I had some free time yesterday, so I decided to try out kitchen lithography using some aluminium foil and cola.
This is the first time I’ve tried it – I’ve been interested in doing it since I came across a Canadian artist who uses it in her work, in addition to other printing processes, Valerie Syposz. Her work primarily deals with self-perception and existence.
’Treasure’ 2021’Shelter’ 2022‘Embers’ 2023
I like the surreal quality of her work, and her subject matter is relevant to what I’m exploring.
I have to be honest and say that it didn’t really go to plan. First of all, I discovered that the foil I have in my kitchen drawer has a honeycomb pattern embossed on it, and then I forgot to use the dull rather than the shiny side of the foil. I made various marks using different pencils, pens, markers, graphite sticks and pastels, but I was doomed to failure. Not wanting to go out into the cold to my shed to find some plexiglass sheets to wrap the foil around, I had used an Amazon envelope which I found in the recycling bin, which turns out had some raised edges on it. But, hey, it’s just an experiment. I also didn’t apply enough water to the plate which meant that the ink adhered to areas it shouldn’t have.
Once I had realised my mistakes I gave it another go. I used a small plexiglass sheet this time, and found some other foil which had a smooth surface. I made a quick, not so good, drawing of the plant in front of me. I used a combination of a chinagraph pencil, basic oil pastel, and a 6B graphite pencil. I did try using a biro, but it ripped a hole in the foil – this was probably because the foil wasn’t very strong. I then poured cola over the top of the plate, rinsed it off, and then rubbed the image away using vegetable oil. Once the plate was dampened with water, I rolled on the ink, re-applying water using a sponge between each ink application. The idea is that the cola contains gum arabic and phosphoric acid which makes the foil which hasn’t been drawn on, hygroscopic. I then used a bamboo baren to transfer the image to a sheet of Hosho paper.
They’re not great, but I’m just happy that I managed to get a defined image at all, bearing in mind my first attempt was such a complete Horlicks.
It felt good trying something new, and what made it particularly enjoyable was the fact that it could be done at home with easily accessible tools and supplies. I will definitely explore it further perhaps after doing some further research so that I can appreciate its full potential. There is a lot of scope for experimentation with different printmakers having different opinions as to the best methodology to adopt: some lightly sand the foil before drawing on it, others use cornflour and maple syrup on the plate; some don’t use a support and just use the foil as a sheet. Maybe the brand of cola has a bearing on whether the process is successful: perhaps I’ll need to have a Pepsi challenge.
That wasn’t how the last couple of days were supposed to have gone.
My daughter came home from uni just after our session ended on Tuesday with rapid onset tonsillitis. By Wednesday she was in tears. She is one of the bravest and most stoical people I know, so this unsettled me. It’s heartbreaking watching your child suffer in pain. When I was in pain, my mother used to tell me that, if she could, she would swap places with me. I wish I could say the same, but the truth is my daughter is far better equipped to deal with it than me. When it comes to pain, I don’t mind admitting that I’m a wimp. If there are drugs going that will make me feel better, just pump me full of them – that’s what advances in medical science are for, after all.
I don’t care that I didn’t have a ‘natural’ birth, without pain relief; that she came out of the sunroof. I wasn’t ‘too posh to push’ – she wasn’t going anywhere, and at risk of becoming distressed, and would it have mattered if she hadn’t been, anyway? Is a natural birth somehow superior to one with medical intervention? Why are we told, in that patronising way, that we are not the only woman to have ever given birth? I am the only ‘me’ to have given birth.
Whilst I’m doing my best to keep negativity out of my life, some things do just make me angry. I think it is now generally accepted that women are expected to put up with an unnecessary level of pain when it comes to matters of their health, just because they are women. Studies have shown that women experience pain more intensely, and for more of the time than men. However, they are less likely to have their pain scores recorded, or to be prescribed pain relief than men. Apparently, this is based on the misguided notion that women are more emotional, which means that they may exaggerate the pain they are feeling – after all, ‘hysteria’ comes from the Greek word hystera, which means uterus. Really? There is now a term for this way of thinking: medical misogyny.
