25/Sep/2012

Studio experience at SFAI-Painting from photograph

A painter should be able to answer two questions when he/she is painting from photos:

What has changed significantly during the process of painting?
Why paint from photo in the first place?

Using photographs in painting has been a dangerous thing to do, a sophisticated artist should know the difference between using photo as source material and using it as a thing to copy from (unless copying is the idea itself, that's a different story).

There have been successful painters who work from photograph. Gerhard Richter for example, his photo paintings is more than just the combination of photos and blur effect. what's more important is the choice of the photos he paints from and the attempt to study photograph as a subject matter. Therefore his photo paintings cannot be read only as the reprocutions of photos.

So a painter should ask him/herself these two question before using a photo to paint from to avoid becoming a "copier", rather than starting with "Hey this is a interesting picture, I wanna paint it"

If painting doesen't make a interesting photo different, then the photo should remain as a photo

Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time
Oil on canvas
105x150 cm

Untitled
Oil and Acrylic on board
47x43 cm

Abandoned Glasgow 2

Abandoned Glasgow-Recent Practice

Sunday Afternoon Death Mystery, Oil and Acylic on canvas, 150x120cm

Where It Begins and Ends, Oil and Acylic on canvas, 145x105cm

Untitled-Dec 2011

Observation of A Cat

Temporality

Thoughts and Questions on the Project

Bring the narrative back to its place of origin

Still having confusions on what I can do about this idea, but it's absolutly nacessary to put my self in that geographical location, which in this case, the narrative of past experience.

Time and distance are always linked. In some way time is the measurement of distance, and not only the geographical distance(e.g: 1 hour by bus, 2 hours on foot), but also the psychological distance, which means the distance between past and current. 

Time, and the space connected to time are flowing, and objectively exist only as current. But memory works differently, it is rather "timeless"--we travel within the past memory all the time.


So here we have the past space which is physically absent while the memory of such space remains.


This is the gap between memory and reality, but what can I do about it? To closure the gap would be impossible, then what this piece of art can exist as? a memorial? a celebration? or a suggestion of this whole idea?


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I'm trying to avoid being too personal, the ralationship between work and landscape and potential viewers are significant. Other possible considerrations are the historical, cultural background of the place, and even political reference.


A brief introduction of Wanlockhead : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanlockhead
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Some works I'm now looking at

Tim Storrier 

Susan Mikula

December Project (to be continue)

Site choice：Wanlockhead, Scotland

Portrait as Narrative Object

Based on my earlier research, object can be recognized as the representation of Narrative.


Then what about people? can I conceptrulize individuals as abstract narrative objects? My recent practice explors the narrative and memory of portrait.

 Alexi-The Russian Cycler

Airport

Some experiment on material & method, I'm trying to bring in a sense of past, a absentness

transparent plastic, acylic, sanded or erased

Kurt Johannessen

 

"Pust" ("Breath")

"Pust" ("Breath")

 "Det å halda ei død floge like framføre ein isbre"

("TO KEEP A DEAD FLY IN THE HAND JUST IN FRONT OF A GLACIER")

 "Det å halda ei død floge like framføre ein isbre"

("TO KEEP A DEAD FLY IN THE HAND JUST IN FRONT OF A GLACIER")

 

"Steinen" ("The Rock")

"Steinen" ("The Rock")

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A piece of work being in landscape as a celebration or a memorial

Random thoughts in London

There are two kinds of fear: the fear of unpleasant past experiences and the fear of unknown experiences.

An unpleasant experience exist as a narrative, usually refers to mental or physical harm. We feel afraid because there're potential possibilities that such harm can happen to us again.

The fear of the unknown is rather abstract, the essential reason is that we need to understand a concept through reliable narrative. Like death, as no one can tell a reliable story about what that experience is like.

The fear of death is the fear of something that were never narrated.

The fear of death is the desire for death.

Lonelyness

Yes, we do fear lonelyness, partly because we been through it, and we know it is awful, also because that although we've been there so many times, we still have no idea what it is!

7. Nov. 2011

At westminster abby

-Welcome-

-Welcome to my blog


-Whatever