibition 2023

Hilma af Klint & Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life highlights how both artists, who began their careers as landscape painters, independently "invented their own languages of abstract art rooted in nature."1 This connection between landscape traditions and abstract art echoes early sophistic theories.

In sophistic discussions, art is seen as existing within a spectrum of imagined images, from the artist's vision to the viewer's reflections, which can inspire new creations. Plato touches on this continuous cycle of reflection in the Republic (596d–605c) and Sophist (266b–266d), contrasting human-made art with natural phenomena like dreams and reflections (Plato 1993, 1997).2

Women artists like Georgiana Houghton (fig. 1) and Hilma af Klint (fig. 2) were pioneers who ventured into abstraction before it was formally recognised as an artistic movement. Both utilized spiritualism and automatism as creative techniques, which allowed them to break away from the conventional artistic norms of their time.

By attributing their work to spiritual guidance rather than personal agency, they were able to explore radical visual languages that were unconventional and ahead of their time. Their contributions highlight the often overlooked role of women in the development of abstract art, demonstrating how they challenged and expanded the boundaries of artistic expression in a male-dominated field.3

Figure 1. Georgiana Houghton: left, The Spiritual Crown of Annie Mary Howitt Watts, 1867; right, The Spiritual Crown of Mrs Oliphant, 1867 (Photographs: Victorian Spiritualists’ Union, Melbourne.)

“Spiritualism gave [women] a community … engaging with fresh forms of creativity that side-stepped male control”.4

Charles Darwent reviews Jennifer Higgie’s The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art, and the Spirit World, showing how she describes how women artists have engaged with mysticism and spiritualism. Despite initial skepticism about the term “spirit world,” the book presents a thoughtful and open-minded exploration of its subjects.5

Higgie illustrates how periods of upheaval, such as the American Civil War and the First World War, spurred interest in spiritualism. However, the rise of modernism in the early 20th century, influenced by figures like Freud and Alfred H. Barr, often dismissed these mystical elements. Barr’s influential 1936 show, Cubism and Abstract Art, notably omitted spiritual influences despite the connections some artists had with mystical ideas.6

Higgie highlights how women such as the Fox sisters and Victoria Woodhull, used spiritualism to gain visibility and influence in a male-dominated world. This contrasts with male artists, who explored similar themes but faced less career impact. 7

The book also addresses the role of artists like Piet Mondrian, who, despite his modernist reputation, was influenced by theosophy and mystical teachings from Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Mondrian’s spiritual beliefs were part of his approach to abstraction, which was often overshadowed by a focus on formalist aspects of his work.8

Higgie also examines artists like Hilma af Klint (fig. 2) and Georgiana Houghton, who incorporated spiritual themes into their art. By acknowledging their contributions, Higgie challenges the notion that modernism and spirituality were mutually exclusive, presenting a broader and more inclusive view of art history.9

Figure 2. Hilma af Klint, Untitled #1, 1915, oil on gold on canvas, private collection.

The Other Side thus reveals how spiritualism provided women artists with unique opportunities for creative expression (fig. 3).

Figure 3. Jennifer Higgie, The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World. London: Orion Publishing Co, 2023. (In Auckland City Library)

What role does the spiritual play in art today, considering we no longer live in a spiritual age?

The appeal lies in its contrast to the present age—it feels exotic. But the spiritual aspect of her (Af Klimt’s), paintings must be isolated from other interpretations to maintain its allure. Otherwise, art's elitism and complexity might overshadow the spiritual message. Now, these once-hidden paintings are being exhibited globally, claiming to reshape the history of abstract art by placing a woman, not male genius, at the forefront. 10

The problem with this line of argument is it downplays or ignores the concrete meaning of art. As a painter, you focus on getting forms just right to communicate effectively. You're prioritizing visual clarity. But today’s consumerist view of 'the spiritual' clashes with this, as it doesn't value the 'right' or 'efficient' in art. This perspective aligns with many people’s—including professionals’—increasingly non-visual understanding of art.

Art labeled as 'spiritual' doesn’t have to be non-visual or just an escape—it can be serious and visually sophisticated, as seen in artists like Paul Klee, Francis Bacon, and Peter Doig. However, critics haven't applied this perspective to Klimt’s work, possibly due to the risk of mixing modern and traditional approaches. Greenberg's clear distinction between visual and poetic elements in art could be helpful today. 11

Visual art is shaped by both the artist's knowledge and the act of creation. An artist's work reflects who they are and what they know, integrating both their skills and understanding.

An artist's work reflects their focus: abstraction has its roots in visual elements.

Mondrian, Malevich, and Kandinsky, though influenced by Theosophy, were deeply analytical about art's history. Their unique abstract styles came from this rigorous analysis, not just spiritual beliefs, despite oversimplified narratives. 12

When I consider how this relates to my own practice I would like to examine my own notes on ‘Intuitive’ Art making.

the four principles underlying creative intuition, which are:

  • it involves a state of expanded consciousness

  • it is an open, fluid way of being

  • it focuses on the particular, rather than the general

  • it is an act of fusion or identification which occurs through emotion or empathy

Footnotes

1. Frances Morris, "A New Way of Seeing," Tate Etc., January 6, 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-57-spring-2023/frances-morris-hilma-af-klint-piet-mondrian. Accessed August 11, 2024.

2. Morris, "A New Way of Seeing."

3. Clare Lapraik Guest, "Ut sophistes pictor: An Introduction to the Sophistic Contribution to Aesthetics," Humanities 12, no. 4 (2023): 58, accessed 11th August 2024, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/12/4/58.

4. Jennifer Higgie, The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World (London: Orion Publishing Co, 2023).

5. Charles Darwent, "The Medium is the Message: A Sympathetic Study of the Links Between Art and Female Spirituality," TLS, April 19, 2024, accessed 11th August 2024, https://www.the-tls.co.uk/politics-society/social-cultural-studies/the-other-side-jennifer-higgie-book-review-charles-darwent/.

6. Charles Darwent, "The Medium is the Message," TLS, April 19, 2024.

7. Charles Darwent, "The Medium is the Message," TLS, April 19, 2024.

8. Charles Darwent, "The Medium is the Message," TLS, April 19, 2024.

9. Charles Darwent, "The Medium is the Message," TLS, April 19, 2024.

10. Matthew Collings, "Hilma Af Klint: ‘Interview’," Painters’ Table, accessed August 12, 2024, https://www.painters-table.com/synopsis/hilma-af-klint-interview/.

11. Collings, "Hilma Af Klint: ‘Interview’."

12. Collings, "Hilma Af Klint: ‘Interview’."

Post 57 - Anxieties of Influence

Abstract art

The term ‘abstract’ originally means to withdraw or separate something. In art, it refers to works that either simplify or schematize objects, figures, or landscapes, or use forms like geometric shapes or gestural marks that have no external visual source. Although terms like concrete art or non-objective art are used for 'pure' abstraction, ‘abstract’ is commonly applied to all such art, with distinctions often blurred. Abstract art is frequently associated with virtues such as order, purity, simplicity, and spirituality and has been a central aspect of modern art since the early 1900s.1

Cubist and Fauvist artists used the visual world as their subject matter but paved the way for more radical forms of abstraction. Key figures in pure abstract painting include Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian, active around 1910–20. In abstract sculpture, Russian constructivist Naum Gabo was a notable pioneer, drawing inspiration from the modern world.2

Abstract art is supported by various theoretical ideas. Some advocate ‘art for art’s sake,’ focusing purely on creating beautiful effects. Others suggest that art should be akin to music, using patterns of form, colour, and line to produce effects similar to musical patterns. Derived from Plato's philosophy, the notion that true beauty lies in geometric forms rather than the material world also informs abstract art. Additionally, because abstract art doesn’t represent the material world, it is sometimes viewed as representing the spiritual.3

Painters have always had a unique relationship with the history of their craft. My concerns as an abstract painter are driven by a fundamental question: How can an art form so deeply rooted in its history still find relevance today? How can painting, often seen as an ‘antique mode,’ remain credible in the modern world? And how does reflecting on past art and debates about painting inspire new works that embrace the present while honouring their distinct form?4

I am acutely aware that abstract painting has a rich history tied to modernism and the 20th-century modern movement. This past has absorbed concepts of progress, freedom, certainty, and mastery—ideas that artists have questioned since the mid-1960s. These notions of advancement and independence are evident in both early 20th-century avant-garde movements and later modernist painting traditions.

Western non-objective art has two main strands, which, although related, are not always theoretically compatible. Many artists have found creative tension in this discord, using it as a space for exploration and opportunity.5

One Western tradition of abstract art emerged as a reaction against convention. Early avant-garde artists, such as those in Russian constructivism, viewed abstraction as revolutionary and capable of breaking away from past traditions. They believed it could influence politics and society, aligning with Vladimir Tatlin's call to "put art into life!"6 This movement embraced interdisciplinary approaches, integrating painting forms into architecture, typography, and design (fig.1).

In contrast, another tradition of abstract art values the process of creation and visual form, known as formalist abstraction. This approach is associated with critics like Clive Bell and Clement Greenberg, who emphasized the visual aspects of modernist painting and American abstract expressionism. While related to the Russian model, it is more closely tied to the idea of ‘art for art’s sake,’ which views art’s value as independent of moral, political, or social concerns.7

Figure 1. Aleksandr Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova. Pure Red Color (Chistyi krasnyi tsvet), Pure Yellow Color (Chistyi zheltyi tsvet), Pure Blue Color (Chistyi sinii tsvet). 1921. Oil on canvas. Each panel, 24 5/8 x 20 11/16" (62.5 x 52.5 cm). A. Rodchenko and V. Stepanova Archive, Moscow.

Clement Greenberg, whose influence often constrained artists, saw painting as crucial through a refined process that prioritized visual and formal aspects, aiming to detach art from direct engagement with the surrounding world.

Greenberg viewed modernist painting as a quest to refine the medium’s unique qualities, focusing on attributes like flatness. This concept of ‘material specificity,’ rooted in Gotthold Lessing’s notion that art should embrace its medium’s unique traits, led to increased abstraction. Modernist painting often distanced itself from social and political issues, striving for ultimate clarity and purity, which some critics believed would culminate in minimalism. 8

Artists who reinterpret and challenge the history of painting can be termed ‘indisciplined,’ reflecting how contemporary practices are expanding the boundaries of traditional painting. This term contrasts with Greenberg’s modernist view, which emphasized strict formal qualities and control. Today’s painting often breaks from this restrictive aesthetic, forming new conceptual connections and revisiting earlier, pre-modernist ideas.9

Some contemporary artists engage with the history of modernism and minimalism, using a 'graphic language' that links traditional abstraction with contemporary design. This raises questions about whether abstract painting remains relevant or is merely a reflection of past ideas.10

I recognize the challenge of viewing painting in a historically determined way, or thinking of it as strictly abstract or figurative, or as something separate from other art forms.

