artes mundi

uncomfortable viewing on a comfy sofa at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff

watching most of Renzo Marten's 90 minute film

this squirm-inducing video shows the artist as protagonist in this documentary style footage of plantation workers in Malawi, a world bank conference Q&A session about donations to the country, interviews with local doctors on the health of employed plantation workers in contrast to those without work but living off the land.

Tongue-in-cheek to some, narcissistic to others, Marten keeps himself centre stage occasionally playing preaching colonial missionary, patronising outsider, telling locals how they can make more money by embracing their poverty and seeing it as a commodity they can and should own and exploit.

The footage also shows western photographers in the act of shooting footage or corpses and gets them to reflect out loud on who is the owner of their images. They are, they are paid for them, but the passive misery of the dead gains the locals nothing.

Somehow most shocking was how the global 'humanitarian' institution of the UN helps the peace in areas so that multinationals can come into an area, exploit the local and natural resources and leave again.

The tourism of misery, black humour and sobering thoughts presented in a watchable familiar format that pitted the viewed against the artist putting himself at the centre. Any judgements about him were washed away by the undeniably poignant and clever message that his work portrayed.

http://www.artesmundi.org/

Rest of the works seem to pale in comparison. No pun intended.

Savanhdary Vongpoothorn, Latsamy, 2012/2013, Acrylic on perforated canvas, 150 x 180 cm

Savanhdary Vongpoothorn, Viriya, 2013, Acrylic on perforated canvas, 150 x 180 cm

Jackson was a mentor for Savanhdary Vongpoothorn when she lived for six years in Wedderburn. Nowadays Vongpoothorn is in Canberra, where she continues to paint in a style that owes an equal debt to her Laotian background and to the Australian landscape. The thread-like detail in Vongpoothorn’s The Beautiful as Force, at Martin Browne Contemporary, is reminiscent of textile design, but the affinities with contemporary Aboriginal paintings are also very strong.

Like the indigenous artists, Vongpoothorn creates all-over, immersive canvases that are simultaneously vistas of the cosmos, and views through the lens of a microscope. Her works are maps of experience and aids to meditation. When one examines these paintings closely it becomes apparent that the surfaces are not flat, but punctuated by tiny, regular perforations – added by Vongpoothorn’s patient father, a former Buddhist monk.

- See more at: http://johnmcdonald.net.au/2013/roy-jackson-savanhdary-vongpoothorn-kirsteen-pieterse-vika-begalska/#sthash.gygYvbCh.dpuf

still from video project

men who love colour

stanley hayter, john hoyland, patrick heron, victor pasmore, antony caro- all men, nearly all plummy and posh, all colour lovers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00b67hh/artists-on-film-scenes-from-working-lives-episode-5

all comment on unhelpfulness of analysing why you do what you do 3 comment on once committed to starting
quick application of paint
Heron using 1 coat oil paint only so luminosity of primer comes through, no overlap so doesn't produce 3rd colour

Hoyland:

"So fragile an activity (making a painting)....try to keep confidence up, painting things that nobody wants..unreal activity..trying coax painting along but not force it...letting paint work for me...amuses me when people get into painting as form of therapy..if you want to drive them crazy get them into painting..such a nerve wracking business not sure how anyone can relax by it"

V pasmore
"artist both master and slave to his work, if ingredients right then picture will work for itself....artist must have some idea what he's going to do...process will determine style...for example if I start with a splodge"

"worst people to understand modern painting are scholars, I get no problems from children looking at my paintings"

"painting once you start goes on automatically from it's own laws"

"there is a right and wrong in art but that's something you must know inside you"

V pasmore: pouring paint on non-stretched canvas first...
non-static painting-can be appreciated and get different views from different angles in contrast to say a Rembrandt that have to see straight on.
http://thecolourofideas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/john-hoyland.html

eastern influences

sengai Zen buddhist artist 1830

forms for painting from Bill Martin's website

astounded to come across this 19th ink drawing in an inspiring book called yoga art by Ajit Moorkerjee. lots of stunning works of painters exploring the use of symbolism, colour and geometry over the centuries

an ink on paper brush painting. The description includes 'the evolution of the fundamental forms under which we understand our universe and return it to its comprehensive form, from r->l evolution from l->r return'

the book aims to show the link between yoga, spiruality and art.
the images 'express in archetypal forms spiritual insights...ther are at once the product and tool of meditation'..

draw what you know.link to another blogger who randomly has posted many of the images from the book

works with light

moving images project for FdA Fine Art
the brief:
to create a video using powerpoint, still abstract/figurative images and 3 videos
Using iphone for recording images

Interested in conveying warmth/familiarity/security of familiar lighting eg orange but editing stills/movies in an uneasy sequence,that stop starts.
Strobe effect on video below...! Close-up of digital projector forming abstract repeatedlights