Oil on Canvas
Oil and Texture Paste on Panel
Oil on Canvas
Oil on Canvas
The choice behind adding texture to my paintings comes from two areas.
Firstly, I'm intrigued by the idea that you have to search through the landscape to find the subject, like rustling through a wardrobe of clothes or getting lost in a maze. In my own life, I find that trying to understand myself and the reactions I have can be likened to this disorientation in searching.
Secondly, the rugged landscape on the surface of my paintings is what I imagine the internal landscape of the mind to look like. Like a cluster of rugged peaks and troughs, it is difficult to traverse and therefore understand. Freudian psychology is especially controversial and I would agree that certain aspects are vastly inaccurate, partially because the landscape that it is trying to define is complex, changing and individual.
The creature can be found within all of us, the internal repulsion and visceral nature exists, hidden but present. In the future, I would like to exaggerate the texture further, making it physically difficult to locate and identify the subject matter hidden within.
TEXTURE PAINTINGS
"A Fortified Castle:
Whether it be projected metaphor or hallucination, the phobic object has led us,on the one hand, to the borders of psychosis and, on the other, to the strongly structuring power of symbolicity. In either case, we are confronted with a limit that turns the speaking being into a seperate being who utters only by separating - from within the discreteness of the phonemic chain up to and including logical and ideological constructs."
​
- Julia Kristeva
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, 1982
" Art might not be able to transport an audience physically to another room ... but it can be a liberating activity for those who can open themselves up to it. Art can illustrate or invoke a utopian vision. It can also turn Man's vision of utopia back upon itself, ..."
​
- Karen Smith
To Contradict Reality: A 'Utopian Strategy' by Ai Weiwei, 2009
These textured works play on the idea of utopia and idealised landscapes, as a tool to transport the viewers mind.
Art plays a much larger role in the mind and reactions of the viewer and this can be manipulated through visual cues. I'm not entirely trying to create utopias, but I am trying to create non-repulsive landscapes.
​
Kristeva shows that the object of fear can have multiple conditions in which it develops its own autonomy over the viewer. Given that phobia and abjection are such overpowing objects, containing them amongst 'utopia' is essential in attracting an audience to my work.
By redefining phobic cues with visual arts, the utopia is formed, manipulated into a docile discourse.
By Kristeva's definition, my work has become utopian by association.
Kristeva has been a crucial figure throughout my studies in understanding thr translation from visuals to physical reactions and my practice has formed because of this into a continuous balancing of cues in order to minimise physical stimulation, with maximum visual immersion.