Perhaps painting’s unique quality today is its ability to absorb outside influences and blend them with its history. This approach balances the marginal and ‘proper’ aspects of art, allowing for a reassessment of past works and fostering a more open dialogue. It acknowledges the evolving nature of culture and addresses the 'anxieties of influence' that affect creative endeavors, which may be particularly significant for painters.11

David Ryan’s description of Fiona Rae’s 1990s paintings as a “pick-and-mix” aesthetic and a “patchwork of quotes” really resonates with my approach.12

He points out that although Rae’s references frequently touch on contemporary culture, they also engage with art history, especially American Abstract Expressionism, even if they don’t address it directly. Rae reconfigures these references into a “developed collage,” giving them fresh meaning and moving beyond simplistic appropriation (fig. 2).13

Figure 2. Fiona Rae, Lovesexy, 2000. Oil, acrylic and glitter on canvas, 246.4 x 203.2 cm. Copyright Fiona Rae, Courtesy Timothy Taylor Gallery, London.

Footnotes

  1. Daniel Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting, accessed August 10, 2024, https://www.danielsturgis.co.uk/downloads/IOP_Daniel_Sturgis_Catalogue_Essay.pdf.

  2. Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting.

  3. Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting.

  4. Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting.

  5. Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting.

  6. Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting.

  7. This refers to Harold Bloom’s ‘anxiety of influence’. Bloom argues poetic, and by extension art, history is structured by Oedipal drives.

    Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, Oxford 1997, p.30.

  8. Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting.

  9. Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting.

  10. Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting.

  11. Sturgis, The Indiscipline of Painting.

  12. Conceição Cordeiro, Times of ‘Cut and Paste’? A Hybrid Reading of Painting, accessed August 12, 2024, https://www.academia.edu/27885311/Times_of_cut_and_paste_A_hybrid_reading_of_Painting?email_work_card=title.

  13. Cordeiro, Times of ‘Cut and Paste’?

Post 56 - Provisional Painting 2

1. Painting is Impossible

In A Giacometti Portrait (1965), James Lord describes sitting for a portrait by Giacometti during his visit to Paris in 1964. Initially planned as a single-sitting sketch, the portrait evolves into a prolonged process as Giacometti repeatedly expresses dissatisfaction with his work, erasing and reworking the image over several weeks. Lord, stuck in Paris as a result, becomes a reluctant participant in Giacometti's cycle of creation and destruction. Giacometti's persistent self-doubt is evident as he laments his inability to achieve his artistic goals, describing his efforts as "impossible" and considering abandoning painting altogether.1 His ongoing struggle reflects a deep-seated belief that achieving his artistic vision is unattainable.

2. I’ve Been Wanting to Paint this Painting

In postwar Paris, the concept of "negative work," as articulated by Sartre in Being and Nothingness, was pivotal in understanding artistic freedom and essence. Sartre argued that an artist's freedom lies in acknowledging both their desire to create, ("I have been wanting to paint this painting") and the nothingness that allows them to abandon their project at any moment. This "permanent possibility of abandonment" is key to true creative freedom, raising questions about the nature of art produced under such conditions.2

For Giacometti, who grappled with negation and doubt, art was seen as ‘impossible.’ However, with the decline of Abstract Expressionism around 1960, existential doubt in art was replaced by new modes emphasizing production, surface, and social identity, as exemplified by the shift from Giacometti's introspective studio to Warhol's Factory. This transition marked the obsolescence of mid-20th-century artistic anguish, highlighting a broader movement from individual doubt to collective production.

3. Driven into a corner

Philip Guston, although initially embracing abstraction, later distanced himself from it. In his 1965 statement, "Faith, Hope, and Impossibility," he argued that painting must justify its existence through critical self-judgment or it becomes impossible.3 By 1967, he felt that abstract painting no longer had a purpose. In a 1966 forum at Boston University, Guston emphasized that Abstract Expressionism wasn't just a style but a challenge about whether creation was possible in society. He distinguished between genuine creation and mere art production, which was becoming widespread. Despite this proliferation, Guston reflected that the original experience of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s involved questioning the possibility of creation amidst abundant art, proving that creation was still achievable.4

Ideas to take into my work…

I obscure the paintings using collage elements like torn paper, fabric scraps, and layered textures to partially hide them. This approach creates a barrier that suggests both the artwork and myself are reluctant to fully reveal ourselves, while still retaining a sense of hidden beauty, emphasizing the tension between visibility and concealment. As Virginia Woolf so eloquently put it,

"You cannot cross the narrow bridge of art carrying all its tools in your hands. Some you must leave behind."5

4. Finished/Unfinished

Once, New York painters wrestled with defining what constituted a ‘finished’ painting. At the Studio 35 conference, William Baziotes debated whether American and French painters approached completion differently, noting that some works, like Matisse's, appeared "unfinished" yet profoundly complete. Over time, many Abstract Expressionist works now seem finished, although some, like Joan Mitchell’s and mid-1960s Guston’s, retain an unfinished quality. This notion of unfinishedness is not new; Chinese art has long valued the incomplete, as noted by François Cheng's quotation from Tang dynasty historian Chang Yen-Yuan. He argued that excessive completion can strip a work of its mystery and aura. This ancient perspective resonates with modernist attitudes and echoes the 20th-century fascination with the incomplete, a concept that has evolved yet remains contentious in Western aesthetics.6

5. Provisional Paintings/Last Paintings

Distinguishing between provisional and last paintings is key. Last paintings reflect a narrative about the end of painting and a progressive logic, compelling artists to surpass recent works. Provisional painting, emerging after this concept, retains the difficulty of last paintings but acknowledges that such conditions are outdated. In the 1980s, last paintings were expected to be followed by simulacra, works devoid of transcendence and expressiveness. However, it might be incorrect to claim painting as ‘impossible,’ as the notion of impossibility itself may no longer hold.7

Ideas to take from this…

I could explore these ideas using techniques that embrace unpredictability and ephemeral effects. By applying corrosive substances to fabrics, or gluing and ripping off again, I can create a distressed, weathered appearance. Adding delicate designs or sewn patches to blend a sense of neglect with careful craftsmanship. This approach allows me to create a melancholic, vulnerable presence that reflects a balance between presence and absence.

6. It just Happened…

Provisional paintings can exhibit either signs of struggle or a seemingly effortless appearance. Some, like Michael Krebber's, show minimal work and appear "too easy," while others, such as Raoul De Keyser's, reveal the artist's process without the intense anguish seen in Giacometti's work. Regardless of their appearance, provisional paintings oppose monumental, high-production art, seeking a state of near nonexistence and lightness. Robert Ryman's idea of "last paintings" aligns more with Matisse's view of ease in art, where the work appears effortless despite the effort involved. Similarly, Martin Barré echoes Jean Cocteau’s notion that art should seem so natural that it feels as if anyone could have created it.8

7. Auto-Iconoclasm

Provisionality in painting reflects the artist's dissent from dominant styles. While past avant-garde strategies aimed to break new ground, they have become clichés, merely showing that the artist is well-versed in these strategies. The true power of iconoclasm now lies in an artist dismantling their own work's potential icon status before it can fully form. Provisional works arise from the artist's hesitation between painting and not-painting, capturing a moment of intentional self-subversion.9

Ideas to take from this…

Possibilities for me in conjunction with the idea of provisional painting could include embracing the unpredictability of paint, experimenting with ephemeral colours and subtle markings, and exploring a subliminalist approach that balances presence and absence.

8. What If?

Provisional painting might critique human ambition as a modern form of vanitas, reflecting on the fleeting nature of existence. It could also be a response to the dematerialization of art in the digital age, asserting that painting, too, is a transient image. Alternatively, provisionality might simply be a stylistic choice rather than a deep artistic or philosophical stance. As Frank O’Hara noted about Bonnard’s work, it can appear deliberately effortless and fragile—suggesting that some provisional painting may just be an aesthetic trend or a casual approach.10

9. Failing Better

Rubenstein expands on responding to provisional art as a critic, noting it involves embracing the inherent uncertainty of both the artwork and the critique itself. Provisional criticism might involve acknowledging the fluid, evolving nature of judgments and interpretations, recognizing that they too are subject to change. While criticism often aims to provide lasting and confident evaluations, provisional criticism accepts that all assessments are inherently temporary. This approach aligns with recent trends where artists are re-embracing doubt and uncertainty, perhaps rediscovering 20th century artists and writers, drawing inspiration from figures like Cézanne and Samuel Beckett, who valued art's engagement with the immaterial and the ephemeral.11

Provisional painting now…

Whilst there may be engagement with conceptual art, its defining characteristic is its modern nonchalance and simplicity.

Summary

In his articles “Provisional Painting” (2009) and “Provisional Painting 2: To Rest Lightly on Earth” (2012), Raphael Rubenstein examines ‘provisional’ painting, which features works that are tentative, unfinished, or self-cancelling. Rubenstein contrasts this with ‘last art,’ suggesting that while provisional painting acknowledges painting’s possible obsolescence, it still values its potential. It embraces impermanence and presents preliminary works as finished.

Footnotes

1. Raphael Rubenstein, "Provisional Painting Part 2: To Rest Lightly on Earth," Art in America, February 3, 2012, accessed August 10, 2024, https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/provisional-painting-part-2-62924/.

2. Rubenstein, “Provisional Painting,” Art in America, February 3, 2012

3. Ibid

4. Philip Guston, “Faith, Hope, and Impossibility,” ARTnews Annual, October 1966, reprinted in Clifford Ross, Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, An Anthology, New York, Abrams, 1990, pp. 62-63.

5. Virginia Woolf, David Bradshaw (2009). “Selected Essays”, p.83, Oxford University Press

6. Rubenstein, “Provisional Painting”

7. Ibid

8. Ibid

9. Ibid

10. Ibid

11. Ibid

Post 55 - Provisional Painting 1

There is a trend that art historian Raphael Rubinstein has been increasingly aware of, namely a provisional quality within contemporary painting practices. This trend first became evident in the works of Raoul De Keyser, Albert Oehlen, Christopher Wool, Mary Heilmann, Wendy White and Michael Krebber—artists known for their casual, tentative, or unfinished approaches (see fig. 1). These artists often eschew traditional notions of ‘strong’ painting, instead embracing risk and potential inconsequence.1

Figure 1. Wendy White, Mrs. Dash, 2008, acrylic spray paint on four canvases, 433.3 x 123.2 cm, Courtesy Leo Koenig Gallery, New York.

Why would an artist embrace what might appear as unfinished or flawed work? This may reflect a foundational skepticism present in modern art history, seen in Cézanne’s relentless adjustments, Dada’s radical interpretations, Giacometti’s continual revisions, and Polke’s bold compositions. This ethos also appears across other art forms, from Paul Valéry’s belief that a poem is "never finished, only abandoned,"2 to Artaud’s rejection of masterpieces, (Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) was a French dramatist, who rejected masterpieces as static and lifeless, favouring art that is raw, ephemeral, and capable of provoking intense, immediate reactions), and punk’s embrace of the amateur.3

Provisional painting can be traced through various artists: Richard Tuttle’s pursuit of humble beauty, Noël Dolla’s radical stained-handkerchief works, Robert Rauschenberg’s “cardboards,” David Salle’s insipid early canvases, and Martin Kippenberger’s uninhibited approach (see fig. 3). These works often represent a struggle against the medium’s associations with permanence and virtuosity. For contemporary artists, it can also be a way to counter the art market’s demand for immaculate, technically proficient works.4

Figure 3. Martin Kippenberger, Untitled (Projection by Kippenberger), 1991, Oil on canvas, Approx. 46.5 x 33.5 cm, Framed under glass.

