Affordable Art Show 2007 and beyond?

After visiting the Affordable Art Show this year, I have to say I have a few major concerns with the direction it is heading.
Most notably is the amount of select artist panels. Last year (2006) there were about 10-12 artists who purchased a wall do display their art. They get to chose which art goes on it and the wall panel is strictly for their own work. They pay a premium for it ($250-$500), but get to have their work for sale and have as many pieces as they like.
This year however, there are 33 artists who have purchased wall space. Thats 33 panels that are not available for the up and coming artist who can't afford to purchase a wall.
This trend could grow, and suddenly the Affordable Art Show will be dominated by single artist walls, and the minnows will be forced out.
I'm not sure if that is the aim behind the Affordable Art Show or not...
Of course it would be easy to rant on about what is wrong without giving any solution.
Thats why I have thought about it and come up with one possible solution.
If you need to have "Artist walls" at all in the show (which might be the solution is just to get rid of them), then make them an offer to artists. What I mean by that is, have a selection panel who will go through the works selected for the show, pick a few who have a) exhibited before, b) fit in with a style or different style, c) need exposure etc... and offer to those artists a wall for their work, at no additional cost. The selection panel would be impartial, and would not focus on artists they know or have heard of, but instead select work based on potential, ideas, vibrancy and uniqueness. Limit it to 10 "Featured" artists. Of course, not all of those who are selected might be willing or ready to have an artist wall for themselves, and so it may be a continuing process, or maybe select 10, and then a back up 10. I think this would be a fairer way to do it, and it would also mean that the Show could control how many artist walls there are.

If the Affordable Art Show continues along this path, where the rich can buy their spot on the wall and dominate the show, the Affordable Art Show will merely become Un-affordable, not just for the viewing public... but for the artists themselves as they will have to purchase a wall to get a look in.
Those who have the deepest pocket will always win.

Reworking Flash

I've spent the day reworking my 'portrait' of Flash (my cat). I was unhappy with the previous version's likeness to my darling cat and so decided to rework it and get it looking better. I also applied my 'Turneresque' style to it.
See it at my gallery here.

Here you can see the comparison between the two images. The one on the left is the original 'Flash', which I painted back in 2003. The one on the right is the reworked one in oils, completed today in 2007.

Art No More

I am no longer an artist. I renounce being called an artist. From this day on I will create paintings, not art. I am a painter, not an artist.
If the bollocks that is being shown in art galleries is art, then I do not want to be associated with it. I no longer have the time of day, nor night, for that.
And so the life of the painter has begun.
My next solo exhibition will be entitled "Putting the Art back into Art" - whenever that may be.

What has sparked this outrage?
Well - its been a long time in the making. After taking the Art History paper that focuses on Contemporary New Zealand Art practice (which was very good and very challenging) I realised that the term 'art' has been somewhat bastardised into meaning, in a sense, anything 'of the arts'.
In our last lecture, there was a panel of three 'art world experts'; a curator of a leading public gallery, a director of an artist run space in Wellington and a leading contemporary New Zealand photographer and lecturer. They addressed certain issues raised with Contemporary art and practice. The director of Enjoy tried to enlighten us to some of the 'projects' which occurred at Enjoy in 2006 - of which an artist in residence... well - who knows what she did!? She gathered up views and ideas as to a project relating to a topic, placing a lounge set in the gallery space for people to come and discuss ideas. I fail to see how that can be art in ANY sense of the word!

Whats more, my question which I hoped to raise was of the responsibility of the artist to produce art for the wider viewing public that they can understand. The practitioner artist addressed it briefly saying that artists 'don't really care' about the public. My second question was prepared for that answer in that it was who is art for then?
I firmly believe art has to be for the viewing public. While art holds an important personal connection with its creator, the real test is whether the public 'get' it (either they enjoy it, understand its meaning, appreciate its aesthetic quality, etc...) and this is what art is really for. If art is only for those in the art world - artists, curators, gallery owners - then it is void of logical reasoning as to its existence. It becomes circular in purpose - creating art for other artists who can create art.
No - the public is who it is for. And if the public can't understand the art of today even on a very surface level, then it is not doing its job. The artist then HAS to care about their responsibility to the public to create art.

What gets me irate is the fact that so much is done in the name of art which is so far from what art should be. Not only this, but that art galleries and curators accept this, accepts these things as art and display them for the public - cementing its place in the art scene - a location it should be dreadfully foreign in!

