Psychoanalysis

DO I want to go in that direction, like some people have been mentioning, or am I more interested in the idea of people (whose intelligence and talents and interests may be more scientific or musical or something else other than visual art) as visual artists? There may be some overlap.

Richard Hamilton: "The Late Works," And Not Being Unnecessarily Complicated

I saw this today. I like that the work may not necessarily have been over-thought during its making and that you do not need to over-analyse it to find it interesting ("interesting" meaning exactly that, and not just "aesthetically pleasing").

I want to make work that does not rely on being unnecessarily complicated. I don't want complicated secret meanings that will never really make a difference to the work unless they are spelled out (either in the work or outside of it). I think a couple of the ideas I was having before could lend themselves well to this. I liked the idea of giving "non-artists" gallery space to "use" or "exploit" or "waste" or do whatever else they felt like with as much or as little effort or thought as they wanted (because: is gallery space "important" and is anyone's "art" really "less important"? and what would they choose to do? it could be interesting). However I think I'm going to get someone to think of something for me to create. It can be something important to them or a random doodle or something crude, anything, and I'll immortalise it in stone or oil paint or something like that. I was going to carve something, but I think seeing the Richard Hamilton stuff today has given me the idea of merging laborious oil painting with contrasting elements.

Santiago Montoya

I was at the Halcyon Gallery and decided to see what Montoya's work seemed to be about without looking for any background information.

I like work that is about humans, but without necessarily having humans in it, and I think that that is what this work was.

I feel like the work questions money's power over people and emphasises its repetitiveness, using it as a medium in a way that forces us to see it as exactly what it is physically. You pay attention to its form and aesthetic qualities and question why it represents so much more than what it is. Montoya surrounds a large stack of sheets of cotton paper by bold, iconic images made of currency, and this emphasises how much difference there is between what money is, physically, and what it means to us once numbers and landmarks and portraits of 'important' people have been printed on it.

I think this work is another example of clean, elegant, uncomplicated solutions.

Patricia Piccinini

The other day I was at one of the Haunch of Venison galleries and saw some of Patricia Piccinini's work. While it was not that relevant to my interests, it was definitely a good example of work that makes its points in a clean and simple way. Its intentions and effects are clear, and its execution is uncomplicated.

Just with colours and textures, and without complicated text and imagery, the work speaks volumes. It speaks about humans even where faces or any other recogniseable humanoid body parts are completely omitted. It raises questions about our disgust towards the way we are physically - our bodies' functions and form. It seems to question why we react a certain way to what should be seen as natural, and how strong that reaction is or is not.

While there does not appear to be a visual connection, her works which are more mechanical work together with her works that look more organic. How can something which looks so natural and human disgust us so much, and how can we find something endearing when it's clearly made of metal and rubber and makes no attempt to disguise that fact?

Exhibition Crit

I had a seminar and missed part of the crit, so my work was not spoken about, and in a way I think I am glad. As it was, so much was said that I felt applied to my work. I think I attempt to say too much in my work. I think I always have. I'm influenced by artists like Taryn Simon whose work tends to speak to us about fairly specific things, but I'm realising that there's a simplicity to work like hers - a simplicity that my work is missing. She might be photographing a large group of orphans, and that photograph may say a lot about society and people, but this is not achieved by piles of symbolism and captions and drama. The photographs show us complex emotion in an uncomplicated way. Michael Landy's 'Break Down' said so much about material objects and what they mean. It spoke about more than just consumerism or the way we live, but this was all achieved by a very simple action. The act of destroying all his possessions may have been dramatic, but it was a clean, simple idea. And the thought and discussion that came out of that was immense. The work itself was not what was doing the wondering and rambling.

Smile

from the webcomic, "A Softer World"

Telling people that they should smile because they're pretty when they smile or some shit is surprisingly common. Not only that:

- it is even more patronising

- it is just as insensitive

- it assumes that everyone aims to be pretty

- it assumes that whatever they are feeling is more trivial than appearance

- it reduces sentient humans to decorative objects

Obviously I would never get mad at someone who had good intentions, I just mean that I would choose HONESTY over the appearance of happiness. You can be honest about how you personally feel, without bringing other people down. In fact, it's actually even possible to cheer people up who feel just as bad as you without putting on a fake smile. Being honest about not being a steaming bowl of perkiness does not have to have negative consequences.

I have a sort of collage thing and a video relating to this (I already mentioned the video as I've already mentioned this).