It reminds me of a comment made by a male healthcare professional whilst discussing pain relief during the discharge process after an exploratory procedure, which had been initially attempted without sedation. Some women can ‘tolerate’ the ‘discomfort’. I wasn’t putting up with the intense pain. Did I feel like a failure, that I’d somehow let myself and womanhood down; that I should have been able to ‘tolerate’ the ‘discomfort’ like all those women who had gone before? Initially, yes, and it is very intimidating to be in a situation where you are surrounded by healthcare professionals, both men and women, where you feel that you have lost agency over what is being done to your body. Did I look in their eyes for judgement, particularly in the women’s, whilst I dressed, gathered my things and left? Yes. But the word ‘no’ is empowering, and so it was sedation for me. Anyway, getting back on point, I think I made some quip as to knowing what pain feels like, being a woman. He must have interpreted that comment as alluding to a badge of honour as to the amount of pain women can tolerate, as he replied, something along the lines of: “Women can’t have it both ways”.
Anyway, I’ve managed to make it all about me again; that wasn’t how this post was supposed to have gone. After several trips to, and many hours spent in A&E, pain relief, antibiotics, fluids, steroids, and a bit of an exploration up her nose and down her throat with a camera, she’s thankfully on the mend with plans to whip the little troublemakers out in due course.
In the hope of finding some inspiration, I sorted out my art bookcase and came across the exhibition handout to the Michael Craig-Martin exhibition at the Royal Academy. This quote caught my attention:
I dislike jargon intensely and cannot stand people who think that complex ideas need to be expressed in a way that is obscure or rarified… The great minds whom I have admired … are precise and economic in their use of simple language.”
Michael Craig- Martin, “On Being An Artist”
I have to agree with him. I’m very much an advocate of the Plain English campaign. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the necessary range of vocabulary to achieve such verbal smoke and mirrors, or the attention span.
Clarity of language is what made reading Will Gompertz’s ‘Think Like An Artist…’ such a breath of fresh air. He cuts through all the jargon and makes his points in such a way that someone who doesn’t have an ounce of art knowledge would be able to understand and appreciate them.
As Craig-Martin says, it’s not about having very complex ideas: ideas which challenge are good but, if we want art to be accessible to all, why use convoluted and, frankly, nonsensical language to explain and critique it? Is it to maintain an air of mystery, of intellectual superiority? And who is responsible? The artists, the critics, the galleries or curators, or all of them?
Thinking back to our first sessions when we introduced ourselves and our work, I can’t think of a single instance when I didn’t understand the ideas being expressed. There was just authenticity.
This year’s Summer Exhibition is dedicated to art’s capacity to forge dialogues but, how can art ever hope to change things if people just don’t get it? It goes back to the idea of ‘connection’ in my previous post: without a connection, however small, there can’t be engagement, and without engagement there can’t be a dialogue.
When I started this course a friend asked me whether I was going to become all arty-farty. I said I hope not but, if I ever come across that way, she should give me good slap!
January has come around again, and I have bought my entry to this year’s RA Summer Exhibition. Will 2025 be my year? Or will I fall at the first hurdle, yet again? The theme for this year’s exhibition is ‘Dialogues’.
When I read this, two other words spring to mind: ‘connection’ and ‘relationship’.
Definitions:
Connection: a relationship in which a person or thing is linked or associated with something else.
Relationship:the way in which two people or things are connected; the state of being connected
Dialogue: a conversation between two or more people; an exchange of ideas and opinions on a particular subject; a process by which people with different perspectives seek understanding.
In the above definitions ‘connection’ and ‘relationship’ seem to be interchangeable. Personally, I think it is possible to have a connection without having a relationship. To me, a connection is an initial link based on shared interests, experiences, understanding and values, whereas a relationship is a sustained connection over a period of time.
I would suggest the following:
for there to be a dialogue, there at least has to be a connection.
it is possible to have a connection and a dialogue without having a relationship.
it is necessary for there to be a connection and a dialogue for there to be a relationship, and to maintain that relationship requires actively nurturing the initial connection, or repeating it, through consistent dialogue, shared experiences and commitment over a period of time.
it is possible to retain a connection and a dialogue despite the ending of a relationship.