Raoul De Keyser’s modestly sized paintings do not have grand ambitions, embracing a low-key approach that sometimes confounds critics (see fig. 4).

Figure 4. Raoul De Keyser, Untitled, 2006, Oil on canvas, 90.2 x 125.7 cm, Courtesy David Zwirner Gallery, New York, and Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp.

Albert Oehlen, though using more colour and larger canvases, similarly features ‘mistakes’ and layers of seemingly clumsy digital and paint-based techniques (see fig. 5).

Figure 5. Albert Oehlen, Chloé, 2008, Oil and paper on canvas, 270.0 x 299.7 cm, Courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris.

Christopher Wool’s grisaille abstractions, using both digital manipulation and traditional paint, present a paradox of erasure and obscurity (see fig. 6).

Figure 6. Christopher Wool, Untitled, 2007, Enamel on linen, 320.0 x 243.8 cm, Courtesy Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York.

Mary Heilmann’s casual handling of modernist structures and her nonchalant palette suggest a de-emphasis on transcendent meaning, treating painting as an extension of ceramics. Michael Krebber’s work, often using minimal brushwork and unconventional materials, presents a unique critique of painting’s seriousness (see fig. 7).4

Figure 7. Michael Krebber, Contempt for One’s Own Work as Planning for Career, 2001, Acrylic on canvas, 139.7 x 109.9 cm, Courtesy Greene Naftali Gallery, New York.

Recent exhibitions of Joan Miró, Martin Barré (see fig. 8), and Kimber Smith offer historical context. Rubinstein describes Miró’s work from 1927-1937 as reflecting his desire to “destroy everything that exists in painting” (see fig. 9), while Barré’s 1960s paintings challenge conventional aesthetics with their preliminary appearance.5

Figure 8. Martin Barré, Peintures 1960–1992, Galerie Buchholz, Cologne, June 29 – August 25, 2007.

Fig 9, Joan Miró: Clouds and Birds, 1927. Oil on canvas, 146.1 by 114.0 cm. Photo © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Kimber Smith’s late works blend Abstract Expressionism with a sense of dissolution, treating the canvas as an expansive sketchpad (see fig. 10).6

Figure 10. Kimber Smith, Prague, 1977, Acrylic on cotton, 164.0 x 237.5 cm, Private Collection, Courtesy Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland.

These examples illustrate how contemporary artists grapple with the notion of ‘impossibility’ in painting. This might be due to a sense of belatedness or a reluctance to engage with the traditional expectations of greatness. As more artists explore these themes, they reject finality and embrace provisionality as a vital aspect of their practice.7

I explore these ideas in recent work (see fig. 11).

Fig 11. Sally Barron, Provisional Sea, 2024, House paint and collage on canvas. 1450 x 1600 mm.

Footnotes

  1. Raphael Rubinstein, "Provisional Painting," Art in America, May 1, 2009, accessed August 9, 2024, https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/provisional-painting-raphael-rubinstein-62792/.

  2. Paul Valéry, Cahiers [Notebooks], trans. by M. H. Abrams (New York: Pantheon Books, 1956), 109.

  3. Rubinstein, "Provisional Painting."

  4. Ibid

  5. Ibid

  6. Ibid

  7. Ibid

Post 54 - The Walk 2

In the previous post I discussed how my daily walk supports image gathering (see figs.1 & 2) and I have furthered my exploration of other Women artists who are working in a similar way to me.

Figure 1. Sally Barron, street, 2024, photograph.

Figure 2. Sally Barron, street, 2024, photograph.

Further Women contemporary abstract artists

Phoebe Unwin

Exploring both the physical and psychological, Unwin relies on memory and observation rather than photographs, which she finds overly detailed. She aims to capture the essence of a subject, intrigued by how colours interact with form, scale, and material tension. She avoids scaling up from smaller images, preferring the unpredictability of how a painting will turn out. Memory acts as a filter, incorporating not just visual but emotional and sensory impressions, allowing her to paint the feeling of an experience rather than its appearance (see fig 3).1

Unwin’s most important preoccupation or rather subject of her paintings is that of exploring the different “languages of time”.2 She expresses the need for them to be about time, not a particular place and time, calling this the “sensation of being in a situation that can be applied to many places”.3

Figure. 3. Phoebe Unwin, Aeroplane Meal, 2008, Spray paint and oil on linen, 97.5 x 107.5 cm.

Unwin works incessantly in A3 sketchbooks (see fig 4).

“When I work here, I use various coloured papers and respond intuitively to marks and colors. I don't work through the book sequentially; I develop it as a whole. If I’m not engaged with a page, I move on. My only rule is that anything can be included” 4

Phoebe Unwin sketchbook

Like Unwin, I approach my sketchbooks with intention, using them as a space to gradually develop ideas. These books serve as a mix of visual note-taking and image-building, exploring colour and materiality with various mediums like acrylics, ink, and charcoal on different grounds. This process helps translate ideas into paintings and acts as a form of exploration and notetaking.

Figure 1. Sally Barron, Ground rules, 2024, collage ink and oil on paper, A4

Unwin’s work delves into the sensation of time rather than specific places, balancing abstraction with figuration. Her conceptual framework creates tension between materials, scale, and colour, which drives her creative process.5

Figure 2. Phoebe Unwin, Red to Pink, with Blue, 2023, Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm.

Like Unwin, I use different materials because each one affects colour uniquely. Cerulean blue, for instance, varies between acrylic, oil, and spray paint, each adding a distinct quality. To me, colour is more than abstract; it reflects objects, emotions, and places through its physical properties.

Figure 3. Sally Barron, Place, oil, collage, and charcoal on canvas, 1650 x 1800 mm.

Figure 3. Sally Barron, after Vuillard (detail), 2024, collage ink and oil on canvas, 2000 × 1050 mm

Jade Faojutimi

Jadé Fadojutimi, born in London in 1993, is a British artist known for her large-scale abstract paintings, which she calls "emotional landscapes." Her work explores themes of identity and self-knowledge by utilizing grids, layers, and disparate marks to convey continual transformation and the interplay of colour , space, and emotion.

Though largely abstract, her paintings often suggest natural forms like plants, microbes, or marine landscapes (see fig 4).

Built with layers of oil paint and sometimes including lines of oil pastel, Fadojutimi's compositions reflect her fascination with how clothing and accessories help construct a sense of self, incorporating elements like fabric swatches and the shapes of stockings and bows to explore themes of displacement.5

She draws inspiration from various locations, cultures, objects, and sounds, with Japanese anime being a major influence, prompting her to learn Japanese and visit Japan frequently. Her studio in South London is filled with plants, comforting childhood objects, and favourite music, creating an environment that stimulates her creativity and makes each painting session a unique orchestration.6

This approach of surrounding oneself with inspiring elements is something I am beginning to adopt in my own practice. I find that clearing away studio detritus allows me to focus on simply being with my painting, where the act of looking becomes as important as the painting itself. This has led me to explore similar themes of nature and emotion, using en plein air sessions as starting points for larger works and utilizing sketchbooks and collages to develop imagery. I am now allowing the studio to be a place where paintings can exist in their own right, not necessarily tied to initial concepts.

Figure 4. Jadé Fadojutimi, Myths of Pleasure, 2017, Oil on canvas, 140.5 x 140.5 cm

Amy Silman

Silman is an American artist based in NYC best known for her various formal engagements with painting and iterative drawings and the excavation of form that lies between abstraction and figuration.

She describes ‘not knowing’ as an important part of abstraction because it is not an illustration or a representation, its an experience of understanding certain kinds of physical and formal relations: space, colour, time, weight, heaviness, lightness, ugliness and beauty, saying,

“To mark, to stroke, to struggle, to contradict, to whittle, to abstract.” 7

Silman describes her work as improvisational in a way that she pits herself against the materials and the resistance they offer. She tries to figure out how to make something happen whereby she is both working with the materials and very much working against them and questioning them.

“I only use scrapers, paper towels, sort of sticks and occasionally foam brushes, some brushes but not many” 8

Removal is a big part of her work covering each layer with another for nearly a year each painting. The drawing are faster and numerous. On a big level and a little level, and all the levels inbetween, there is slippage between control and finesse and form, adjusting and trying to make it better. The tension is the tension of making the work.

This is something I very much relate to, and try to use in a conscious way to drive the work forward.

Playing with art history and experimenting with form, shape, colour, or process might align with the spirit of the gestural work of the abstract expressionists of the 1950s. However, now that their work has become commodified, the original spirit may have faded, leaving behind what Sillman describes as “only a sense of heroics'“. Sillman aims to be anti-heroic, building what she describes as "scrappy and casual" art, which she calls "weird” (see fig. 5).9

Figure 5. Amy Sillman, Albatross 1, 2024. Acrylic and oil on linen, 190.5 x 167.6 cm.

I would call it very much in the spirit of provisional painting, its never finished, or rather its as finished as she wants it to be.

Footnotes

1. Phoebe Unwin, Saatchi Gallery, accessed August 4, 2024, https://www.saatchigallery.com/artist/phoebe_unwin.

2. Phoebe Unwin, Artist Film, Contemporary Art Society, July 16, 2011, accessed August 4, 2024, https://vimeo.com/30010494.

3. Unwin, Artist Film.

4. Phoebe Unwin, "Talking to Alli Sharma at Her Hackney Studio," Articulated Artists, April 17, 2011, accessed August 4, 2024, http://articulatedartists.blogspot.com/2011/04/phoebe-unwin-talking-to-alli-sharma-at.html.

5. Jadé Fadojutimi, At Home: Artists in Conversation, Yale Center for British Art, accessed August 5, 2024, https://britishart.yale.edu/exhibitions-programs/home-artists-conversation-jade-fadojutimi

6. Jadé Fadojutimi, Bio, accessed August 4, 2024, https://jadefadojutimi.com/about/.

7. Amy Sillman and Charles Bernstein, "Shape Shifting: A Conversation on Art and Poetry," The Brooklyn Rail, April 5, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8sGAWzRmbQ, Accessed August 11, 2024.

8. Sillman and Bernstein, "Shape Shifting."

9. Sillman and Bernstein


Post 53 - The Walk 1

Drawing as Exploration and Language as Narrative

“Drawing is simply a line going for a walk.” 1

Each day, as I walk to the studio, my urban surroundings—shifting, mundane, and full of distractions—inform my work. I observe changing forms and listen to both music and street noise, reflecting on art. This practice connects to the concept of “conscious languaging,” where language overlays visuospatial and sensorimotor maps, helping us create unified narratives. Humans, like other social mammals, use pattern recognition, symbolic thinking, and emotion to construct stories. This instinct, which predates language, is enhanced by language but is fundamentally about continually creating and narrating our experiences. 2

Figure 1. Sally Barron, Street, 2024, photograph.

Narrative Construction

When I go for a walk, I naturally construct narratives from what I observe, piecing details into a cohesive story. For example, seeing a blooming flower might remind me of changing seasons and personal memories. This shows how humans are "storytelling animals," linking observations to broader narratives.

Pattern Recognition

During my walks, I recognize patterns in familiar sights, sounds, and smells. Seeing people with umbrellas might prompt me to anticipate rain, helping me understand my environment. These observations help make sense of the world around me.

Figure 2. Sally Barron, Aphrodite, collage and oil on paper, 22 cm x 30 cm.

