jogging on the path

The pace is hotting up coming up towards Christmas break with impending PowerPoint presentation, assessment and assignment for gothic together with studio work to be completed.
So I am going to show here a number of artists whose work has begun to impinge on my thinking if not necessarily to show in what I do.
I have just checked back along the path and I find that the last time I was talking about artists  it was  Bacon, Velickovic et al; while certainly their images would be basic to a lot of my thinking, two more photographers appeared and made a serious impact.

The first was an irish artist Amelia Stein (b.1958) whose attraction to old things generally, appealed:

I had already known of Amelia Stein, but not of John Coplans (1920- 2003) to whom I was recently introduced:

 

His unflinching self-portraits of the ageing body (but without ever picturing his face) chimed very strongly with what I wanted to do and has definitely influenced my work - photos, drawing and printmaking.

The advent of the Gothic seminar (already spoken of) drew in other influences which earlier I might have rejected but to which my mind has become much more open:

 

 

Hermann Nitsch (b. Vienna, 1938) was part of a Viennese group known as Aktion whose work involved large theatrical performances using entrails, carcasses and apparent blood with active participation:

 

 

This led to painting along similar lines:

 

 

This work has also fed into my thinking as has been apparent in the first corridor drawing (more to come), and the Box.

 

Recently I came across a review of a new book on the art of film director David Lynch (b.1946, Missoula, Montana) which proved to be the catalogue of a major retrospective of his art from !967 to now at PAFA (Pennsylvania); I knew that he was a lithographer but had not realised that he is still a very active artist:

 

 

Rock with Seven Eyes  -1996 - oil, mixed media on canvas

 

Gardenback -1968 -70

 

Figure witnessing the Orchestration of Time -1990 (detail)

 

Again there is much in his gothic approach the art and film that I would always have been attracted to but would not then have described it as such.

 

A number of other artists have come into my orbit recently one of whom might at first appear surprising:

 

 

 

Monika Gryzmala (b. 1970, Poland) draws in 3D with tape and paper clay  and her works make me think of the nerves sinews and blood vessels that hold the human body together and without which the same body would disintegrate and  dissolve.

 

In this survey there is one more artist whose work has been introduced to me unfailingly by my tutor Sercan Sahin and which has affected me deeply. But before showing this artist's work I would like to return briefly to the making of the Box:

 

 

These four images come from the making of the box and perhaps the influence of Nitsch might be apparent  but when I first looked at the work of Liliana Porter (b. 1941, Buenos Aires) I was quite stunned:

 

 

Red Shoes - acrylic & collage on paper 2010 (detail)

 

 

To Paint Red - acrylic on Paper 2010

 

There are many more like these and indeed they all have a little figure in them but that said I felt that if someone of this artists prominence could make work like this how much better I could feel about what I have been doing.

 But this is only a part of Porter's work:

 

 

Profile of a Bear that Left - collage -1999

 

Diptych - lithograph - 2012

 

Forty Years IV (hand, over triangle, one hand, left 1973) (2013)

chromogenic print
19x23"
edition of 5 plus 2 APS

 

I feel that I will be referring back to this artist again as much of  the content echoes my own concerns.

 

So saying I feel it is time to show some more of my own studio work and to indicate how I have been exploring the images and concepts developed overt the last few months.

 

Here are two stages in the production of a CMYK print the earlier components of which I showed in a recent post:

 

..and here is the final four -colour print which is of course a negative image:

 

 

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Here are some variants where I printed the black(K) layer over other images:

 

 

 

In parallel with this I have been continuing two etch/aquatint projects:

 

(i) large scale- six plates in paired colours:

 

 

 

(ii) The Ear - Dissolution - these are the initial prints for a five image sequence which I hope to have finished by assessment:

 

 

 

The plates

 

 

 

The etches

 

The aquatint

 

 

And finally to come absolutely bang up to date the first (and only!) images from the initial roll of 120 in the Holga:

 

 

efforts at double-exposure which are encouraging - already halfway through second roll

 

 

As photographic ps I should celebrate the return of an old friend - my very first SLR - Minolta srt 100x - already loaded with 400ASA b/w and shooting!!

 

 

 

....complete with original strap -  honestly, it was very cool at the time...