When my daughter comes home from uni she likes to visit her favourite local eatery, the kebab van parked up in a lay-by frequented by lorry drivers. Every time she goes she makes a connection with the owner; they talk; they don’t know each other’s names but he knows, and remembers, where she goes to uni, what she’s studying, that she works at the local Sainsbury’s in the holidays, and how she likes not only her kebab but how we all like ours; my husband, as it comes, me with a little meat and lots of salad, and both garlic and chilli sauce. One might say that they have a relationship.
So, where does all this take me?
To disconnection. We seem to be living in a world in which we are increasingly becoming disconnected, in the sense that we have less meaningful interactions, and consequently we are limiting the opportunity for dialogue and relationships with ourselves, each other and the world around us.
Connections can be made quite easily, for example, on social networking sites, but does that allow for meaningful communication? Does a post followed by a like or a comment constitute dialogue? In fact, by their very nature of facilitating lifestyle curation, social networking sites can cause users to feel disconnected.
One might take the view that dialogue is something more than a mere exchange of words; it involves active listening, empathy, picking up on visual cues, making eye contact, challenging assumptions to create a sense of stronger connection and understanding, the latter being a form of Socratic Dialogue; a continual process of inquiry to deepen understanding. You don’t have the opportunity to exploit these to their fullest when communicating by text, speaking on the phone or on Zoom.
People have even stopped sending the one thing that keeps us connected, particularly to those that are not in our daily lives: Christmas cards. The trend is now to make a donation to charity, apparently. I send Christmas cards every year with the best intentions of reconnecting and furthering some old relationships which have been neglected. If I don’t manage to follow up, at least they’ll send me a change of address if they move, so I can give it another go in the future.
Some of it is a legacy of Covid: it’s easier to deliver university lectures online, to have doctors’ appointments online, to work from home. Whilst I agree that there should be a good work/life balance, not going into a workplace at all and not being able to interact face to face with colleagues, and have water cooler conversations, can’t be a good thing, particularly for young people just starting out in their working lives. The workplace is somewhere to meet friends, or even partners. You can’t really go out for a drink after work, if you’re working from home.
This is a low residency course: we meet weekly on Zoom and communicate with each other on our WhatsApp group. We had an initial connection – our passion for creativity. After the first term we have a deeper connection, and possibly even a relationship in the sense that our connection is fundamentally anchored in a mutual understanding of trust between us. That relationship will deepen further when we meet in person.
I’m not sure where I’m going to go with all of this. Possibly nowhere.
Entries have to be submitted by 11 February, so the next four weeks are going to be very busy with this and my study statement. I’m sort of regretting doing it now: I think that I just wanted to shock myself into doing something. I’m trying not to panic – if I don’t manage it, then that’s fine – I could always submit something I’ve already done, but, if I can, I would prefer to go through the process from scratch.
As ever, I’m conscious that time is ticking by. Whilst the study statement will be useful to focus what’s buzzing around in my head, moving forward I need to develop a more concentrated and sustainable way of working in order to ensure that I get the most out of the next 5 terms.
Up until now I’ve been all over the place, immersing myself in art, books, programmes, aimlessly ‘doodling’, without any direction, just exposing myself to everything I can and seeing what might stick. Jumping from one thing to another. This process has given me lots of ideas. It’s not too difficult to have ideas – the difficulty is having good ideas and then developing them into a piece of work. I’m feeling that at the moment I’m talking the talk, but not walking the walk.
I lack self-discipline; I get easily distracted; I get bored; I often don’t finish things; sometimes I wake up and know that the day is not going to work for me, and it’s a case of just getting through it; tomorrow’s always another day; I have no routine. I need to establish a routine, if I can, one that allows me to fulfil my everyday responsibilities but which dedicates time to developing creativity. I have no idea how much time I have spent so far on this course. So, moving forward I’m going to record how long I spend doing what. Just roughly, not down to the minute. I’ve had to do this previously – it’s soul destroying having to account for your existence – but the reason for doing it now is to give me a better understanding of how I work, what works for me, whether I’m doing enough and how I need to plan for the future.
Thirty hours a week is a long time, I’ve realised. So, that’s blog 20 mins…
Gompertz reflects on the ability of creatives to think about both the big picture, and the fine detail.