Emotional and Aesthetic Responses

I appreciate the beauty of my surroundings, and my walks often evoke emotions connected to memories, enriching my narrative. Much of this perception occurs subconsciously, illustrating how I perceive the environment without explicit language.

Simulation and Prediction

I use mental simulations to predict outcomes and solve problems, like choosing the best route or avoiding crowds. These simulations contribute to the ongoing narrative of my journey.

Figure 3. Sally Barron, News, collage and oil on paper, 22 cm x 30 cm.

Visual Expression as a Tool

Making images helps me capture and reflect on my observations and experiences, translating them into visual form and organizing my perceptions.

Figure 4. Sally Barron, Street, photograph, 22 cm x 30 cm.

Figure 5. Sally Barron, yellow, collage and oil on paper, 22 cm x 30 cm.

What I try to do is to create images without relying on language:

  1. Use Abstract Forms: Convey ideas through shapes, colors, and compositions without explicit labels.

  2. Focus on Sensory Details: Capture textures, colors, and forms to express sensory experiences.

  3. Reflect Emotions: Let your images convey feelings and moods through visual elements.

  4. Explore Space and Time: Show movement and change through your compositions.

  5. Opt for Non-Objective Design: Create images that suggest meaning through arrangement rather than definition.

  6. Trust Your Instincts: Use intuition to guide your creative process, making spontaneous choices.

Figure 6. Sally Barron, street, photograph, 22 cm x 30 cm.

Figure 7. Sally Barron, Map, collage and oil on paper, 22 cm x 30 cm.

Before I ‘name’ something I see it, so it is helpful to be as open to that idea of non-judgment, merely seeing colour, shape and form without constructing language around it. This is becoming easier as I practice.

Upon arriving at the studio I make a collage with studio scraps (see fig. 4).

Figure 8. Sally Barron, Like Air, collage and oil on paper, 25 cm x 35 cm.

Figure 9. Sally Barron, street, 2024, photograph

Figure 10. Sally Barron, street, 2024, photograph

Walking and thinking

Walking and looking

Walking and listening.

Duality is a quality I try and bring into my paintings that is inspired by this activity, the macro and the micro, the eye and brain in flux while pointing to ideas of growth, creation and change.

Using leftover materials in the studio is a way to address the ecological crisis and make the most of the resources I have. When I find random pieces of paper or canvas, I let their shape and surface dictate the image I create. I appreciate how these technical aspects add unexpected content and texture to my work, introducing elements beyond my control.

Female Abstract Contemporary Artists I am engaging with.

Aimee Parrott

Aimee Parrott explores our deep connection with the environment. Her work views the human body as delicate and open, and life as temporary and uncertain. Her many processes often involves a unique approach to mono-printing, where she focuses on the process of re-inking and re-printing plates. Instead of only valuing the initial print, she finds the residual image left on the plate after the first print intriguing. This 'hand-me-down' technique allows her to build on these residual traces by printing them onto new or existing canvases, creating layered, interconnected images that echo across her body of work. 3

By layering works with repeated use of collage based on old life drawings of mine, I have a similar effect.

Works like Matrix (see fig. 11), blend mono-printing with painted and layered elements, and resist immediate visual clarity, incorporating enigmatic motifs like knots and glaciers. Their energy and layered imagery evoke a sense of impending transformation and exploration, suggesting a deeper, engagement with the physical and metaphysical realms.

Where my work currently differs from hers is in its focus on form and the dynamic way it inhabits the frame, rather than emphasising atmosphere. While Parrott's paintings use chance-based techniques to create vibrant compositions, my work highlights the deliberate shaping and placement of forms within the canvas. This involves a careful consideration of structure, edges, and spatial relationships, allowing the forms to assert themselves within the composition. By concentrating on how these forms occupy space, I aim to create a tension and energy that engages the viewer with the physicality of the work, highlighting a more structural and intentional approach (see fig. 12).

Figure 11. Matrix, 2020, ink on calico, acrylic, polymer clay, pins, thread, sapele and ply frame, 42 × 32 cm.

Figure 12. Place, 1650 x 1800 mm. Oil, collage, and charcoal on canvas.

Emma McIntrye

The New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based painter is known for her vibrant abstractions, which blend intuitive, chance-driven techniques with historical motifs and methods, resulting in a distinctive style.

McIntyre's compositions are often shaped by her use of oils and unconventional materials like oxidised steel, allowing for spontaneous and dynamic organic interactions (see fig. 13).

Figure 13. Emma McIntyre, Untitled from If Not, Winter, 2024, Monotype on Rives BFK paper, 55.3 x 74.3 cm. Framed: 64.8 x 84.5 cm.

Some of her most recent work has been created during a residency at Farrington Press, a solar-powered print shop in the remote California desert.

McIntyre collaborated with master printer Kyle Simon to produce a series of monotypes that delve into the core principles of her painting practice. Each monotype began with a vibrant wash of background color or an impression from a plate made of oxidised copper or rusted steel, creating organic and vividly pigmented hues. These backgrounds were then layered with motifs from her paintings, such as rose peonies and wheat stalks. 4

Influenced by the unique desert landscape, the works incorporate organic elements from McIntyre’s paintings, particularly her ongoing exploration of landscapes and flowers.

I'm interested in seeing how McIntyre’s process of developing background, middle ground, and foreground through print techniques informs her work. This approach helps me construct my paintings as I begin each one on the floor, layering the ground with acrylic and ink before adding oil and collage. Each layer can be repeated, except for acrylic, and I use glazing as a middle layer to achieve transparent colour effects.

As with Aimée Parrott, where I diverge from these artists currently, is that I focus on creating a more robust structure of form in my layers, often obliterating the background. I use the background as a jumping-off point rather than a stabilising ground for motifs, (see fig. 14).

Figure 14. Sally Barron, Knot, 2024, Oil on canvas, 1650 x 1800 mm.

Pam Evelyn

Pam Evelyns work is perhaps closest to my own in intention. She creates oil paintings over long periods of time. Her abstract paintings are textured with entanglements of line and colour and are informed by figuration and landscape structures, recreated through a process guided by impulse and chance.

Evelyn draws inspiration from everywhere, avoiding specific source material to embrace uncertainty in her creative process. For Evelyn, the canvas is a field of possibilities, allowing elements to come and go. This approach prevents her paintings from becoming rigid and highlights the dynamic coexistence of references and languages within contemporary painting. 5

Colour is central to Evelyn’s work, influenced by ‘found colours’ that arise from her studio habits, she often mixes paints in tubs and pots, leading to unexpected combinations. This process mirrors the harmony and disharmony of nature she observes while painting outdoors. Evelyn deliberately disrupts her colour palettes to avoid complacency, adding gritty tones to maintain tension.

Pam Evelyn begins her paintings with random, unconventional methods, often self-sabotaging before developing the work instinctively. She values the evolving colors of oil paint and the complex, muted hues they create. Facing a critical decision point in her process, Evelyn balances between resisting and engaging with the work. Inspired by Michael Krebber’s mark-making and Helen Frankenthaler’s fluid approach, she strives for a direct, immediate touch while avoiding over-effort (see fig 15). 6

I explore these ideas in future posts on Provisional Painting.

Figure 15. Pam Evelyn, Voyage (2021). Oil on linen. 300 x 200 cm.

Drawing is an integral part of Evelyn’s routine. She draws constantly, including doodles and scribbles, and even uses her scribbled handwriting as a form of drawing. This helps ‘warm up’ her hand and body. Like me, Evelyn has been inspired by Leon Kossoff’s relentless drawings. In the example below we see his drawing from Poussin’s Triumph of Pan (see fig 16 & 17), and below that, my drawing from the same painting (see fig 18).

This is a practice I use to encourage a memory bank of composition and movement.

Figure 16. The Triumph of Pan, Nicolas Poussin, 1636, Oil on Canvas.

Figure 17. Leon Kossoff, Triumph of Pan, 1998, Tate.

Figure 18. Sally Barron, Triumph of Pan (after Poussin), Coloured Pencil on Paper, 2023.

Evelyn’s tools are eclectic, including extended brushes, mops, shovels, and sponges.

I’ve found that using certain brushes becomes habitual, so I use extensions or unfamiliar tools to broaden my range and discover new possibilities in my work. The same applies to collage using scissors and tearing as well as rubbing and covering with further marks.

Evelyn has used collage in some paintings to cover areas and make you look through to the background layer. In Hidden Scene (see fig. 19), the painting explores disruptions in communications, relationships, and perspectives, offering little resolution. The panels obscure the painting's totality, emphasizing that art isn't about providing answers but raising questions. Its gaps invite inquiry and engage the imagination, reflecting our instinct to fill voids for a sense of order, yet Hidden Scene remains stubbornly ambiguous. 7

Figure 19. Pam Evelyn, Hidden Scene, oil on linen, 3 panels, 321 x 117 cm each, 2022 © Pam Evelyn

For me first ideas were simply layering on different materials (see fig. 20), but this has led onto hiding the layers beneath and then reincorporating them (see figs. 21 and 22).

Figure 20. Sally Barron, cloud, Oil and tracing paper on cardboard, 2024.

Figure 21. detail

After Vuillard Collage and house paint on canvas

Figure 22. Sunshine, Sally Barron, 2024, oil and collage on canvas, 1650 x 1800 mm

Footnotes

1. Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook, trans. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy (New York: Praeger, 1953), 16.

2. Amanda Preston, "Artful Deception, Languaging, and Learning—The Brain on Seeing Itself," Open Journal of Philosophy 5, no. 7 (November 2015): 343–350, https://doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2015.57049, accessed August 4, 2024.

3. Aimée Parrott, Waterborne, Parafin, May 26–July 15, 2023, accessed August 9, 2024, https://www.parafin.co.uk/artists/artists-aimee-parrott.

4. "Emma McIntyre: If Not, Winter," David Zwirner, accessed August 9, 2024, https://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2024/emma-mcintyre-if-not-winter.

5. Pam Evelyn, interview by James Ambrose, Emergent, accessed August 9, 2024, https://www.emergentmag.com/interviews/pam-evelyn.

6. Evelyn, "Interview by James Ambrose," Emergent.

7. Pam Evelyn, “In Conversation with Pam Evelyn,” interview by LVH Art, LVH Art, accessed August 9, 2024, https://www.lvhart.co/journal/lvh-in-conversation-with-rising-star-pam-evelyn.

Post 52 - July Seminar

The concept of collage—whether fully integrated, partially applied, or simply associated with different works—is central to all of my pieces. This involves creating compositions that allow the merging of previous works, building and constructing new forms from these ‘illicit’ combinations.

I have now stretched the canvas Window, wall and dream (see fig. 1), made in Whitecliffe’s residency Demo, and have been referring to it in the studio, using it as a lodestar to guide my next paintings.

Figure 1. Sally Barron, Window Wall and Dream, 2024, household paint, oil, and canvas, 1450 x 1600 mm.

I am allowing my own work to influence me focusing on the next 3 paintings adhering to a set of rules imposed on myself in the run up to November.

The Rules

1. Work with collaged elements that are taken from my own drawing and painting past work

2. Work to 3 sizes only

  • 1450 x 1600 mm with sewn together panels and then stretched

  • 1650 x 1800 mm already stretched canvases

  • A3 paper works ink, pencil, paint on canvas and paper in book format

3. The methodology remains the same for all of them, start painting on the ground, then on wall, rotating the support once a day whilst painting, pre-made pallette of predominantly 2 warm and 1 cool or 2 cool and 1 warm colours, initial en plein air drawings become the basis for the start, compositions inspired by the walk to the studio.

