Q&A Considerations
What do you do? What sort of things do you make? Or capture? Or select?
I love to use paint, draw, make marks, get messy, and experiment with materials. I make large works on canvas or paper, which could be described as abstract, but they are explorations into movement, gesture, freedom and control, of the materials and by me as the artist. Initially, I was only concerned with the process and the end product was not so important. Thus I believe so far I have been doing prelimary work for something that is to come. First I had to explore colour, gesture, marks and drips and make those interesting ‘mistakes’ to loosen up. Recently I am more interested in gesture and mark marking as a form of expression. I have previously attempted to map out internal emotional landscapes, and to play with the pace and temperature of the work. I like the idea of communicating something by-passing oral communication, that comes directly from the sub-conscious. From the gut. Authentic, naive, childlike communication or response. I like the idea of an actor stepping onto the stage to do a bit of improvisation, with no script, but a myriad factors feeding into how they respond, but no time to think.
How do you make decisions during the process of your work? How and why do you select the materials, techniques, themes that you do?
During the process of making, many decisions have to be made and sometimes they are quite difficult as I am not really sure where the painting is going and often the initial stages are the most exciting. I am conscious of trying to not overwork a piece. Decisions occur during the layering process and when I return once the material is dry. They can be responses to what has occurred overnight, whether I am happy with what has happened or need I to change it. There are many environmental factors that feed into my making, my journey to the studio, how busy my day is, my mood, other people in the studio etc. So often decisions are very different day to day. And yet as a process artist, I work through a series of actions and decisions and subsequent actions. I am very drawn to this way of making. I like the lack of constraint, being slightly out of control and having to react, making up your own rules. I like the rebelliousness in not ‘colouring between the lines’. After many years of drawing and observing, especially life drawing, I attended Playcentre with my children. Parents were encouraged to get involved with play at the children’s level. I thought some of the artwork produced by these pre-schoolers was incredibly honest, exciting and evocative. There was an authenticity in the visual communication, when many of them were not competent verbally yet. I was interested in the concept of an adult returning to this stripped back, raw form of expression. I therefore like to use my hands and ends of brushes and other items to mark the canvas.
What are you valuing in your work?
I value the continued experimentation and observation side of my work. Each time I paint, I remind myself to be brave, to make work that doesn’t have to be successful, to explore new themes and to avoid painting pretty pictures.
What are your sources, do you refer to existing images?
I scroll through images on Instagram from artists that I follow. I flick through art magazines, read the books on artists whose style excites me. I go to local gallery openings. However, I like to approach the canvas free from preconceptions of what might happen, so I purposely don’t use existing images as visual prompts and I don’t do preliminary sketches. Strangely, I know when things are not working and when they are successful. It’s as if the painting is hiding and I have to persevere in discovering it. Obviously, in the back of my mind I have themes and influences that feed my work. I produced a body of work entitled Turbulence, exploring the way emotional turbulence might look on canvas. I also worked on a theme of unravelling. Both ideas came from literary sources and were further influenced by my Psychology studies.
What are you trying to say or infer in the work?
I am interested in people’s back stories and how they can affect their lives and their choices. I am interested in events that have worked to form us as adults, both good and bad, and that now inform our decision making. I am interested in the choice we have to either accept these patterns that have been knitted within us, or start a process of unravelling. I am interested in showing what happens when we when we start to unpick those patterns.
How is the way you are saying it, with the materials, techniques and relations of emphasis between elements, the best for the idea you want to present?
I recently produced a series of works using felt tip pen and colour pencil. I was exploring the child-like marks, of a neglected, frightened child. I liked the idea of using household items, of raiding the pencil cases that my children owned to emphasize the childlike quality of the material. During Lockdown, I found myself at home with only pantry items to work with. I used a selection of food colouring, coffee, red wine and cabbage water to paint with and it suited the purpose. So, when working on my current body of work, I want to keep the materials simple; charcoal, oil stick, oil paint and I want to use my hands and fingers to make the marks, as well as expensive art brushes. I also want to get up close to the canvas, to feel the contact, to slide and drag the material across the surface. I want to play a physical part in the making.
