Three weeks since my last life-drawing and perhaps a self-imposed time for reflection. Not that I've consciously reviewed my art and my involvement in drawing the body. But I'm sure this will have taken place. I will know in the morning when I go over to Paul Fowler's Extreme Poses for five 30 minute entries into my life-drawing world.
But during this break I did come across a fascinating concept whilst reading a review by Jonathan Ree of 'Being And Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenology And Ontology' by Jean-Paul Sartre, translated by Sarah Richmond. published in the London Review of Books, April 18th 2019.
"Imagine for instance that you see a woman (lying on the grass under a tree). You may think that your experience is simply an effect of light bouncing off the woman (the grass and the tree), impinging on your retina and triggering a chain of events in your optic nerve and your brain. But think again. Your awareness involves not only what is taking place in front of you, but also what is not: that the figure is neither a man nor a child, and not sitting or standing, (that the surface is not paved, that the tree is no flimsy sapling). The world, in other words, is constituted by what is absent as well as what is present, and these absences depend on the expectations you bring to it rather than how it is in itself."
So tomorrow I may bring into my process what is not there.
I also came across for the first time Jenny Saville's series of works entitled 'Ancestors' at Gagosian. I have been inspired by her art for many years but particularly after experiencing at first hand her exhibition at Oxford Modern Art some years ago. These latest works are extraordinarily provoking and for me screamed out thoughts of Bacon and Picasso and Surrealism as I searched through her imagery on my screen. But I also found in her text a few words which echoed what I have been attempting to describe about my own drawing.
"I'm trying to see if its possible to hold onto that moment of perception, or have several moments coexist ...……… like looking at a memory."
"If I draw through previous bodily forms in an arbitrary or contradictory way, unexpected forms emerge from the nature of the drawing and it gives a visual shock"
But during this break I did come across a fascinating concept whilst reading a review by Jonathan Ree of 'Being And Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenology And Ontology' by Jean-Paul Sartre, translated by Sarah Richmond. published in the London Review of Books, April 18th 2019.
"Imagine for instance that you see a woman (lying on the grass under a tree). You may think that your experience is simply an effect of light bouncing off the woman (the grass and the tree), impinging on your retina and triggering a chain of events in your optic nerve and your brain. But think again. Your awareness involves not only what is taking place in front of you, but also what is not: that the figure is neither a man nor a child, and not sitting or standing, (that the surface is not paved, that the tree is no flimsy sapling). The world, in other words, is constituted by what is absent as well as what is present, and these absences depend on the expectations you bring to it rather than how it is in itself."
So tomorrow I may bring into my process what is not there.
I also came across for the first time Jenny Saville's series of works entitled 'Ancestors' at Gagosian. I have been inspired by her art for many years but particularly after experiencing at first hand her exhibition at Oxford Modern Art some years ago. These latest works are extraordinarily provoking and for me screamed out thoughts of Bacon and Picasso and Surrealism as I searched through her imagery on my screen. But I also found in her text a few words which echoed what I have been attempting to describe about my own drawing.
"I'm trying to see if its possible to hold onto that moment of perception, or have several moments coexist ...……… like looking at a memory."
"If I draw through previous bodily forms in an arbitrary or contradictory way, unexpected forms emerge from the nature of the drawing and it gives a visual shock"