I can see Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Raphael, da Vinci all turning in their graves as we speak. All of them would be disgusted at the state that art has been led to by its very own. It is these so called artists (or as I would prefer them to be called - exhibitionists) who only seek attention, who are bringing about the downfall of the very thing they think they are creating! It leaves us; the skillful, the trained, the 'traditional' (in a loose sense of the term) without a foot to stand on. Art is being left behind for what would be better promoted as 'projects' - and a category outside of art is where they belong.

But what can one do to change the views of this art world hurtling towards its own demise. Without staging a worldwide revolution of art, one can only but sit back and watch the ship sink. I for one am getting off this boat before that occurs, quite happy to take my buoyancy aid and float in my own art world. I will be true to the real art. The art that exists for the public. I will be a painter. Paint pictures will be what I will do. And I hope that many will join me. Painters, Sculptors (none of the installation rubbish tho); the true talent that was what art was. It was this talent, this skill, this ability to express the world to the public which spawned art. Not this separate bollocks which graces our shores which we find hard to describe, hard to analyse, hard to define; hard to even consider as anything - nothing tangible - not even really an idea; an idea of ideas??? ITS NOT ART! The sooner we realise that (as I have) - the sooner they realise that - the sooner we might get this boat back to shore and mend its broken hull.

'Till next time...

Money or the Bag

Had a bit of an idea in line with the whole post modernism season.
My idea (and hence by copyrighted!) is to provide buyers with a bit of a mystery to the paintings.
The whole idea came from the process of having to wrap and package paintings for large scale shows, unwrap them for display and then pack them back up for their distribution out to their buyers.
Why not skip the whole unwrapping process.
Covered up with Brown paper and hung on the wall - the buyer would not know what they were buying besides the general size and dimensions.
While it may not work - it would cause a stir. Maybe once I get the courage I may carry this out. Of course, there would always be a great painting underneath. Once people knew that, it may begin to make it easier to sell a "blind" painting

Open Gate; To a world where everyone is welcome, yet few enter

Finished this painting finally today. Managed to find enough time to do so. I've been studying at uni about 18th Century Landscapes and the thing I find myself in lacking of when it comes to the landscape depiction is the human aspect which draws the viewer in - otherwise known as staffage. I think the reason for that is because I suck at depicting the human figure in detail!!! (As did Turner, but he makes them better than I do anyway!)
It doesn't exactly matter in this painting because of its loose manner.
Let me know what you think!

Abstracted

Abstraction. Void of realism. Absence of recognizable form. Shapes and removal of meaning. An expression of the artist, revealed by the raw form of the materials and their application.

But what of the use of geometry? Artists such as Mondrian, Malevich, Newman? Paintings where squares or rectangles form the basis of the work?

The issue I have is that geometry itself is displaying recognizable form - directly contrary to what Abstraction is about. While a coloured circle is in itself not linked to anything figurative, once placed in succession with 2 other vertically aligned circles, coloured red, orange and green... we have traffic lights. If we can simplify that down, then any geometrical shape can mean any number of things to any number of people. They can be representations of things; either consciously or unconsciously.

The biggest problem though is that they hold recognizable form. People can tell it is a particular shape because it follows the simple guidelines for creating that shape. A square has four equal sides with right angled corners. It not only is recognizable but also is limiting the expression that an artist can have, because he must follow these guidelines.

But one would call Mondrian an abstract painter, because he didn't not paint anything in particular. His squares and lines do not link themselves to anything in the natural world. He did not paint rolling landscapes or courageous military generals on horseback. They are arrangements of colour.
But are they? Or are they in fact extremely realistic in their depiction of what blue, red and yellow rectangles are?

Food for thought...

Dead Tree

My latest work. I realized while reading yet another Turner book, that the works of his which pushed the boundaries past reality, were the ones I liked most. Yet it was those ones which my paintings were not heading towards - a sort of fudging between his early works and his late works. A stand off in the middle.
This is my latest attempt to head towards those later paintings. It is from an idea that I had before, of the dead tree in some rolling hills. The dead tree, as mentioned by some NZ Art Historian; Curnow or Francis Pound or someone, that it is New Zealand's symbol of the Roman Column of ancient times.

Alias: Dead Tree - The first stop. I carried on to almost finished, forgot to take any photos.

Alias: Dead Tree - The second stop. Bringing the white in and developed tree.

Alias: Dead Tree - Additions. Lightening bits, darkening bits.