What is it you’ve been trying to do to make the work relevant in relation to ideas (if it does)?
I have been investigating the concept of ‘not colouring between the lines’ and the relationship with mental health disorders. I have looked at a few ‘naive artists’ and art produced by artists housed in mental asylums in the past. I have looked at the drawings of the NZ artist Susan Te Kahunrangi King from 1970s and other Outsider artists. However, I have to ask the question “Who or what puts down the lines that I want to colour outside?”. Is my perspective from inside the confines of the line and am I breaking out or am I on the outside covering up the lines and diminishing their importance.
Are your ideas changing and if so how?
Yes, one of the reasons I applied to do this MFA was because I felt that my ideas needed to progress to the next stage. Previously, I was a torn between making artwork that people might like to buy and have on their walls. I want to follow through with my overarching question “What does Abstract Expressionism look like today?”. Also, with a mental health theme ever present, I want to explore childlike, primitive mark-making and the truth in that observation. The concepts of letting go, colouring outside the lines, making a mess, pure expression, authentic communication.
Has anyone done this kind of work in the past?
Vincent Van Gogh and his mark making, drawings and the way he used his brushwork to create his paintings. Expressionist artist as Edvard Munch who painted emotional experience rather than physical representations of his surroundings. Abstract Expressionists, such as Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krazner, Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Mary Abbott, who focused on colour fields, gestural brushstroke and spontaneity in their paintings to communicate their relationships with nature, history, literature, Classics, politics and current affairs.
Cy Twombly has been one artist I return to again and again, because I enjoy the way he introduces frantic, erratic line drawing into his paintings and also the way he translates his interest in the stories of the Classics and his interpretation of politics and current affairs in this irreverent, peculiar way. His early paintings are described as ‘fierce, willfully chaotic psychic meltdowns that strip art down…..’ (1). In the central image above, the scale of the work ‘Bacchus’ and the power of the gesture are almost overwhelming in their visual intensity. “Each line is inhabited by its own history, of which it is the present experience, it is the event of its own materialisation.“ He once commented (2). He does not undermine the importance of the ‘scribble’, instead he elevates it to the only fitting response.
I am influenced by my Danish heritage as most of my early introduction to art was from my mother’s side of the family and visiting the immersive contemporary art galleries in Denmark. It was in the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art that I was found my ‘art enlightenment’ aged 15, and I visit it whenever I visit family, latest visit was June 2023. The Danes seem to be much more comfortable with abstract and contemporary art. Notable influences are Per Kirkeby and his big theme of ‘how our experience of the world is informed by the complexities of seeing’ (3) and Asger Jorn whose works have ‘echoes of children’s drawings and pre-historic art which were important influences’ (4) in his work.
Does anyone else do it now? Who are the artist that occupy this terrain?
Tracey Emin’s drawings and paintings are confronting, honest and vulnerable not only in the subject matter but in the way she draws using childlike lines, paint drips and smudges. She recently had an exhibition alongside works by Edvard Munch in London, connecting their mutual vulnerability, interest in ‘interior life’ and ‘soul painting’ (5). Lindsey Harald-Wong, in her work, uses bold, expressive gestures and to speak out a visual language of fear, chaos and resentment on behalf of the people from her Southeast Asian heritage (6). Judy Millar’s uses a technique of dragging bags of sand across canvas to make huge tubular tangles which confront the audience. Antonia Perricone Mrljak describes a ‘symbiotic relationship’ between the marks she makes and her memories. ‘Each memory is expressed through a mark and the composition develops as the memory is recalled’. (7) The tool of communication of that memory is the marks on the canvas, translating the memory directly into visual form. Hugo Koha Lindsay also uses pencil scribbles in his work to communicate, ‘they are frenetically wild, presenting signifiers of emotion, but not too much’. (8). The circular line, the semi-controlled mark, the controlled chaos. These are but a few contemporary artists that interest me because they have mark-making at the forefront of their art practice.
Who are the writers on these subjects? What specifically have they said, which then potentially motivates your own thinking for your work?
