Saturday, February 14, 2009

... staring across the table - blankly ...

Lately I've been thinking about soundbites to describe the process I go through whilst creating an image and especially when curating/editing the work later on.

Distillation tends to come up quite often and it would seem apt the more I think about it.

This includes - but is not limited to - composition, lighting, subject-matter, context and tone.

I guess I'm trying to strip stuff back so it's even less dependent on the what yet still communicates an ambiguous narrative strongly enough to evoke a significant emotional response.

This is essential from my viewpoint as when I don't feel anything other than pride in a pretty picture then the image is fundamentally a failure.

This distillation to some essence is a fine balancing act as some of my latest work is almost falling into abstraction. Geometrical shapes, large areas of tone and/or strong lines appear more prominent when you remove stoppers in a composition.

The trick would seem to be partiality and implied space. The best analogy of this would be a doorway where you get a brief glimpse into an unseen space and how that small segment colours a work emotionally.

It all comes back to this - slowly tiresome - problem I have with dependence. I often wonder if I only had a corner-less empty white room to use, how would/could I create?

p.s. 350th post.... I need a life!

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