30//03//07

I didn't like the way the tree was dominating, leaving the rest of it very flat with little going on. I was inspired by a Desktop Wallpaper I saw of a very flat landscape with a vast sky and a very small dead oak tree. It was beautiful. I wish to paint it one day, but gave it a go on here.
After scraping out the old tree and putting in the new one, it was missing something still. Because the original was a seascape, one couldn't build the ground in the same way. So I've added in the remnants of a No 8. wire fence.

Alias: Dead Tree - New tree and added fence. Possibly final setting.

Ashamed to be an Artist (Episode II)

Again, the walls of the space they continue to call an "Art Gallery" fall short of their former glory. The "Telecom PROSPECT 2007 New Art > New Zealand" is a display of what art is in this country. Is not the purpose of such an exhibition to show the grandeur and splendor of this nations upcoming and rising artists? Why then are we presented with art which not only leaves the general public flabbergasted as to its reason for being selected, but also leaves artists who might at least be able to understand in the same such state? Is the "Contemporary Art" scene but a means to an end of those who are looking for the next big thing to hit the shores of the art world? They hunt for their fifteen minutes of fame as they try and follow in the revolutionary footsteps of Andy Warhol. I suspect that in doing so they are sacrificing the rest of us who have worked hard in study to become better skilled artists. They have slaughtered the natural abilities that are but God given gifts and made art into a mockery of itself.

And I am obviously not the only one who thinks like this. One such comment left on the wall at City Gallery is "There are many definitions of what art is. When did s*** fall into it? I am yet again ashamed to be called an Artist, for the mere fact that with exhibitions like this, the public's perception of what art is has changed or is changing from "Highly Skilled and Aesthetically Worthwhile Examples of Human Creativity" into "Expensive S***".

There is something about "time" which I feel is incredibly important when looking at the purpose of art and thereby what art actually is. It is something I had not thought about before. I have not alluded to it in my "What is Art? An un-philosophical viewpoint" article, but would be inclined to add because of this realization. If we look at art in a historical context, we can look at these pieces of masterful skill and appreciate them even today. They have survived through time, they have stood the test and are still recognized today as great works of art.

There is something about the "Contemporary Art" which does not fulfill this. They are often made for the moment, concentrated pieces on the process rather than the lasting impression or finished qualities. Many of them are temporary installations which will no longer exist after they are removed from the gallery walls or exiled from the exhibition. While some will be placed in another gallery space or location, if they are truly about the process, they would then become separate works, new works, and would only be attempting to recreate their former state. One such work was painted onto the gallery wall, and will subsequently be painted back over with Gallery Wall White upon the ending of the exhibition. There is something about art when viewing it in a book or on a slide or other photographic means, in that you know it exists somewhere else and that one day you could walk up to it and view it for yourself in flesh and blood. The mere fact that these works are dissembled, dismantled, or otherwise painted over upon the conclusion of the exhibition and will not exist in the same way ever again means
that the photograph of these works leaves one feeling hollow. There is no longer that knowledge that these artworks exist somewhere. If one cannot hope to one day experience the artwork for themselves, then there is no longer that interest or the personal desire to seek out and see these works.

This is also true for the materials used. Naturally, not all materials will last forever. Cracking of oil paints and the fading of colour mean that even the masterpieces of the past artists change in
appearance and quality. Today, things are for the now, and little importance is placed on the existence of the work and how it will fair in 20 years, let alone 200 years. One question that could be raised from this is that of works which no longer exist through damage or other destructive means. Are the paintings that Picasso burned to keep warm in the winter months
artworks now? Even if we have the photos of them, do they hold that same status as say Demoselles D'Avignon does which we know exists in the New York Gallery of Modern Art? Of course they don't. The same applies for artworks which have been painted over, paintings which have been destroyed in fires and so on. While they existed and could have existed to claim great status, the fact that they no longer exist, and we know they no longer exist, lowers their overall appeal as great artworks. The same therefore applies to this "Contemporary Art" which plague the gallery walls. A lot of it is not made to last, some of it made to be destroyed. You can't tell me a mountain of popcorn has any intention of lasting beyond the gallery or exhibition.

I think what annoys me most is the fact that this is displayed in our nations capital City Gallery as examples of what we should be looking for in the future of art. If that is the future of art, then I shall spend the rest of my days looking for a different word to call what it is that I do, what it is that I call myself.