As I am still formalizing the details of my research, therefore I have not read up on the specific themes but more the art movements and artists from the past that I have always been interested in. I am looking forward to utilizing the college library and taking the opportunity during my MFA studies to take time to research in depth. I look forward to researching NZ artists such at Hugo Koha Lindsay, who has just exhibited at Gow Langsford. I attended the artist talk at Michael Lett given by Judy Millar and Katharina Grosse last Saturday. I recently purchased the book by Amber Cresswell Bell showcasing Australian contemporary abstract painting. Many of the featured artists express ideas about how they work which reassures me and encourages my approach to making work. In the book Women of Abstract Expressionism there are some interesting essays by Susan Landauer, Robert Hobbs, Ellen G Lanau, Joan Martel and Irving Sandler. I have previously read essays written by Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg writing (and sparring) about the Abstract Expressionist Movement in 1950s. I already have on loan a few books from the library regarding Naive Artists, Outsider Artists and The Drawings of Susan Te Kahurangi King by Tina Kukielski. Also, a book on Lee Krasner that accompanied her recent show at the Barbican. There are several essay that I am planning to read.
What histories are you contributing to within this field of practice?
I would like to think that I am contributing to the history of female artists. Artist who were inspired by the bravery of the artists that went before in taking new steps in creative expression, pushing boundaries, breaking moulds, distrupting the status quo. Histories of artists who show that creative expression is a necessary cathartic practice for the artist and also the viewer. I would like to contribute to the progression from Abstract Expressionism to its contemporary form. I would also like to acknowledge the importance of art therapy.
Footnotes:
Jones, “Cy Twombly Review – Blood-Soaked Coronation for a Misunderstood Master.”
Hyde, “Deciphering the Genius of Cy Twombly at Major Centre Pompidou Show.”
“Per Kirkeby – Art New England.”
Tate, “Asger Jorn 1914–1973 | Tate.”
Holman, “The Big Review—Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch: The Loneliness of the Soul.”
Kovach, “The Art of Lindsey Harald-Wong — Consequence Forum.”
Cresswell Bell, ‘Australian Abstract’
“Hugo Koha Lindsay Exhibition Review on Eye Contact.”
BIBLIORAPHY
Online Articles:
Holman, Matthew. “The Big Review—Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch: The Loneliness of the Soul.” The Art Newspaper - International Art News and Events, December 28, 2020. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2020/12/28/the-big-reviewtracey-eminedvard-munch-the-loneliness-of-the-soul.
Hyde, Sarah. “Deciphering the Genius of Cy Twombly at Major Centre Pompidou Show.” Artnet News, December 28, 2016. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/decyphering-genius-cy-twombly-major-centre-pompidou-show-768380.
Jones, Jonathan. “Cy Twombly Review – Blood-soaked Coronation for a Misunderstood Master.” The Guardian, October 19, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/nov/30/cy-twombly-review-centre-pompidou-paris.
“Per Kirkeby – Art New England,” n.d. https://artnewengland.com/blogs/per-kirkeby/.
Kovach, Anne. “The Art of Lindsey Harald-Wong — Consequence Forum.” Consequence Forum, December 9, 2022. https://www.consequenceforum.org/visual-art/the-art-of-lindsey-harald-wong
Gow Langsford. “Hugo Koha Lindsay Exhibition Review on Eye Contact,” n.d. https://gowlangsfordgallery.co.nz/news/295-hugo-koha-lindsay-exhibition-review-on-eye-contact/
Tate. “Asger Jorn 1914–1973 | Tate,” n.d. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/asger-jorn-1375.
Books:
Cresswell Bell, Amber. Australian Abstract, Contemporary Abstract Painting. First edition. Melbourne, Australia. Thames & Hudson Australia. 2023
Del Roscio, Nicola. The Essential Cy Twombly. First edition. United Kingdom. Thames & Hudson. 2014
Kukielski, Tina. The Drawings of Susan Te Kahurangi King. First Edition. Miami, Florida, USA. Institute of Contemporary Art Miami. 2016
Marter, Joan. Women of Abstract Expressionism. First Edition. Denver, Colorado, USA. Yale University Press. 2016