”It requires your mind to constantly go back and forth, one moment concerned with the minutiae, the next stepping away and seeing the broader context… One tiny dab of colour can radically change the appearance of the largest of paintings. Each stroke of the brush is a note struck in a visual concerto; any mistake is as obvious to the viewer as hearing an orchestra member hit a wrong note.”
It’s true that the tiniest detail can make a painting: the small detail of the red sun makes this work by Monet.
Sunrise, 1872, Monet (Wikipedia 7 Jan 2025)
Gompertz describes a visit he made to the studio of Belgian artist, Luc Tuymans.
He is intrigued by Tuymans’ work and its ability to make him want to look closer. Tuymans explains that every painting has a point of entry: a small detail that catches your eye and draws you in. He is influenced by other artists who use this trick: Hopper, Van Eyck and Vermeer. In the case of the latter, Gompertz explains that the point of entry for ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ might be assumed to be the highlight on the earring but, in fact, conservators uncovered an alternative point of entry: a small dot of pale pink paint in the corner of her mouth, which serves to change the overall reading of the painting.
Detail ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring, 1665, Vermeer
As an aside, to my mind, the point of entry in Monet’s ‘Sunrise’ above is the red sun, going down through the buildings on the right, the reflection on the water, back up to the boat in the foreground, to the boats behind, up to the buildings in the distance, into the sky and following the directional brushstrokes up to the top righthand corner.
Tuymans completes his paintings within the course of a day; he uses the edge of the canvas as his palette which allows him to work quickly, as does his preconceived detailed plan, which can sometimes have begun many months, if not years, before. In fact, Tuymans goes so far as to plan an entire exhibition upfront before he has even started work, from the relationship between each painting, its size, location, the colour of the wall on which it will hang, and so on. His rationale for treating his work as a unit in this way is that to make sense of it, all of the paintings will need to be seen together, and so he increases the chances of there being a major retrospective of his work once he is dead. Now, that’s seeing the bigger picture!
I’m not really sure what I think about this. Planning work in such an extensive and detailed way seems very restrictive to me. Having said that, I would assume that his planning process includes a prolonged period of experimentation before committing to the final piece, which is why he can complete it in a day. He also uses existing images as a basis for his work, which is likely to reduce the number of questions he has to ask himself.
As for the focus on his legacy, I really can’t make up my mind. I suppose it depends on why artists, and in particular, Tuymans, make art. Is it to make the world a better place? Is it to fulfil the need to express themselves? Is it to leave a lasting mark on the world? Is it to make money? Is it because they simply have to? It’s probably a combination of all of these things, with some being of greater significance than others. I just get the feeling in Tuymans’ case that it’s rather contrived, and predominantly about his legacy. I actually wish that I hadn’t read this about him: for me it is a distraction from his work, which is primarily concerned with people, and their relationships with the past.
John Playfair, 2014, Luc Tuymans & John Playfair, 1824, Henry Raeburn (momus.ca 7/1/25)
I’m reminded of Sean Scully. My mother couldn’t stand Sean Scully. In fact, she didn’t rate Picasso either. I remember a conversation I had with her when she phoned me up one morning: she hadn’t been able to get to sleep the night before, so she had got up, made herself a cup of tea and put the TV on. She ended up watching a documentary on Sean Scully. She hadn’t been able to get to sleep after it either, as she had been so incensed by it. Did I know that his paintings, basically just coloured stripes, sold for millions of pounds? I suspect the problem had arisen because the programme makers had juxtaposed some footage of Scully applying some paint to a canvas in a rather sloppy slapdash fashion with footage of one of his paintings being sold at auction. I think it was one of those ‘I could have done that’ moments, but I resisted the urge to give the obvious answer ‘But you haven’t, have you?’, and instead commented that it’s because he is actually a very astute businessman. From what I understand, Scully controls the supply of his art into the art market, retaining a significant number of works himself, thus reducing supply, increasing demand and driving up prices, whilst at the same time ensuring that there is plenty of his work readily available for retrospectives. Basic economics, really.
