Past & previous work. Where do I see myself? Artist or Creator? Whilst searching through some of my old 'stuff' the other day, I came across some of my old images buried deep in an old cardboard box. Some of it's personal work, some; old freelance work from the nineties. Memories came flooding back. It's odd and perhaps a little unnerving when I think how my practice has changed. Representation is a term that can mean so many different things to different people and is 'the' buzzword being branded about at the moment. During those early years as artist, recluse, madman and troubled soul, I painted within a paradigm of representational realism, convinced that only through representational glorification, came success. This has something more to do with personal integrity I guess. As I get older, I am more confused than ever about my own notions about what I consider myself to be. An Artist [..?] A Thinker [..?] A Liar [..?] Artisan [..?] Perhaps I am seeking to be Artless [..?] By which I mean, free from deceit or cunning, natural or unpretentious. For me and perhaps many others, the artist's role has become marginalised in modern Western society, it is not because postmodern art is intrinsically defective; it is because our society has divested art of all but aesthetic value, as one could argue, just as it has deprived us of meaningful spiritual experience. If the discourse between artist and society in modern times is to be seen as defective, a problematic exists which must be understood as a social phenomena, due not to any defects inherent in art, but to defects in the value system of modern society. Wasn't it Marx who said [..?] That the supreme value of a work of art - its ultimate aim and reason for being - is achieved along with and through other values: social, moral, and religious. But modern life has by now largely deprived us of belief in these values. Perhaps the real problem of modernity has proved to be the problematic surrounding belief - the loss of belief in any system of values beyond the 'self.'
Artists connected to MA Fine Arts and MA Performance alongside C4C Creative Fellow Judit Bodor at York St John University investigate the development of a online platform to exchange ideas and information.
Past & previous work.
ReplyDeleteWhere do I see myself? Artist or Creator?
Whilst searching through some of my old 'stuff' the other day, I came across some of my old images buried deep in an old cardboard box. Some of it's personal work, some; old freelance work from the nineties. Memories came flooding back.
It's odd and perhaps a little unnerving when I think how my practice has changed. Representation is a term that can mean so many different things to different people and is 'the' buzzword being branded about at the moment. During those early years as artist, recluse, madman and troubled soul, I painted within a paradigm of representational realism, convinced that only through representational glorification, came success.
This has something more to do with personal integrity I guess. As I get older, I am more confused than ever about my own notions about what I consider myself to be. An Artist [..?]
A Thinker [..?] A Liar [..?] Artisan [..?]
Perhaps I am seeking to be Artless [..?] By which I mean, free from deceit or cunning, natural or unpretentious.
For me and perhaps many others, the artist's role has become marginalised in modern Western society, it is not because postmodern art is intrinsically defective; it is because our society has divested art of all but aesthetic value, as one could argue, just as it has deprived us of meaningful spiritual experience.
If the discourse between artist and society in modern times is to be seen as defective, a problematic exists which must be understood as a social phenomena, due not to any defects inherent in art, but to defects in the value system of modern society.
Wasn't it Marx who said [..?] That the supreme value of a work of art - its ultimate aim and reason for being - is achieved along with and through other values: social, moral, and religious. But modern life has by now largely deprived us of belief in these values. Perhaps the real problem of modernity has proved to be the problematic surrounding belief - the loss of belief in any system of values beyond the 'self.'