My position in the artworld following the studies of the MA.
What is my position? Where do I stand as an artist? What am I?
I’ve looked at the art world, as creator, resident artist, curator for art consultancy and audience member. My understanding of ‘art’ and where I fit in the world of art is hopefully going to become deeper with time and research. I find it interesting to navigate my morals, interests and desires about each of these branches because I see value in all the areas but also morally objectionable and almost unbearable things too. I’ve found this unit very very hard and I am glad to be coming to the end of it.
I think my position as an artist is as one inbetween things. I think different parts of myself become useful to my practice depending on the context but that self discipline and stability are areas I need to focus on now. In the way I research and work, I bring my love of people, networks and scientific rigor. When carrying out the production of visual media and painting, I bring my emotional side into the work.
My position on the topic of rape from the perspective of men, as informed by my MA.
This is ever evolving. How do men feel about rape? I asked many people in order to get a sense of the answer and found very nuanced responses. There is contradiction, regret. Sorrow. Ignorance. Similar to the female experience overall. Magritte speaking about rape without being a feminist is another branch of the same positioning. I found it very interesting during my time writing the paper to observe his intelligence on imagery and complete lack of interest in female issues contradict one another. How does a man who has violence towards women on his record so to speak, produce a work that is critical of male to female rape? I think my current position is that I think the topic requires observation, it requires asking. But how does one do that? The rape painting gave me an opportunity to ask the question without asing a person to their face. It gave me distance from the rape.
My personal position as an artist
I also have developed a personal position of distance. You cannot see anything clearly if you are too close to it. My experience of mental health issues during the course of studying the topic has shown that I need more distance and a new outlook. on my own practice and the issues I explore. I have been extremely negative about the course, the art world, and even my own work and this needs to end. Positive reflection and action is needed.
Next steps: Formulate a new research area, begin to experiment, produce work with the intension to show it. Use the knowledge built up during the MA to produce a new body of work on the new topic. Keep negativity balanced with positivity, from now on I hope to avoid focusing on only the negative, and if I must express dissatsisfaction, it should come with a tactical approach to improve my situation or work.
I would like to use my exeperiences to explore the cellular, harmonious existence that is urban life (New York). I want to bring my past work with cellular and marinie biology into it. I think cities and humans in genral act a bit like a body or a colony of bacteria. Maybe on sad days a body that has an infection, or a cancer. On good day everything seems to be running smoothly. I am also interested in continuing to create work about groups of people. I want to counter/explore feelings of individualism vs collectivism, I did one piece in august that was a crowd scene (I used faces of murdered women in the crowd to highlight how common matrimonial murder is) and realised I enjoyed the quantity of faces visible, and how rare this is in recent painterly work I have seen, and in many of the greats that I enjoy too (Munch).
My next steps are:1. to begin research with material and theme ( nov 30-12th dec) 2. experiment in production 12th dec- jan 20th, 3. after reevaluation of my new topic, I will then present the work as part of unit 3 in early summer.
My initial sketches and ideas:
PROJECT AFTERMATH 