See fig. 2 as an example of painted canvas cut and sewn together.

Figure 2. Sally Barron, Park 1, 2024, canvas and household paint, acrylic, pencil, and collage, 1000 mm x 3200 mm.

Another important question raised during the assessment was how important was the ‘book’ I had created, was it a sketch book of ideas to use for work, or was it an artwork in its own right? (see fig. 3).

Figure 3. Sally Barron, Atlas, 2024, mixed media on canvas, dimensions variable.

Upon reflection the drawings made in this book and others will serve as inspiration for larger compositions. I still feel that the book is an artefact as well, as the drawing-collages made within it remain a response to the material is made from, (an old out of date New Zealand topographical encyclopaedia). However for the purpose of creating my new paintings I have decided to focus on the composition and materiality that the Atlas and the Window, wall and dream have.

There is a contrasting feeling of emptiness and fullness to both works and an imprint of body movement.

In order to align these works in conversation with contemporary abstract female artists I am interested in those whose work speaks with mine. I am looking at UK artists Pam Evelyn, Sarah Cunningham, Phoebe Unwin, Aimee Parrott, Jade Fadojutimi, NZ Emma McCarthy, Shara Hughes, USA Amy Silman and Austrian Martha Junwirth.

Martha Junwirth

Martha Jungwirth has developed a unique approach to abstraction over the past six decades, deeply rooted in her observations and experiences. Her paintings exist in an intuitive space, revealing themselves through a process that balances chance and calculation. Drawing inspiration from personal encounters, art history, and global events, Jungwirth's works convey a strong sense of self, capturing fleeting impulses with vivid colours and leaving marks like finger strokes and scratches as records of her presence (see fig. 4).

Figure 4. Martha Jungwirth, Ohne Titel (Kongo), from the series "Porte Dorée." 2023, Oil on paper on canvas, 142 x 242 cm.

My work shares similarities with Martha Jungwirth's in its interest in expressive mark-making that responds to the world around me. However, Jungwirth's work appears sparser and more decisive than mine, not only due to her experience but also by design. In contrast, I employ a technique of layering and scraping back.

Post 51 - Lit Review B - Essay 4

Howard Hodgkin : Window, Wall, Dream  - Framing Memories

Sally Barron MFA part 2 Lit B essay 4

 Framing Space

In Jesse Murry’s essay “Reflections on Howard Hodgkin’s Theatre of memory”, 1981 [1] he noted how the painting A Henry Moore at the Bottom of the Garden (fig. 1), is a still object on the wall but the world presented within it is moving, as if the picture is caught within a window.[2] The fat green frame is a proscenium arch as in a theatre, the figures, or marks within are the players on a stage. Their identities shift between figurative and abstract forms, and furthermore if the marks are figurative their meaning is metaphoric.[3] They act as formal elements of the painting but also function as metaphors for experiences remembered or taken from life, recalling fleeting moments, experiences, emotions, and visual impressions.

Figure 1. Howard Hodgkin, A Henry Moore at the Bottom of the Garden. 1975-1977. Oil on wood, 103 x 103 cm.

These paintings are hybrids, they are objects and experiences.[4] The titles further serve to draw the viewer closer yet also obfuscate their meanings, continuing a state of flux where the objects are abstract and representational.

To seal in these experiences Hodgkin makes the picture become the display box where the objects within become the artefacts of memory.[5] Within this display box, pictorial marks and brushstrokes form a ‘grammar of vision’[6]that also could be said to function musically as if the bars of the notes were being recorded in paint and lay out the constructed process of the picture’s making.  Hodgkin has said about his mark making “I want them to be impersonal—dots, stripes, or lines. I want my pictures to be things.”[7]

In this way it is similar to his framing motifs, literal or painted borders helping to create a well-ordered whole experience. Murry describes it as a physically felt phenomena, like music,[8] “hearing with our eyes” in the tonal play of colour for example (fig. 2).[9]

Figure 2. Hodgkin, Howard. Music. 2014-2015.

Oil on wood, 30.5 x 46.4 cm.

Hodgkin made frames integral to his art.[10] He cut wood panels to fit inside old frames that he found and treated the entire object, frame and all, as his painting surface. Sometimes he used the backside of a frame and sometimes the carved front. The frames “fortify” the paintings,[11] whether they reinforce a traditional sense of pictorial space as a window onto the world or operate more conceptually to sharpen focus and attention on the painted mark (fig 3).12]

Figure 3. Hodgkin, Howard. Portrait of the Artist Listening

 to Music. 2011-2016. Oil on wood, (186 x 263 cm).

Hodgkin has said that he prefers simple compositions to his paintings,[13] and the frames focus our attention, preventing the eye from wandering as it might in an abstract composition. The edges of his paintings are important, containing specific spaces and recalling precise moments from the world, with the frame solidifying these recollections as definite and significant.

One of Hodgkin's most distinctive formal effects was the integration of a painted frame within the picture-space itself. In iconic works such as Rain,2011 (fig. 4), expansive, expressive brush-strokes delineate the canvas's edges, embodying the self-reflective ethos of twentieth-century painting. This technique allows the painting to comment subtly on its own presentation and placement, transforming it into a self-contained object in the world, while also serving as a portal into an imaginative space.[14]

Figure 4. Hodgkin, Howard. Rain. 2011.

Oil on wood, 65.4 x 76.5 cm.

Hodgkin has also reflected on the dual role of frames in his artwork, noting their traditional function as boundaries between real and pictorial spaces.[15] He challenges this notion by suggesting that the painting itself serves as both the boundary and the entirety of pictorial space. Sometimes Hodgkin paints trompe l’oeil frames, blurring the line between real and illusionary spaces.[16] His circular formats often require fragmentary compositions to imply continuation beyond the edges, avoiding the visual vacuum of a central void. This interplay between frame, space, and composition showcases Hodgkin's keen awareness of spatial dynamics and the nuanced relationship between representation and perception (fig. 5 & 6).


Figure 5. Hodgkin, Howard. Evening Sea.


1998. Oil on wood, 175.9 x 260.4 cm oval.

 

Figure 6. Hodgkin, Howard. Antony’s Blue Palm. 2002. Oil on wood, 24.5 x 29.5 cm oval. Notes: This is an innovative use of the frame in reverse, with the circular moulding facing the wall. A related painting is Blue Palm.

Framing the Landscape

Hodgkin has described his work as “representational pictures of emotional situations”,[17]and this also informs his approach to landscapes. His landscapes are not just depictions of physical scenery but are infused with emotional significance. For instance, in Rain, 1984-89 (fig. 7) Hodgkin uses bold brushstrokes and rich colours to evoke the affective atmosphere of a rainy day rather than just illustrating the weather.

Figure 7, Hodgkin, Howard. Rain.

1984-1989. Oil on wood, 163.8 x 179 cm.

In Hodgkin's later paintings, there is a similar interaction with natural elements such as rain, sun, and drifting clouds, as well as with the texture of wood and the foliage of trees. Like Richard Long and other English land artists of the time, Hodgkin's connection to nature and its elements is expressed and embodied through the creation of symbols and the selection of motifs (fig. 8).

Figure 8. Hodgkin, Howard. An Early Landscape.

2004-2006. Oil on wood, 36.5 x 52.4 cm.

However, it's important to temper this comparison, as Hodgkin's approach is less immersive: he observes from a sheltered viewpoint, often through a window or across a theatrical stage.[18] He translates his observations from the external world to the internal realm of his paintings, where wood serves not only as canvas but also as framing and furniture within the artwork itself.

 Framing the Subject

Art Critic Paul Hills examines the paradox of this very painterly painter, since he is also being considered as a “sculptural” one, exploring how in his last decade Hodgkin “moved from wood to water to music, from solid things to liquid, from tangible to metaphysical.”[19](fig. 9).

Figure 9. Hodgkin, Howard. Water. 2016.

Oil on wood, 41.9 x 48.3 cm.

Howard Hodgkin's sculptural painting approach converges with modernist and contemporary collage through their shared focus on materiality and an amalgamation of diverse elements. Hodgkin's utilization of wood panels, incorporating their texture and imperfections, echoes the collage artist's integration of disparate materials into cohesive compositions.

 Hodgkin's appreciation for wood as both material and colour was influenced by his lifelong love of furniture and carved ornament, as well as his devotion to Georges Seurat. For the 2000 exhibition, Encounters: New Art from Old, at the National Gallery in London, Hodgkin painted a large version of Seurat’s Bathers at Asnières, 1884 (fig. 10), in a loose style similar to Seurat’s smaller studies.

Figure 10. Hodgkin, Howard. Seurat’s Bathers.

1998-2000. Oil on wood, 185.4 x 282.6 cm.

Seurat’s small wood panel studies often utilized the natural tone of the wood as a warm ground, leaving areas bare between brush marks, as seen in works like Man Painting a Boat, c. 1883 (fig. 11). 

Figure 11. Georges Seurat,

Man Painting a Boat. 1883-1884. The Courtauld, London.

 Furthermore, Hodgkin's collage piece At Sea, shows him blending various materials such as paper, fabric, and paint to create multi-layered compositions, in addition to his constant engagement with the work of fellow artists like Matisse, Degas, Morandi, Hockney, and others.

Hodgkins work encompasses a wide array of influences, resonating with the intimate portrayals of Vuillard and Bonnard's intimism paintings, while also reflecting formal elements akin to Pop Art and the colour-field techniques of artists like Ellsworth Kelly and Kenneth Noland from the 1960s. His method echoes John Baldessari's notion that "art, if it's meaningful at all, is a conversation with other artists".[20] An example of this can be seen in Hodgkin's engaging a dialogue with the tradition of British landscape painting, such as with a work like After Samuel Palmer (fig. 12).

Figure 12. Howard  Hodgkin,

After Samuel Palmer. 2003-2005.  Oil on wood, 26.9 x 31 cm.

 Yet, Hodgkin's primary focus remains one of capturing the emotional, psychological, and physical essence of his own specific experiences. Guided by memory, he conjures the atmosphere of domestic interiors and the nuances of conversations, employing a language of marks and symbols honed since the 1950s.[21]

 Subject and Object, Form and Content

In his own words, Hodgkin painted “representational pictures of emotional situations”[22] characterized by their reluctance to fit into conventional categories. Despite their emotional depth, they are often labelled as "decorative" or less serious due to their bright colours and intimate scale. Hodgkin's painting process involves a personal vocabulary of marks and gestures, with meanings that are fluid and subjective. The act of painting is a private yet emotionally charged process for Hodgkin, with each painting representing a moral responsibility of creating something where there was nothing before.[23] Hodgkin's paintings inhabit the space between figuration and abstraction, where the physical support of the wood becomes integral. Marks and gestures shape the spatial dynamics and convey allusive qualities.[24]

 Time Frame

Famously taking a long time to create a painting, Hodgkin also incorporated time as a key element in composition (fig. 13). His paintings are an engagement with the ephemeral nature of thoughts, emotions, and transient private moments. Writer James Lawrence calls the pictures “surrogates,” standing in place of the amorphous thoughts of the mind.[25]

 Hodgkin invites the viewer into a world where the past is always present, and where the boundaries between reality and memory are fluid and ever-changing.