Song (1985), Sean Scully approx value 2022 £1.6M (sothebys.com 7/1/25)
It all comes down to the uncomfortable relationship between the creation of art and profit, which Gompertz deals with early on in his book, and which I wasn’t planning on covering, but as I seem to have found myself here anyway…
On money:
At it’s very simplest, if you are a professional artist then you need to earn an income from your work to survive. But the relationship between art and money raises so many questions. Is the problem the amount you earn and what you do with it? Which is more worthwhile – the work of a penniless artist slaving away in a garret, or an artist who plays the game and exploits the brand conscious wealthy consumers? Does the need to earn an income compromise or limit an artist’s ability to express themselves authentically? Sophie, in her post reflecting on the first term, refers to the new sense of creative freedom she has experienced, away from the conveyor belt of producing work which would appeal to past and future buyers of her paintings. It is a subject we’ve touched on briefly in our weekly sessions, and it seems a very delicate balance to get right. I think Gompertz probably sums it up best:
“The intellectual and emotional motivation isn’t profit, but it is an essential component. Profit buys freedom. Freedom provides time. And time, for an artist, is the most valuable of commodities.”
In his book, Gompertz explores the issue of artistic entrepreneurism by starting with the artist who didn’t shy away from the subject of money and materialism by making his art all about them: Andy Warhol.
“Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” Andy Warhol
He then covers the likes of Reubens, an expert salesman, who went off ringing the doorbells of the aristocracy and royalty of Europe whilst his minions worked endlessly in his workshops; Van Gogh and his money man, Theo; and American artist, Theaster Gates, who uses the proceeds of his art to buy and refurbish buildings for use by the community in the South Side of Chicago, where he grew up, thereby regenerating the area and effecting positive social change.
‘Chorus’, 2016, Theaster Gates
I had hoped to have covered much more of the book in this post – it may end up having as many parts as The Godfather! The fact that I have had so much to take note of and comment on, is proof that I am finding it incredibly insightful. I am aware that, at the moment, I’m using this blog for note-making. I have to, otherwise I’ll forget it all. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve read a fact and thought, oh that’s interesting, I must remember that, only for it to disappear again. It infuriates me that I can’t recall facts and statistics at the drop of a hat when having a discussion about something, whilst the other person seems to be able to pluck them out of thin air in support of what they are saying. Or maybe that’s exactly what they are doing – they do say that if you say something with enough confidence people will believe you…
I’ve decided to take a leaf out of Sophie’s book and formalise the thoughts I’ve had since we finished our first term.
I don’t think that I have felt more like myself (whoever that might be) than I have over the course of the last 3 months. I can’t pinpoint why exactly; I’ve just felt like ‘me’.
It has been overwhelming (I suspect that I use this word an awful lot) in the sense that I have been totally free to create and, more importantly, to think about creating. I feel as if I am at the start of an important journey – I don’t want to rush into it; I want to take my time and be prepared. I don’t even know where I’m going – there are no limitations – but I know that I will discover something by the end of it.
I think that I have mostly engaged in the preparation side of things rather than the physical manifestation of work, but that’s been the best bit. I’ve been collecting ideas, inspiration, and information. I think about it most of the time. I’ll have a thought and think, yes, I could use that, and then it’s gone. I need to find a workable way of recording my thoughts – I can’t really open a notebook or Notes on my phone whilst driving – maybe I’ll have to call someone (hands free, of course) and get them to record it for me. Funnily enough, I used to do that: if, whilst at home, I thought of something I needed to do at work the next day, I would call my work phone and leave a voicemail. Just writing that has made me think about what voicemails I might leave younger versions of myself at various points in my life. And that is how it’s been, going off on tangents, suddenly striking up a conversation with whoever I’m with, on the thought I’ve just had.
It has also made me feel anxious – I don’t want to miss anything. I have amassed a large pile of books which I ‘need’ to read. I haven’t really tackled the online library resources with any conviction just yet – the thought of it makes my heart race – all that information out there – how can I take it all in?
The preparation of my study statement has come at just the right time. I need to marshall my thoughts and commit them to words, but in the knowledge that it is a living document which can change over time. I’m actually really looking forward to it as it will bring a sense of calm and order. I hope. Who knows, I might be feeling differently come the beginning of February.
