Notes

Mark: ( Talking about my crit, referring to my comments regarding the selection of certain pieces to bring along to the crit) I think this is where going through some kind of questioning, going through some kind of process, what you are seeing and what you are identifying for selecting or what is ruling out the ones which aren’t being selected. In the very quick mark making in the screen print/ mono print pieces. some sort of analysis ..are there questions of balance, proportions, relations of frame? (in terms of photographing also) there is a selection process here. For example. Instagram relates to the square that ‘did something’.

Me: Ref My conversation with Chris: punctum. If I over analyse the ‘something’ Punctum perhaps then am I, then moving away from instinctive or intuitive?

Mark: Intuitive is complicated. Interesting to look at Gordon Smith, Canadian painter. He is wheelchair bound, using colours and mark making, He may be of interest. Prompted by landscape but intuition is present.

When there are different tools for mark making i.e. drawing and painting…Graphic mark rather than the painterly colour. (referring to the pieces I made which incorporate line and painting) they are carrying colour, there is an interesting tension between the mark of the drawing and the paint (how they operate together). When somebody said in a crit following your blind drawing ‘why don’t you paint blind?’. This seems really weird because the selection of colour is fundamental and whilst I understand moving away from the deliberate marks/tools and free up the mark making it does seem like a very different thing to paint blind as there are a whole different set of choices when painting.

Me; I agree, it would be very different to paint completely blind. I have tried. I would lose the sense of the materials which I love about painting.

Mark: Yes, there would be movement, and pressure and maybe a sense of brush, full brush impasto etc but the colour is key. It may be an exercise but feels like it may be asking a different question. Other ways of doing it may be to define chance rules. i.e. sequence, 20 colours, three 20% etc mixing to generate chance colours. Perhaps have a rule of limited brushes, tools, consistency of paint, things that resist the normal ways of painting. Numbers, mathematical? Where would it get you? Again, is it asking a different question? You don’t have to do everything the crit suggests.

Me: Yes, some areas of the crit have confused my thinking. I think it has given me ideas to try but perhaps they are not all useful. However, I have realised that there are questions for me to investigate around aesthetics as you say. Why have I selected certain pieces to show? Do I need to introduce rules to be able to break rules? I am only in my first year, I am here to discover and uncover.

Mark: I had a student (PhD) who narrated and recorded his own practice. That could be interesting. Reflecting in the moment. Put them aside then re-layer over them. Reflecting on the reflections. That could be helpful? But with any of these things we need to ask why. What’s the purpose of doing this?

If intuition is key, then you need to research Philosophical writing that looks at intuition. Henry Burkson. early 20th century Felix Guattari.

What is intuition opposite to? What is it in relation to, binary? What its other? Is that conscious action or thought? Is that deliberate gesture? Is that the pre-planned? Each of those are different from each other as well so thinking about what is it not could be a way of identifying how do I set up an experiment about ‘what is an unconscious gesture?’ Do you arrange something to disturb your process? How does this opposition function? You seem to Identify intuition as a positive value so where does it draw that value from? Why is it a positive value?

Me: I have developed a control in my work to date. I can identify something of value of the work I made when I was a less skilled painter. A quality to the mark making of the earlier work.

Mark: Identify what has shifted? There is a sense that you have developed skills, you can produce a painting which is skilled. You are almost introducing disruptions to your practice to push back against that. It’s still interesting to think about why the intuitive, free, loose is a positive thing.

Me: Is it that I am coming in at the wrong angle? Is intuitive the right word. Is that what I mean? As I look further into why I am valuing this ‘thing’ that it could be something entirely different?

Mark: It might be. It’s an interesting word but also a tricky word because it slips around in different definitions and people use it differently. Thinking back to earlier painting theory, without conscious decision or thought. there are different ways of giving that value. You mention Surrealism …where they are coming out of early 20th century psychoanalysis where Freud, Young and the notion of analysing dreams is key. They set up systems where they believe that they are tapping into this, a clear structure of relationships. They believe that the conscious mind is suppressing things. It is a clear model as to why they are valuing this.

Me: The work of the surrealists is controlled, representational and considered. They thought about colour and the use of the golden mean. I can see conscious thought, so does that not contradict something of their beliefs?