Figure 13. Howard Hodgkin, As Time Goes By (red), 2009. Oil on wood, 244 x 610 cm.

As Hodgkin put it “For an artist, time can always be regained . . . because by an act of imagination you can always go back.”[26]

 Foot notes

1 Jesse Murry, Painting Is a Supreme Fiction: Writings by Jesse Murry, 1980–1993 (Soberscove Press, September 28, 2021). 101, Citing Jesse Murry “Reflections on Howard Hodgkin’s Theatre of Memory” Arts Magazine, June 1981, 154-57

2 Jesse Murry, Painting Is a Supreme Fiction: Writings by Jesse Murry, 1980–1993 (Soberscove Press, September 28, 2021).102

3 Murry, Painting Is a Supreme Fiction, 103.

4 Murry, 102

5 Murry, 103

6 Murry, 105

7 Howard Hodgkin, interview by A.M. Homes, "Howard Hodgkin," Artforum, January 1, 1996, https://www.artforum.com/features/howard-hodgkin-3-203114/ (accessed June 18, 2024).

 5 Murry, 105

6 Murry, 105

7 Howard Hodgkin, interview by A.M. Homes, "Howard Hodgkin," Artforum, January 1, 1996, https://www.artforum.com/features/howard-hodgkin-3-203114/ (accessed June 18, 2024).

8 Murry, 105

9 Murry, 105

10 Paul Hills, "Howard Hodgkin, Sculptural Painter," in Howard Hodgkin: Last Paintings (2018), 9–15, accessed June 9, 2024, https://www.academia.edu/40330155/Howard_Hodgkin_sculptural_painter?hb-sb-sw=40722840.

11 Paul Hills, "Howard Hodgkin, Sculptural Painter," 9–15

12 Leah Ollman, "Howard Hodgkin Talks About His Work," Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2011, accessed June 8, 2024, https://howard-hodgkin.com/resource/howard-hodgkin-talks-about-his-work.

13 David Ebony, "Finding His Frame: Q+A With Howard Hodgkin," Art in America, November 8, 2011, accessed June 8, 2024, https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/interviews/howard-hodgkin-gagosian-56240/.

14 Murry, 105

15 Ebony, "Finding His Frame."

16 Ebony, "Finding His Frame."

17 Stuart Jeffries, "There's less time, so on one goes: Howard Hodgkin at 80," The Guardian, July 28, 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/28/howard-hodgkin-saturday-interview, accessed June 13, 2024.

18 Murry, 107

19 Hills, "Howard Hodgkin, Sculptural Painter," in Howard Hodgkin, Last Paintings (2018): 9–15

20 David Salle, "John Baldessari," Interview Magazine, October 9, 2013, accessed June 13, 2024, https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/john-baldessari.

21Homes, Art Forum, December 1998

22 A.M. Homes, interview with Howard Hodgkin, Art Forum, December 1998, https://www.artforum.com/features/howard-hodgkin-3-203114/, accessed June 8, 2024.

23 Homes, Art Forum, December 1998

24 Murry,  2021, 107

25 James Lawrence, Howard Hodgkin: From Memory (New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2016).

26 Paul Hills, Howard Hodgkin: Last Paintings  (New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2018).

Bibliography

Ebony, David. "Finding His Frame: Q+A With Howard Hodgkin." Art in America, November 8, 2011. Accessed June 8, 2024. https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/interviews/howard-hodgkin-gagosian-56240/.

Hills, Paul. Howard Hodgkin: Last Paintings. New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2018.

Homes, A.M. "Interview with Howard Hodgkin." Artforum, December 1998. https://www.artforum.com/features/howard-hodgkin-3-203114/. Accessed June 8, 2024.

Jeffries, Stuart. "There's Less Time, So On One Goes: Howard Hodgkin at 80." The Guardian, July 28, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/28/howard-hodgkin-saturday-interview. Accessed June 13, 2024.

Lawrence, James. Howard Hodgkin: From Memory. New York: Gagosian Gallery, 2016.

Murry, Jesse. Painting Is a Supreme Fiction: Writings by Jesse Murry, 1980–1993. Soberscove Press, September 28, 2021.

Ollman, Leah. "Howard Hodgkin Talks About His Work." Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2011. Accessed June 8, 2024. https://howard-hodgkin.com/resource/howard-hodgkin-talks-about-his-work.

Salle, David. "John Baldessari." Interview Magazine, October 9, 2013. Accessed June 13, 2024. https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/john-baldessari.

Post 50 - Lit Review B - Essay 3

BORDER CONTROL: TESTING THE LIMITS OF COLLAGE BY YUVAL ETGAR

Collage holds immense historical significance as a cornerstone of modern art, marked by Picasso and Braque's ground breaking assemblages, and it is still a vital influence on contemporary art today.

Collage is both an artistic method and a philosophical approach, involving piecing together fragments and diverse elements to form a unified whole.[1] Closely associated with technological advances in the 20th century, this technique is seen in the visual arts, film, architecture, and literature. In art, Pablo Picasso's Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912 (fig 1), combined Cubist elements with everyday materials like oilcloth. Films like Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925) used editing to create dynamic storytelling. Frank Lloyd Wright's Kaufmann House (Fallingwater) (1937) blended different materials in architecture, and in literature, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) and James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) used collage through their mix of voices and references.[2]

Figure.1, Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Chair Caning,
1912, oil on oilcloth over canvas edged with rope, 11 1/4 x 14 1/4 inches.

Its accessibility is rooted in the simplicity of materials, and can be used as a tool to critique the pervasive image saturation in contemporary society, questioning the dominance of advertisements and media. The idea that technology changes how we experience art is still important and, in a world full of images, can be a reminder to think critically about what is presented.

It embodies the coexistence of multiple, often contradictory systems within a single work, reflecting technological changes and the fragmented nature of modern existence, making it a defining quality of modernist art.

In 1943, Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century gallery introduced the New York School to collage through a major exhibition. Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell, Anne Ryan, and Esteban Vicente, were show cased with each artist bringing a unique perspective: Anne Ryan combined traditional formats with recycled materials, Esteban Vicente explored his cultural duality, Lee Krasner incorporated pastoral themes, and Robert Motherwell merged music and collage, all helping to lay the groundwork for core elements and concepts in postmodernist and contemporary art. (fig. 2).[3]

Fig 2, Robert Motherwell, Blue with China Ink—Homage to John Cage,

1946, ink, oil, and collage on paper, 40 x 31 in

Hans Hoffman encouraged students to paint from life, while Clement Greenberg's concept of the "pastoral mood" in painting focused on nature at rest and art in movement, representing a retreat from civilization and capitalism.[4] These ideas influenced Lee Krasner, who re-used old work and combined gestural elements with botanical imagery and modernist sensibilities in her work, drawing on influences from Picasso and Matisse. In works such as Blue Level (fig 3), Krasner used colouration and organic shapes that are nature inspired and in The City (fig 4), captured the discord of urban environments through bold compositions.[5]

Fig 3, Krasner, Lee. Blue Level. 1955. Oil, paper, and burlap collage on canvas,

208.9 x 147.3 cm

Fig 4, Lee Krasner, The City, 1953, Oil on Masonite, 121.9 x 91.4 cm.

Above all collage is democratic, allowing any material to be repurposed, with chance playing a key role in its early development. Jean Arp used random paper placement (fig. 5), and Jack Goldstein's The Chair (1975) involved feathers falling onto wet paint (fig. 6), reflecting on displacement and control.[6]

Figure 4. Jean Arp,

Selon les lois du hazard

(according to the laws of chance),

Figure 5. The Chair, 1975, Jack Goldstein, 16mm film, colour, silent, 5 minutes 1933, sugar paper on plyboard, 15.9 x 17.3 cm, Tate, London, UK.

The development of collage within Modernism, marked by experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience, has been shaped by influential artists such as Braque and Schwitters (fig. 6), who pioneered the concept of constructed space.[7] Contemporary artists, such as Anna Witek, continue to explore this idea through architectural installations (fig. 7), demonstrating its enduring relevance and adaptability, perhaps it could be seen as a new sculpture.8 To carve space from transitory materials is relevant in this ecologically challenging time.

Figure 6. Kurt Schwitters, The Hanover Merzbau, 1933 (destroyed 1943), installation made with paper,

cardboard, plaster, glass, mirror, metal, wood, stone, painted materials, and electric lighting, 393 x 580 x 460 cm.

Figure 7. Anna Witek Reset (#3/S.O.S.), 2016, hand-printed analogue C-type, custom framed, 122 x 150 cm.

Earlier examples relating to constructed space and landscape include Ellsworth Kelly's postcards, (1960- 1980), (fig. 8), which blend simulated and real spaces to explore subjective experiences of landscapes. Similarly, Cornell’s shadow boxes, (fig. 9), filled with nostalgic objects, evoke memory and dreamscapes, reflect on the fragmented nature of recollection. If Cubist collage utilized a symbolic space, integrating real objects to alter its significance, ready-mades isolated objects, deriving meaning from their separation, often within the museum context.[9]

Ellsworth Kelly's postcards (1960-1980) (fig. 8) blur the lines between simulated and real space, treating the world as a ready-made.[10] Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes (fig. 9), stood as a precursor, blending elements of handcrafted, found and ready-made objects.

Figure 8. Ellsworth Kelly, 1974. Cul-de-Sac, Collage on postcard, 11 × 15 cm.

Figure 9. Joseph Cornell,

1956-1958. Untitled (Celestial Navigation), Box construction, 30.8 x 43.2 x 9.2 cm.

More recently digital tools expand collage possibilities further, allowing for precise manipulation and multimedia integration. For instance, artist Petra Cortright uses digital software to layer videos, images, and GIFs, creating vibrant, dynamic pieces that blend physical and virtual realities, (fig.10). Contemporary collage and painting are both influenced by this blending and fractured manipulation of digital space.

Figure 10, Petra Cortright, Celebrity addresses/fiji firing tour squad, 2017. Digital painting on anodized aluminium, 185.4 x 365.8 cm

Through these varied approaches, collage emerges as a versatile medium capable of engaging with complex ideas about space, meaning, and memory within the context of Modernist principles while also resonating with postmodernist ideals. Experimentation, abstraction, and subjective experience continue to drive artistic exploration. Postmodern and contemporary collage artists also incorporate elements of past styles while challenging traditional notions of form and authority.[11] By embracing fragmentation, pastiche, and irony, collage can reflect diverse perspectives and question fixed meanings, aligning with the fundamentals of postmodernism. This is marked by a diverse array of artistic movements and a rejection of grand narratives in favour of fluidity, plurality and ongoing dialogue with modern complexities.[12]

All these ideas can be found combined in the works of Los Angeles-based artist Sterling Ruby, whose collages represent creative experimentation, blending found images, sketches, and gestural smears of pigment, (fig 11)[13]

The philosophical notion of collage is vital to Ruby's practice, described by Ruby as "illicit mergers," where the collision of different elements, ideas, and materials creates a distinctive aesthetic mess, a signature of his visual language.[14] Despite their meticulous planning, Ruby's works possess an uplifting energy that shows spontaneity and randomness, reflecting the centrality of the studio process, materiality, and transformation. Everything in Ruby's studio, including scraps and cast-offs, is an opportunity to be remade, ensuring nothing goes to waste.