Thinking back on the work I have done over the last few months, I think I have become much freer – I’ve been leaving things as being what I would term as ‘unfinished’ and managing not to go back to them. Making them public by putting them on this blog has helped tremendously. I’m now enjoying the process of making much more than I have previously – it was often an ordeal.
I think I have identified areas which I would like to explore in more depth: I have invested in a book on Procreate (it’s not going to beat me) which I’m working my way through, and I have some ideas in my head as to a series of three digital collages on the subject of motherhood which I may or may not develop further. I like the number three: I am one of three; there are three in my immediate family; there are three trees which together form one tree on my favourite walk near my home; and three is the smallest number by which you can seek the input of others and still avoid a deadlock. Having said that, it’s probably not so great for a friendship group.
I would also like to experiment with printing techniques, photography and a previous obsession, cyanotypes. This term I’m determined to book some sessions and get into CSM on a regular basis.
I’m now able to look back at the three monotypes that I made of my mother. I feel that it was the right thing to do. It was something that I always knew I would have to address and it was something that I had to tackle early doors. I think it has helped. I went back to my mother’s house not so long ago and I didn’t feel the usual sinking feeling of dread as I walked through the front door. I was actually able to sit down by myself in silence and remember some of the good times when we all lived there as a family, even when it became dark outside. A small positive step in the right direction.
As finished pieces of work, they are what they are, vehicles by which I transferred debilitating thoughts into another space. Could I have done them differently or executed them better? Yes, obviously, but I don’t look at them that way; it is what they signify and make me feel that matters: despair, confusion, sadness, resentment, helplessness, isolation and fear. I chose monotype because it is, as soon as it is, and there is no way back. It was all about the process, not the result. If I had to make a change I would change their order – I made them in the order of the conversations – they would work better as a series if their order was reversed, with each one making more sense of the one before.
I took my daughter back to uni at the weekend, and she phoned me up earlier, chasing me for some information I was supposed to give her. My husband chipped in that it wasn’t any wonder that I hadn’t got round to it as I seem to spend all my time blogging – well, if I don’t have anything else to show for the next year and a half, at least I’ll have this blog!
I’ve just been catching up with what my fellow students have been up to by doing my regular blog read. My husband read me this poem last night – it seems particularly relevant in the light of the several references to trauma and Louise Bourgeois.
… and Lead a More Creative, Productive Life by Will Gompertz isn’t taking me long to read at all. Gompertz, artistic director at the Barbican, makes some very interesting and thought-provoking observations on what it is to be creative. As I’m galloping through it at such a speed, I thought it best to highlight some parts, as I go along, which I think will either help me in finding my artistic voice, or which reinforce ideas and concepts which we have touched on in the course so far.
On failure:
”When it comes to creativity, failure is as inevitable as it is unavoidable. It is part of the very fabric of making. All artists, regardless of their discipline, aim for perfection…But they know perfection is unobtainable. And therefore they have to accept that everything they produce is doomed to be a failure to some extent…Thomas Edison knew all about the notion of sticking at it…But at no point did he countenance failure: ‘I have not failed 10,000 times,’ he said. ‘I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find a way that will work‘…There is plenty of time for wrong turns, for getting lost; for feeling generally hopeless. The crucial thing is to keep going. Artists appear glamorous and blessedly detached, but in reality they are tenacious grafters: they are the proverbial dogs with bones… And while they are out there, worrying away, they often discover a hidden truth about the creative process… Their success is very often down to a Plan B. That is, the thing they originally set out to do has morphed along the way into something different.”
He references several artists who started out in one direction only to find their success through a Plan B, such as Mondrian, Lictenstein and Bridget Riley. In the case of the latter, in the early part of her career Riley was interested in colour theory and the work of the Impressionists, the Pointillism of Seurat, and the composition of Cézanne. It wasn’t working for her; she was directionless and lacked originality, and she was getting older. The ending of a relationship caused her to paint a canvas black, and she took all that she had learnt from her studies of Seurat et al and applied her knowledge in abstract terms. She painted a white horizontal line the lower edge straight, the upper edge forming a curve – it became a painting expressing the dynamism and inequality of relationships, human and spatial.