Brewing the Darkness

This is my latest work, codenamed "Brewing the Darkness" for the time being. Yes - I am churning them out at the moment, mainly because I already had 2 which were almost finished, and I made this board up in between painting times. It seems to be going back to my earlier paintings of how I used to do the skies. I did them in acrylics, but found that the same techniques can be applied in oils and come out with the same effect, except you don't have to do it just before drying time to do the half blends of the clouds with the oils, as they stay wet!

I am not yet sure of where it is heading, or what its message will be. It started off as just layering on the background of paint. I felt the need for something bluish as I quite like the way the blue works in oils, so began doing a layer of paint mixed with a bit of linseed oil to help with the drying process. This is what eventuated!

Alias: "Brewing the Darkness" - Linseed/Oil under-painting

I then began to add the oil paint, keeping to the same style and feel of the under-painting that I had done. I tried working it with a palette knife to keep with the same Turner inspiration I have been building on for the last year or so - but found it difficult to keep the emotion and feeling that was openly apparent from the first layer. I took a bold move and added in some crepuscular rays which hopefully will begin to reveal a focus point for the painting.

Alias: "Brewing the Darkness" - Re worked, layering on the paint, with crepuscular rays.

I did some quick research on crepuscular rays and say that they are also known as "God's rays" and also as "Jacob's Ladder" - both Biblical references! I wait in anticipation as you do as to where this painting is taken. Yes - not even I know the direction of this one yet!!!


27//02//07

Have finally worked out where this one is going after a bit of doodling during the first week of classes of uni.
For the first time since my Rome painting, I have included people. A Father and a son, standing at the end of a pier.
I'm not yet sure of the message, but it will be somewhere along the lines of Like Father, Like Son - playing with the idea of God and Jesus as well.

Alias: "Brewing the Darkness" - Added in the pier with the Father and Son.
Re-worked sky with palette knife to be more in the style of Turner.

11//03//07

The finalizing of the painting has been done. This image is the last step before the final painting, which can be seen in Gallery 6 in the next few days. I've added in a on the pier and lighting on the handrails and figures. The final image (not shown) has a brighter horizon on the right of the painting.

Alias: "Brewing the Darkness" - Added in the light on the pier and handrails.
The final painting has a brighter horizon to the right.

The final title for this work is "Like Father, Like Son; Gods Son Raised from the Dead" - playing on the idea of the figures on the wharf, as well as the play on words "Gods Son Raised..." with Gods Sun Rays - linking to the crepuscular rays mentioned before.

Taupo and Setting Sail

The Wairarapa / Sodom and Gomorrah painting has been dealt with, and is now under-painting for my latest piece: "Taupo; East of the Great Lake with Western Bays in the Distance", inspired from a photo I took a couple of years ago.
I have also finished a prior piece that I started before the Taupo one, which is now: "Setting Sail to the Setting Sun; The End of the First Voyage to Aotearoa".
Both are oil paintings, both about a metre in width and both I am happy with at this stage.
Please visit Gallery 6 to view these paintings and more!

Taupo; East of the Great Lake with Western Bays in the Distance

Setting Sail to the Setting Sun; The End of the First Voyage to Aotearoa

What is Art?

Full Version (PDF 813Kb)

What is art? Simple enough question at the very skin of things, but when you start to look at the flesh and bones it gets a lot more complicated.

The only way in which to address this question would be to go through and look at our history, the history of art. What it was to be an artist and how that has changed today? What was considered art in the past? What was it about the traditional concept of art that made it art? To find out where we are going, we have to know where we have come from. To some extent this applies to our little journey; to find out what art is in the 21st Century, we have to know what art has been in the past.

Many have tried to explain what art actually is. Even artists themselves in areas of post modernism, turned to making art to explain art itself. People have written books, articles and endless thoughts on it and yet, every so often we find ourselves in some gallery some where asking “Is that really art?” So, attacking Google as I sometimes do, I keyed in "define:art".

The following displayed:

- The products of human creativity; works of art collectively; "an art exhibition"; "a fine collection of art"

- The creation of beautiful or significant things; "art does not need to be innovative to be good"; "I was never any good at art"; "he said that architecture is the art of wasting space beautifully"

- A superior skill that you can learn by study and practice and observation; "the art of conversation"; "it's quite an art"

- Artwork: photographs or other visual representations in a printed publication; "the publisher was responsible for all the artwork in the book"

- Art, in its broadest meaning, is the expression of creativity or imagination, or both.

- A form of human activity created primarily as an aesthetic expression, especially, but not limited to drawing, painting and sculpture.