Figure 11, Sterling Ruby, Turbine, Imprecatory Psalms, 2023.

Acrylic, oil and cardboard on canvas, 251.1 x 327.3 x 8.3 cm

It could be argued that collage holds greater relevance in contemporary art than ever before. Many contemporary works draw inspiration from Surrealism, Dada, and Constructivism, imbuing the art form with a nostalgic charm. However, beyond this nostalgia, these references demonstrate how artists are reimagining the collage tradition to explore fresh avenues of creativity. In conjunction with new technologies, modern collage goes beyond just material manipulation; it represents a reinvention of concepts and intentions.

The edges of a collage carry significant meaning, symbolizing the transition from peripheral to central vision. How an artist manages these borders is crucial, shaping the artwork's appearance and meaning.

In his summary, Etgar emphasizes the significance of collage's spatial and material dimensions, highlighting the necessity of combining at least two distinct materials, which he describes as the "meeting between at least two foreign pieces of material."[15]

Whether through sewing, gluing, or painting over these junctions, or indeed blurring and merging in digital representation, the visible process of creation can challenge our perception of the artwork.

Some contemporary interpretations of these edges liken them to borders. Like real borders, they are impassable without identification.[16] Questions about how artists express their identity, who understands the artworks, and who validates them in the art world are pertinent in contemporary collage. As Scottish writer Ali Smith elucidates “Edges involve extremes. Edges are borders. Edges are very much about identity, about who you are. Crossing a border is not a simple thing. ... Edge is the difference between one thing and another. It’s the brink.”[17]

Footnotes

1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/40243172.
2 Yuval Etgar, Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art (London: Phaidon, April 11, 2023), 10.

3 Daniel Haxall, “Lee Krasner’s Pastoral Vision: Collage and the Nature of Order,” Woman’s Art Journal 28, no. 2 (Fall / Winter 2007): 20-27.

4 Budd Hopkins, "Modernism and the Collage Aesthetic”, New England Review (1990-) 18, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 5-12, published by Middlebury College Publications

5 Haxall, “Lee Krasner’s Pastoral Vision,” Woman’s Art Journal, 25.

6 Etgar, Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art, 10.

7 Etgar, Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art, 10.

8 Etgar, Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art,

9 Jeff Perrone, "Robert Rauschenberg," Artforum, February 1977, 1, accessed June 7, 2024, https://www.artforum.com/features/robert-rauschenberg-2-209474/.

10 Barbara Purcell, "Ellsworth Kelly’s 'Postcards'," Salmagundi 218-219 (Spring-Summer 2023): 1.

11 Chaz T. G. Patto, "The Characteristics and Significance of the Postmodernism Art Movement," Art History Archive, accessed June 7, 2024, http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/essays/Characteristics-and-Significance- Postmodernism-Art-Movement.html.

12 Chaz Patto, "The Characteristics and Significance of the Postmodernism Art Movement," Art History Archive

13 Scott Indrisek, "Making Sense of Sterling Ruby’s Art," Artsy, Nov 1, 2019, accessed May 27, 2024,

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-making-sense-sterling-rubys-beautifully-grotesque-art.

14 Indrisek, "Making Sense of Sterling Ruby’s Art," Artsy, November 1, 2019.
15 Vitamin C, Phaidon Press Ltd, 2023

16 Etgar, Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art

17 Etgar, Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Busch, Dennis, and Robert Klanten, eds. The Age of Collage Vol. 2: Contemporary Collage in Modern Art. Gestalten, 2016.

Etgar, Yuval. Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art. Phaidon, April 11, 2023.

Haxall, Daniel Louis. "Politics, Form, and Identity in Abstract Expressionist Collage." PhD diss., The Pennsylvania State University, College of Arts and Architecture, 2009.

Hopkins, Budd. "Modernism and the Collage Aesthetic." New England Review 18, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 5-12. Accessed May 16, 2024. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40243172

Hughes, Robert. Nothing If Not Critical: Selected Essays On Art And Artists. Penguin, February 27, 1992.

Illuminations. Art Now: Interviews with Modern Artists. Bloomsbury Academic, April 1, 2004. Introduction by Sandy Nairne.

Indrisek, Scott. "Making Sense of Sterling Ruby’s Art." Artsy, November 1, 2019. Accessed May 27, 2024. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-making-sense-sterling-rubys-beautifully-grotesque-art.

Morrill, Rebecca, ed. Vitamin C. Phaidon Press Ltd, 2023.

Nairne, Sandy. Introduction to Art Now: Interviews with Modern Artists, by Illuminations. Bloomsbury Academic, 2004.

Post 49 - Demo residency

Working at Demo

My aim for this week is to work purposefully on the floor, using different paints, tools, and methods from my usual wall or easel approach. To further detach from habitual patterns and processes, I will mostly use my non-dominant hand. I am using quick drying acrylic and house paint instead of oil paints, and utilizing long sticks, brushes, cloth, and hands.

Figure 1. Sally Barron, Beginning to Mark Out Large Canvas, 2024, house paint and acrylic on canvas, 3m x 5m.

On top of one large canvas I have been cutting up old canvases and scattering grid systems around 4-5 clusters of compositions, each with a different colour scheme, (fig 1).

These clusters will be separated from the canvas by cutting later in the week and then sewn together with blank or collaged canvas strips. Additionally, I am gluing parts of previous works onto the new compositions. Essentially, this large work is a collage that will become 4-5 separate collage/paintings, (fig 2-7).

Fig 2

Fig 3

Fig 4

simultaneously working on smaller paper collages and sketchbooks to try out new ideas and further existing compositions

Fig 5

Fig 6

Fig 7

Editing from my April Seminar postcard collages I selected 7 to refer to in Demo, chosen for their formal and structural qualities as well as strong colour use and texture (fig 8)

Fig 8, Postcards from the edge 1-7

Oil and pencil on card and foam

Influences, The Idea of Collage and the Pastoral

Inspired in particular by the patterning effects of the Nabis group and their interpretations of parks, and overlaid with a modernist sensibiity with regards to layered structures, I am mixing these influences with my own impressions of Auckland parks. This approach is reminiscent of artists like Lee Krasner, (fig 9 & 10) who reassembled pieces of previous works into new collages, and David Hockney, (fig 11) who explored different perspectives and techniques in his photo collages and paintings. Additionally, Sterling Ruby's innovative use of mixed media and unconventional materials to create complex, layered compositions also informs my work (fig 12).

Lee Krasner

The pastoral may be defined as a symbol of a simpler, rural life contrasting with the complexities of modernity. Krasner's collages engage in similar contrasts, blending organic shapes with geometric elements and playing with textures and colours. Compositions, like "Blue Level" (fig 9) reflect pastoral themes through their iconography and methods. Critic Bryan Robertson describes her art as "pastoral and bucolic," highlighting her connection with nature. 1 Writer David Halperin suggests also that ‘the pastoral's’ significance lies in its use of oppositions, extending beyond the rural-urban divide to encompass various scales, forms, and identities for allegorical contrast. 2

Fig 9, Lee Krasner.
Blue Level, 1955.
Oil, paper, and burlap collage on canvas.
82 1/4 x 58 inches (208.9 x 147.3 cm).


Fig 10, Lee Krasner.
Bald Eagle, 1955.
Oil, paper, and canvas collage on linen.
77 x 51 1/2 inches (195.6 x 130.8 cm).

David Hockney

Slow Rise (fig 11), part of Hockney's ongoing exploration of California's geography, reflects his fascination with Picasso's cubist experiments. Employing a cubist approach, with abstract shapes and textures, Hockney's theatrical set design background infuses the piece with artificiality and imaginative landscape. The lithographic and silk-screened techniques enhance its surface. The piece features visual textures hinting at mechanical production methods, and shows Hockney's experimentation with new tools and materials. 2

Fig 11, Hockney, David. Slow Rise, 1994. 37 color lithograph/screenprint, 32/68. Gift of Josephine L. Ferguson and Byron L. Ferguson. Brauer Museum of Art: 2000:09.

Sterling Ruby

A related suite of small collages from the ongoing series DRFTRS (2013–) (a shortened form of "drifter") (fig 12), includes watercolor paintings of rainbows interspersed with photographic images of bones taken from archaeological magazines, posing a poignant question: What is a rainbow if nothing remains alive to see it? Ruby has referred to the medium of collage as an “illicit merger,” suggesting both conceptual and technical transgression. 3

Fig 12, Sterling Ruby. Sterling Ruby Drifts (7774), 2021. Collage, paint, and glue on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 inches (21.6 x 27.9 cm).

In my own work I often sketch or paint from life before studio work (fig 13)

Fig. 13. Sally Barron, hill, 2023. Oil on canvas, 400 x 450 mm.

Embedded in a ‘failed’ work can be the next idea. For me an attachment to the observed world is essential to abstracting it, just as manifesting an idealized location is essential to crafting an artificial identity. 4

Sketchbooks 2024

Sketchbooks 2024

Collage Ideas

  • Overlapping: Touching or overlapping elements add depth, layers, and dimension to create a cohesive piece.

    • Suggestion: Add a single floating element to contrast with overlapping elements.

  • Outlining: Outlines ground elements into the background while making them stand out.

    • Suggestion: Use scratches, broken lines, dots, letters, words, or stitches for outlining.

  • Repeating: Repeating elements, such as shapes, colors, symbols, or emotions, enhances cohesion.

    • Suggestion: Repeat elements an odd number of times; three is often effective.

  • Contrasting: Incorporating dissimilar elements (color, size, texture, etc.) creates interest and surprise.

    • Suggestion: Adding seemingly mismatched elements can lead to unexpected creativity.

  • Guiding: Element placement guides the viewer’s eye and can support the artwork's message.

    • Suggestion: Use shapes (circles, lines, arrows) and directional text to direct the viewer’s gaze.

Further drawings and collages become simpler and larger.

Some collages are starting to work as stand alone pieces. The sense of movement and weather is what I would like to encourage in my larger painting.

Studio wall July

Still developing my ‘books’ of impressions

Footnotes

  1. Daniel Haxall, "Lee Krasner’s Pastoral Vision: Collage and the Nature of Order," Woman’s Art Journal 28, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2007): 20, Old City Publishing, Inc.

  2. David M. Halperin, Before Pastoral: Theocritus and the Ancient Tradition of Bucolic Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt211qx2w, accessed June 4, 2024.

  3. Gregg Hertzlieb, "David Hockney: Slow Rise," Valparaiso Poetry Review: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics 5, no. 1 (Fall/Winter 2007), accessed May 26, 2024, https://www.valpo.edu/vpr/hertzliebhockney.html.

  4. Sterling Ruby, Future Present, November 20, 2021–February 19, 2022, Rome, Gagosian, accessed May 26, 2024.

  5. Grace Wolfe, "Of Homespun Opulence: An Analysis of Jane Freilicher's Pastoral Abstraction in Parts of a World," Anthós 10, no. 1 (2021): 12, https://doi.org/10.15760/anthos.2021.10.1.3, accessed May 27, 2024.