’Kiss’, 1961, Bridget Riley (Wikiart 4 Jan 2025)
”Bridget Riley had to abandon the one thing she thought most important and appealing about painting – colour – in order to make any real progress. It didn’t mean colour could never feature in her work again, only that at that precise moment in time it was the roadblock… Only when [she] went back to the most basic of basics – a canvas covered in black paint – did she find the necessary clarity to progress. Only then did she discover the most precious and liberating of things: her artistic voice… As long as you stick at what you are doing, constantly going through the cycle of experimentation, assessment and correction, the chances are you will reach the moment when everything falls into place.”
The cycle of experimentation, assessment and correction is at the very essence of this course: Practice-based research.
Gompertz also states that if you call yourself an artist and make art, then you are an artist regardless of where you are in the process, or what skills you still need to learn and develop. I think I find this the hardest to embrace – I still can’t quite think of myself that way. I’ve only just got my head around being a student – in retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best idea to try it out first on the border official at Marrakech airport who looked at me with incredulity and repeated “Student?”. Admittedly, it’s been a lot easier since I discovered all the discounts available!
Onideas:
Gompertz asserts that originality in a completely pure form does not exist; that all ideas are additional links in an existing chain, each link adding to the one before. It is a form of disruption: something to react against and respond to, to build upon. He suggests that Picasso, in the quote attributed to him – good artists copy, great artists steal – is actually describing a process that an artist needs to go through: we learn through copying and imitating, and it is only once we have done this and developed the basic techniques that we can identify opportunities to add our own link to the chain, and to find our own artistic voice. This reminds me of my discussion with Jonathan about Frida Kahlo’s ‘The Two Fridas’, when I questioned whether any work I make which is inspired by it will be original enough: he advised me that Kahlo painted it in the late 1930s and I would be doing my version almost 90 years later expressing my own feelings – following Gompertz’s reasoning, I would, in effect, be adding my own link to her existing link in the chain.
In fact there are numerous creatives who have been quoted as admitting to building on the ideas of others.
”If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Isaac Newton
“ Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources” Einstein
”We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas”. Steve Jobs
The young Picasso produced work which imitated the likes of Goya, Velázquez and El Greco, and later the Impressionists and Post Impressionists. It was only when his friend, Casagemas, died that he found his own artistic voice in his Blue Period; the blocks of colour, bold lines and expressive manner, which he had learnt from all those artists he had imitated, still influenced him, he just put his own twist on it. He took their ideas and filtered them through his own personality and experience, and used his instincts to simplify and reduce them into his original thought, into new and unique connections. Being creative isn’t always about adding to something; it can be at its most original when taking something away. This is demonstrated perfectly by Picasso’s bull lithographs, which took him a month to complete.
‘Le Taureau‘, 1945/46 (Wikipedia, 5 January 2025)
”There is no such thing as a wholly original idea. But there is such a thing as unique combinations.” Gompertz
I have just returned from an amazing 4 nights in magically festive Vienna, having had my fill of glühwein, Sachertorte and boiled beef broth (it loses something in translation!).
I’ve never been before, but will definitely be going back. Beautiful architecture, and so much to do, not least the seemingly endless supply of museums and galleries.
The Leopold and Belvedere were on my hit list as housing the greatest number of works by Klimt and Schiele. I had a nagging fear that the episode might end the same way as Michael Craig-Martin but, instead, I came away with a greater appreciation of all the details that can’t be gleaned from a photograph: the brushstrokes, the surprising thickness and coverage of the paint, sometimes leaving areas of the canvas exposed and the purity of colour. It was a revelation to get up really close and just look.
Death and Life 1910/15 , Klimt
Detail
I had always thought that Klimt applied paint quite uniformly and flat, so I was surprised to see the thickness of the paint and multi-directional brushstrokes. I like the way Klimt paints skin in all its imperfections and blotchiness, ranging from the pale and cold whiteness to the warmer, darker tones of the male figure.
