The road leads where it's led...

Weeeelllll now! I finally managed to get my act together enough to write this thing here, after about a billion years of not writing anything...I think my last post was actually April, when I was just getting started with my three big paintings and I didn't end up posting many progress shots due to being so crazy busy with these things. So I finished these ones in time and were reasnobly well received with the exception of a few people who no matter how much I explained still couldn't get their heads around them, which is fine, there's always going to be some people who don't get it...What else has been happening? I had a painting accepted for the Hill-Smith third year show, which is something that has become an annual event for third year visual arts students from ac arts...During SALA festival, the Hill-Smith gallery kindly gives it's upstairs gallery over to the work of third year students, so pretty excited to be involved in this again...The opening is the 7th of August, so if you happen to be anywhere near Pirie Street, Adelaide, drop in and check out the work- from what I've seen it should be a great show in a number of different disciplines including Painting, Drawing, Printmaking, Sculpture, Jewellery, Ceramics...The painting I've put in is pictured at the bottom of the page here, but I'll talk more about that when I get to it...

Alright, so on to the paintings, I'm not sure if I mentioned before what this project was all about, but I'll give you the abridged version. My intention from day one with my paintings has been to create artworks that have a universal appeal- by this I mean that I want people to be able to find something in my work that they can relate to regardless of my original intent...The three paintings were my ideas relating to the situation that has been going on for what seems like forever in Israel and Palestine. It is an issue that is so very complex but what I wanted to do was to strip it back to key themes that anyone could relate to. The ideas of Isolation, Displacement, Separation, Division and Alienation were at the fore of these works. My position on the situation relating to Israel and Palestine is that where we find ourselves now, we have to keep moving forward. To continually dwell on the idea that there can be one absolute right and one absolute wrong is counter productive and will only result in maintaining the status quo. This was one of my reasons for using a very reduced palette. The main colours used were Payne's grey, Zinc White, Unbleached Titanium and Yellow Ochre- The paintings to me seem to be an ongoing battle for territory, each colour pushing or marching against the other...However at no point do I assign a colour to anyone- The common perception is that Dark is Evil and Light is Good but here we have a situation where the lines are blurred. A terrorist act by definition is evil, no matter which side it is perpetrated by, so by using the spare palette, I hoped to cause people to think about the situation in a way that would make them consider all sides. The cry is often that Israel has a right to exist, however, shouldn't it then follow that that very same right should be extended to Palestine? As an outside observer obviously I have the luxury of being removed from the situation but it seems that no good can come of one side or the other constantly claiming that they are "right".

The aim of the third painting, the one that is only one colour is to show that no matter how naïve or simplistic it seems, ultimately, we are all human beings and all deserve to be treated in the manner that we would wish to be treated. The third painting shows that the end result is up to us, it is as much about hope as it is about despair, we have the ability to choose the outcome regardless of how complex the matter. If we choose despair then the painting is ominous and desolate, a requiem. If we choose hope, then the painting is a blank slate, a chance for new beginnings. Overall, I wanted people, regardless of their position or awareness of this matter to find something they could relate to their own lives and make a meaningful connection with the work. This further underlines my personal philosophy that abstract paintings should not be something you look at and try to "work out what it is", rather you should engage with it and ask yourself- what do I feel about this, what effect does it have on me...I have done half of the work in creating the painting, the viewer then needs to complete it by connecting with the painting. I wanted to create works that would mean something to everyone that looked at them, for my paintings to be universal, and I feel abstraction offers the perfect opportunity for this.

The technique I have used is something I have been working on for some time now and I thought that it was a perfect fit for this subject matter. The fact that the marks are horizontal and vertical could represent the idea that despite things looking only black or white, sometimes you can find alternate approaches that may not at first appear. The rigid and inflexible could also turn out to be fluid and flexible depending on how you perceive it. The marks also had the feeling, at least to me, of being calligraphic, a secret or lost language that nobody truly understands...The idea of check marks as well, used for counting years on a cell wall, or the number of kills on a rifle butt were also things that occurred to me. The layers of marks, each partially obscuring the last lends itself to the idea of confusion and complexity, that the original truths have been covered and uncovered so many times by people changing truths to suit their needs or ends, that we have actually forgotten what they are. These are some the many zillions of ideas that occurred to me in the course of the creation of these works and the way that my paintings are constantly evolving and changing.

This last painting is the one that was selected for the Hill-Smith show and hopefully I'll egt to see some of you guys there so you can see it in person...So that's pretty much it for now, I start a new semester, my final semester of work next week so hope fully I'l have some new blog entries in the not too distant future...Have fun and be good to each other....