Post 48 - Preparation for Demo week

The Idea of the Pastoral Landscape and the Idea of Collage

  1. Parks and Recreation

If concepts are my intentions, the ideas I am working with in the studio, and arise during the exchange of material enquiry in the studio, they can also arise in my self-conscious daily walks to gather information. My surroundings and sights that catch my attention are also materials perhaps, that can be pressed together to create meaning, (fig 1).

Fig 1

Park rewilding Auckland

2024

Constructs are largely invisible conventions - the implicit conditions of my daily encounters i.e. painting involves applying pigment to the canvas, (fig 2).

Fig 2.

tree/sky

collage postcard 2024

oil on paper and oil on unprimed canvas

The presence of multiple traces of time in the world around us can become referent of a visual language, things I see on walks can become the vehicle of an idea and not an end in itself. 1

The works are formed in the interaction with living spaces, in this I see similarities with assemblage artists, but instead of objects I’m collecting images, marks, ideas, and signs (fig 3).

Paul Klee's posthumously published notebook, The Thinking Eye, emphasizes visual thinking, describing drawing as a line that has been "taken for a walk" (cited in Spiller 1961). These lines connect ideas, establish clear relationships, and give rise to a diagrammatic structure. According to Tim Ingold, "The line is... between the finality of objects and the potentials of things..." (Ingold 2011: 18). This implies that the process of ideation through practice often hinges on an intermediate or "in-between" condition. 2

Fig 3

daily walk

Landscapes are more than what meets the eye, reflecting both natural and human histories. Our perception of them is subjective, shaped by factors like social, economic, and cultural influences. Three key attributes—biophysical elements, associative meanings, and sensory qualities—affect how we view landscapes. Natural character, as defined by law, assesses the naturalness of certain environments, persisting even in modified areas due to ongoing natural processes.

I also notice the qualities of landscape that occur in my work, just by using the colour green and dividing spaces, (fig,4)

Fig. 4

landscape

acrylic and ink on paper

Lee Krasner and the Pastoral Tradition

Collage served as a significant medium for American artist Lee Krasner in the 1950s. However, she faced criticism compared to her husband Jackson Pollock. Daniel Haxall highlights how Krasner's collages were dismissed as domesticated variants of Pollock's work. The continuing discussion of nature and its significance in contemporary art is central to understanding the modernist movement.

When responding to Hans Hofmann's admonition that he should paint from nature, Pollock supposedly retorted, 'I am nature'. 3

However, Haxall suggests looking at Krasner's art through the pastoral tradition, arguing that this viewpoint uncovers a deeper level of ambition and engagement in her collages, surpassing mere imitation.

“Krasner found her work criticized as a sanitized or domesticated (read pastoral) variant of his explosive expressionism. Yet, her collages juxtaposed the gestural with restraint, combining botanic imagery and natural rhythms with a well-cultured understanding of modernist painting. Thus, the pastoral might offer a means of reconsidering Krasner‘s work, because when interpreted through the role play and contingency of the pastoral, the discursive properties of her collages become ambitiously dialogic instead of merely derivative.” 3

Nature inspired both the imagery and structure of Krasner's work during the heyday of abstraction. Clement Greenberg, in “The Role of Nature in Modern Painting,” suggested that modernist art, starting with Cézanne and Cubism, organized the picture plane by simplifying and analyzing the natural world. Similarly, writer Frank O’Hara connected nature and Abstract Expressionism, and John Baur, while curating the Whitney Museum’s “Nature in Abstraction” show, noted that the New York School drew upon natural sensations. Influenced by Hans Hofmann’s method of working from nature, Krasner was aware of these discourses and integrated nature's cycles and rhythms into her art. She worked in cycles, reflecting the seasons, and recycled previous works for her collages, viewing this process as a form of growth.3

Krasner infused her pieces with the cyclical patterns of the natural world, as well as being affected by the environment around her in New York, for instance, "The City," created in 1953, (fig 5) captures the discord and tumult of urban environments through bold collage techniques. The piece, with its angular strips of black paper juxtaposed against vibrant red drips and squares, portrays the energy and perhaps violence often associated with city life.

Her deliberate engagement with art historical influences, coupled with acts of self-expression, positions her working with both tradition and experimentation. "Black and White," (fig 6), created in the same year, showcases her melding formal elements with personal narrative. The biomorphic forms and schematic stick figures hint at the female body, echoing the works of Picasso and Matisse while maintaining a distinctive Krasner touch.4

Works like "The City" and "Black and White" shows the interplay between nature and civilisation.

Fig. 5

City

Lee Krasner 1953

Fig. 6

Black and White

Lee Krasner 1953

 Footnotes

  1. J. S. Cabañero, "Symbolic Deterritorialization: The Case of Gabriel Orozco," Art and Design Review 3 (2015): 1-7, http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/adr.2015.31001 (accessed May 12, 2024).

  2. Rachael Jones, ‘Visualised Connections / Material Knowledge / Imagined Landscapes‘, Research Catalogue (2020) https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1040934/1040935/0/0 [accessed 04/06/2024]

  3. Lee Krasner, 'Interview with Bruce Glaser' 11967J, in K. Varnedoe and P. Karmel eds.,) Jackson Pollack - Interviews, Articles and Reviews, New York, 1999, p. 28.

  4. Daniel Louis Haxall, Politics, Form, and Identity in Abstract Expressionist Collage (PhD diss., The Pennsylvania State University, College of Arts and Architecture, 2009), 249

  5. Daniel Haxall, “Lee Krasner’s Pastoral Vision: Collage and the Nature of Order,” Woman’s Art Journal 28, no. 2 (Fall / Winter 2007): 20-27.

  6. Haxall, “Lee Krasner’s Pastoral Vision,” WAJ 28, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2007): 23.

Post 47 - Exhibitions visited

Julia Morison: Ode to Hilma, City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi

Extended response to the work of Hilma Af Klint, focusing on Klint’s the ten largest’ which had been exhibited in the same gallery 2021-2022. A thematic resonance between the work of Klint and Morison’s five decade long investigation into the power of artistic forms and materials to hold symbolic meaning. This work in turn resonates with me as I build my visual vocabulary, that is personal and yet bold.

Morison’s work is underlined by a complex symbolic system, working within self imposed parameters, materially, numerically or organisationally. This vocabulary is inspired by esoteric and spiritual sources such as Hermeticism, Kabbalah, alchemy and memory systems. This process interweaves symbols, materials and philosophy that can be reinterpreted for a contemporary context. In reflecting on these we can be encouraged to consider the systems themselves.

Morison explores the ways in which meaning cn be shaped through the use of ten symbolic materials, clay, ash, silver and gold to name a few. She draws on a range of knowledge systems from the arcane to the contemporary.

Hugo Koha Lindsay at GOW LANGSFORD

The Plimsoll Line 14th February - 9th March

Hugo Koha Lindsay (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Maru) is an artist from New Zealand who engages with abstraction-based painting methodologies, viewing abstraction as intertwined with everyday life. He interprets phenomenological experiences and the interplay of macro and micro environments through his art. His work often incorporates personal surroundings and urban influences, using techniques like unstretching, cutting, sewing, and re-stretching canvases to reveal the process of creation. Lindsay’s paintings, which can appear as ambient maps, maintain an open-ended, dynamic approach, evolving continually with his exploration of urban spaces, natural environments, and weather systems.

COMPOSITION 10: WITH NOTATIONS, ADDITIONS AND SUBTRACTIONS. 2023. Synthetic polymer and graphite compound on cotton duck, 450 x 600 mm.

composition 4: with notations, additions and subtractions, 2023

synthetic polymer, graphite compound, water on cotton duck 1850 1550mm

The level of techniques and the affective processes Lindsay is exploring in these works are very clear and cohesive. The muted palette works very well as does the ‘sea’ like colours and grainy marks. A combination of urban and ‘natural’ environments coming together is relevant to the kinds of work I have been making.

Delphinium Days - Derek Jarman at Gus Fisher Gallery

Derek Jarman's most notable period as a filmmaker, painter, and gardener coincided with Margaret Thatcher's rise to power. Coincidentally the same time exactly that I emigrated to England from New Zealand. His first feature film, Sebastiane, debuted in 1976, a year after Thatcher became the Conservative Party leader. Both individuals significantly influenced British culture over the next fifteen years.

While Thatcher dismantled workers' rights, privatized state assets, and controversially addressed the AIDS crisis, Jarman created a body of work that was joyful, sensual, anarchic, and filled with rage against a homophobic, class-conscious society. Trained as a painter at the Slade School of Fine Art, Jarman continued painting throughout his career, which is highlighted in the Delphinium Days exhibition at Gus Fisher Gallery in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.1

The exhibition, curated by Lisa Beauchamp, Michael Lett, and Aaron Lister, showcases Jarman's paintings from 1986 to 1993, alongside early Super 8 films and photographs by Howard Sooley. It also delves into Jarman's connection to Aotearoa through his father, Lancelot Elworthy Jarman, born in Waitaha Canterbury in 1907, and a World War II RAF pilot.

This connection is most evident in Jarman's 'black paintings' series, created from 1986 after his HIV diagnosis and his father's death. These works feature shattered glass, crushed beer cans, religious icons, and war remnants embedded in thick black paint and tar. One notable piece, Untitled (Ganymede) (1990), portrays Jarman's father in military attire amidst a canvas of reds and blacks, accompanied by symbolic objects like a glass pane, paintbrush, thermometer, and a medallion depicting Zeus and Ganymede. These paintings reflect a complex father-son relationship marked by grief, war trauma, and societal expectations, themes also explored in Jarman's writings, such as Kicking the Pricks (1987).2

For me these works are the closest to the mixed media collages I have been attempting to expand upon in my work, there is great texture, a sense of immediacy and strength of the work, despite the size.

In his journals, Derek Jarman describes his mixed media works as both 'collage' and 'construction.' These pieces fit within the tradition of Dubuffet’s 'constructions,' Arp’s 'collages,' Rauschenberg’s 'combinations,' Schwitters’ 'assemblages,' and Picasso’s reliefs, which are credited with liberating sculpture. Despite their dynamic nature, the vitality of these constructions is contained within the frame, ensuring they remain pictures. Through a Surrealist lens, the found objects in Jarman's works symbolize a 'return of the repressed,' reflecting the shock and repression of late twentieth-century society's attitude towards homosexuality. 3

These objects, often washed up flotsam or kitschy items from junkshops, introduce a vernacular element. Jarman likened the tar he used to the ocean off Dungeness, describing it as a forceful element that 'capsizes and sinks' forms, holding mysteries in its depths. The black in his paintings evokes the Spanish black of Goya and the darkness made visible by Rembrandt, serving as a shroud to hide from bigots and homophobes. In Chroma, he writes of 'melanosis,' comparing his black paintings to moths that turn black to hide from predators, painting gold into the darkness as a form of protection.4

Derek Jarman, Untitled (Ganymede) (1989). Tar and mixed media on canvas.

footnotes

1 Simon Gennard, "Derek Jarman: The Right Colour for the Video Age," Gus Fisher Gallery, July 2, 2024, accessed June 29, 2024, https://gusfishergallery.auckland.ac.nz/press/.

2 Gennard, "Derek Jarman."

3 Jonathan P. Watts, press release for Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, Black Paintings, Derek Jarman, 15 October - 22 December 2013," accessed June 29, 2024.

4 Watts, "Black Paintings Derek Jarman."