Thought of the day...

In the various shoots for 'five', I made quite a few images of 'spectacular' objects and melodramatic scenes but won't include them for fear that the viewer will be distracted by the 'novelty' of that which is imaged. Admittedly some of these images have got past the 'gatekeeper' but essentially they help illustrate the progression from 'spectacle' to more minimalist compositions about 'nothing'.

Viewers do tend to see the elephant on the picture plain rather than a collection of tones and textures and on more than one occasion the artist-viewer engagement is purely 'where/who is that?'

I don't expect every viewer to approach images how I approach them but I do find such questions deflating. It almost feels like the images mustn't be successful if that is the viewer response.

My preference is that people are not lost in the what and where but instead focus on the why and - ethereal - punctum.

I received another 'rejection' letter yesterday which has left me a bit lost. It was to take the show to Melbourne and I'm obviously disappointed that it didn't work out. They quantified how many spots were available (23) for the 140 applications so I shouldn't be too hung up on it. At the same time I had held out a bit too much hope for getting that opportunity.

The PCP show is getting a bit of 'traffic' with it being listed in ArtWorld, Artlink and Insite magazine. A street press publication also contacted me recently and might run something. The balance of the invitations (420 odd) go out today, I only have one 'last minute' print to collect and the catalogue just needs ink on paper. The catalogue with be a 16pp A5 colour booklet and I've penned an essay for it about 'truth'.

I ended up doing 15 prints and will likely hang 13. Which two are dropped is going to be very much 'by eye' in the space. Given the size of the images it's quite difficult to see how they might (or might not) play off each other. I typically plan to the millimetre where images go so it's very easy to focus on the creative rather than logistical aspects of a hang.