The studio has got lots of new works in it today. One is finished, I think. Two have painting to go. I want to reflect on all of these, and my recent turn towards making work in the studio, making, actual, big, paintings in, the, studio!!
It seems the worlds I want to build are no longer ones that happen in two or three hours outside, but they’re images in my head from experiences, amalgamated or single moments. I work from the gut, to distill a place, a day, an event into a painting. And, from my eyes, from my perspective. Sometimes I draw and draw before starting on the canvas, sometimes I just start.
It sounds kind of selfish when I describe it like this. I don’t know how I feel about that. I have been watching/ reading lots of David Hockney themed things at the moment, and in these, especially in a documentary that was on TV the other week, Hockney is portrayed as an artist who wants to express how he sees the world through painting. So that’s where that idea came from.
I just question whether this form of individual self expression is really very worthy of anything. Other than making aesthetic objects for consuming.
I guess a really good painting depciting my perception of the world would do more than just describe. Like a good book it would show you things, be filled, mysteriously with so much content between the lines of text. So a good painting does that too. It doesn’t just tell you what you are seeing, it shows you things, that surprise you, detest, excite, challenge you. And that is what I am ‘working towards’? Frustratingly, murkily.
But the important thing is being here, in the studio, attempting, trying, experimenting, being childish! Fostering that energy and environment.
*A few days later*
Working from my gut is an unfamiliar experience. Just painting, going, keeping going. It fills my gut with a light, It fulfills me, it also can fustrate me, it is hard work, but iT is VeRY GOOD!
That’s all!
Georgina Harris 