Mark: Some of the writing as opposed to the painting uses magnetics fields (Breton), writing in a way that accesses the unconsciousness not the stream of consciousness which is what Virginia Wolf or Gertrude Stein would, they are writing as a way of accessing, maybe drugs etc to remove barriers to access something behind the barrier, get past repressions, attitudes etc. Primitive, unconscious. For John cage it would be Zen for example. I’m not saying you need to identify one of those but each one of those groupings in a model has a structure to see value in the unrepressed, loose, informal, whatever term you might use, and that is the ‘good’ in a binary way of seeking, removing or lessening thought. It is useful to talk about this, we may revisit this later in terms of essay writing , thinking about surrealists in terms of models ( not that it is the same or a fit for what you are doing necessarily) but sets up a questioning about the intuitive.

To come back to the aesthetics… The notion of the mark within the work. it might be interesting to think about what you identify as a mark? You reflect on the marks. Can it exist in isolation? What would that be? Does it need a surface, medium. Is it a gesture? If I do that (waves his arm) can we imagine a mark? Without a tool etc. Picassos light drawings. Analysing, when is it a line, a shape, a point for both? Tim Ingold’s book on lines, he determines a summary of lines, filaments, mark left by something, absence- cracks, etc. Dictionary of lines. classification system. You could identify these and perhaps think about what you value in some of these? You talk about mark making as an important element.

Abstract expressionists to look at; Franz Kline, the mark almost become forms. Helen Frankenthaler where there is pouring, and the lines arise. Not a mark but a line, edge, contour, limit. This could prompt ways of experimenting. E.g. your biro, charcoal, pencil each produces different marks and associations/ relationship with it. Your work is not about the mark solely but is important in terms of how you discuss it. If you analyse this then you could uncover ways to open up the marks? i.e. lines made by dripping, gravity is very different to a mark made by a gesture or an action, it is inaction/non gesture not deliberate.

Me: I think it would be useful to better understand the terms which I am using.

Mark: Yes, it will give you material to work with in terms of discussing it. Extend your sense of what you are working with. I really like the way you use colour; Idon’t know how to explain that. It may be interesting to try the suggestion of neon bold colour (crit) but it would be more useful to consider what is going on this pallet that you are using. Farrow and ball, habit etc. There is a reference, What’s happened there? Is there a common sensibility? Calm harmony. Belong together.

Me: I undertook a very process led degree. One of the things I studied was colour theory. I know that I understand black for example. Warm blacks and greys. I never use black mixed with white for example, I prefer to use chromatic greys using colour mixing theory…

Mark: Yes, there are kind of dead greys within that group which fall out of the image.

Me: My taste comes into play also.

Mark: We are not saying stop painting this way but understand it. Colour theory is a way of learning how to create a palette and mix pigment. What might happen if you step back and consider what else maybe culturally is going on here? There is a cultural pallet? history aspects etc. way of asking questions about the aesthetic/taste. how can I locate this in culture?

Me: similar kind of analysis to the mark making? An unpicking?

Mark: Well…they feel like a family of colours, it’s a different question here. You know where you are with colour theory but what about culturally? Historically? Where do they sit?

Pierre Pontier French sociology, a book called Distinction. Don’t read the whole book. French society identifying ‘good taste’ he unpicks it. It is learned, middle class, spread through culture.

Also Continue to look at the materiality, thinking about what different materials do. As you say ref Elkins he talks about the flow, crackle fold etc. This connects with the mark. And how you mark make. The marks can be looked at within the phenomenology of the body and movement and with colour it is dependent on sight. We can make associations but there is a distance, its different, that’s where the work in which you use both mark making with tools and the colour/paint there is this interesting tension. How that graphic mark sits with the painterly gestural mark. It is worth looking at Abstract Expressionism. maybe away from the well-known Americans but perhaps Antoni Tapies (Spanish painter), 1950s he is drawing on a different tradition in some ways, different arguments.

Me: And In terms of my framing statement, how would I include within timescale these elements discussed today? Should I set out areas of interest as intentions?

Mark: Yes, your draft is fine as an initial setting out. Add in your intentions and why. You don’t yet know where you are going to get to. Also mention all that you have been doing in the last three months. Putting it into context with other artists and writers. Thinking about questions of the relationships of the unconscious and intuitive and how you intend to investigate that some more.