Seeing ‘The Kiss’ was an interesting experience; it reminded me of when I saw the ‘Mona Lisa’ in the Louvre. Being one of Klimt’s most famous works, along with the ‘Mona Lisa’ and Van Gogh’s ‘Starry, Starry Night’, it is one of the most mass reproduced images of all time. I was underwhelmed, and I found it quite sad, as I was expecting to be bowled over by it. It was the most crowded room at the Belvedere, but what I found particularly interesting was that the crowd of people in front of it, holding up their phones and cameras, seemed totally uninterested in looking at it in any great detail – in fact they had left a sizeable gap in front of it so that they could get it in shot. This was handy as it allowed me to perform a flanking manoeuvre to get in front of it, to try and appreciate it as a work of art, as opposed to just a selfie opportunity with a celebrity. There was no point taking a photo – it was so strongly lit, and the lights reflected in the glass covering it. I grappled with my feeling of ‘numbness’ for the rest of the day, and as I was mulling it over in my mind, holding yet another mug of mulled wine in my hand, the answer came to me when I remembered John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ in which he considers the effect of reproduction:
”When the camera reproduces a painting, it destroys the uniqueness of its image. As a result its meaning changes. Or, more exactly, its meaning multiplies and fragments into many meanings … Alternatively one can forget about the quality of the reproduction and simply be reminded, when one sees the original, that it is a famous painting of which somewhere one has already seen a reproduction. But in either case the uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction. It is no longer what its image shows that strikes one as unique; its first meaning is no longer to be found in what it says, but in what it is.”
By contrast, in the next room was one of my favourites, ‘Judith and the Head of Holofernes’, a depiction of a strong femme fatale, the polar opposite to ‘The Kiss’.
Judith and the Head of Holofernes, Klimt, 1901
What can I say? I love gold leaf: I’m a magpie. Despite the abundance of gold in the painting, the eye is still drawn to the figure of Judith which is thrown forward by the decorative background. She is holding the head of Holofernes, somewhat gently, which is shown half in and half out of the frame, relegating him to a secondary role in the drama which has unfolded. There are intriguingly two decapitated heads in the painting; the treatment of the choker has effectively severed Judith’s head from her body. It is an image full of female power, sexual and otherwise.
It’s easy to forget that Klimt was a master draughtsman.
His drawings are exquisite. The simple monochrome of pencil or black chalk, a quiet antidote to the noise of gold and vibrant colour.
Self-Portrait with Raised bare Shoulder, Egon Schiele, 1912
I love this self-portrait; it is so expressive, and the fluidity of the brushstrokes creates a sense of movement and vitality. It is reminiscent of the Lucian Freud self-portrait in my earlier post, “I’m Sorry, Michael…”. It is quite small but he manages to pack a lot into such a confined space, including his shoulder, which by extension includes his body. The difference in treatment between the figure itself, which is quite thinly painted, and the more heavy impasto in the background is extremely effective. It is painted on wood, which might explain the wonderful textures on the face which would have been caused by the hog bristles in the brushes, although I have read, in a book on artists’ palettes, that Schiele would often use a brush to remove paint from a canvas in order to create texture. I particularly like the simple use of sgrafitto particularly above his left eye, and to delineate the edge of the chin against the neck.
The description next to this piece was interesting in that it described Schiele’s connection with his own body as both a fusion and a dissociation, in the context of the main theme of Viennese Modernism ie the individual becomes a dividual – something that can be divided.
The Embrace, 1917, Egon Schiele
This painting is so impactful. It’s approximately 1.5m by 1m. It shows Schiele with his wife, Edith Harms, in a loving and tender embrace. Unlike a lot of his work, this does not, to me at least, have any sexual or erotic overtones. There is a sense of completeness, in that Schiele depicts himself physically emaciated as he envelops and buries his head in the hair of his wife, almost blending into one, in an act of nourishing love. It’s even more poignant to think that this is one of his last works, as they both died within days of each other a few years later in the flu epidemic of 1918-20. He was only 28.
Both Schiele and Klimt were ahead of their time; they were disruptors. Schiele was akin to Sid Vicious and the punk movement, and Klimt founded the Viennese Secession, breaking away from the constraints of the Künstlerhaus. In today’s art world there is no prescribed way of doing things, no longer any art movements or – isms against which to rebel; artists have never been freer to express themselves in whatever way they wish, so I wonder how it is possible for an artist to stand out; how to make a difference in a world of differences.
Kate McCalmont-Woods 