Statement: Painting Constructions
Barry Schwabsky recalls Elaine de Kooning’s fictional tale about an artist who surrounds himself with tubes of coloured paints but only makes white paintings (Schwabsky, 2010, p.90). Schwabsky describes such rejection as ‘not simply a matter of habit but of a choice constantly renewed’. He contrasts de Kooning’s description of contrived rejection with practices containing elements of ‘determinate negation’ (Schwabsky, 2010, p.91). This implies a need for resources to have been gathered with a genuine intention to use them, in order for their rejection to be ‘determinate’.
I am led to consider how ‘determinate negation’ might be said to be part of my own practice: in terms of how I gather the things which I need to have, in order to reject them. For example, in selecting a used envelope to draw on, I reject the sketch books and blank cartridge paper in my studio. In picking up a discarded piece of wood to paint on, I reject white primed square boards that are stacked up, ready to be used. I reject materials that I have already. Importantly, these materials were accrued with a genuine intention to use them.
In an interview with Elizabeth Fisher, Phyllida Barlow describes how the evolving nature of her studio is conducive to practice: ‘the debris of the studio is a great resource’ (Fisher, 2013, p.100). Similarly, the debris of my studio, ranging from paint-splattered pieces of wood on the floor, to old paintings which I now cut up and collage together to create new compositions, is all accrued with a consciousness of its importance as a resource for my practice.
However, I’m led to wonder whether a rejective practice that results from a lack of materials can be considered in the same way as one that rejects materials that are readily available. If I didn’t have any boards ready to paint on, then using debris to make new paintings would take on a different meaning. As such, my painting-constructions represent a determinate negation of my previous intentions to begin a new series of work on the blank white boards which remain stacked in the corner of my studio. In these new painting-constructions, I consider the debris of my studio as a potential resource, as well as previous paintings which become recycled into the new work, and take these up as my materials in place of the white boards which were originally prepared in good faith.
Fisher, E. & Fortnum, R. (eds.) On not knowing: how artists think. London: Black Dog Publishing
Schwabsky (2010) The symbolic studio. In: Jacob, M. J. & Grabner, M. (eds.) The studio reader: on the space of artists. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press. pp.88-96
I am led to consider how ‘determinate negation’ might be said to be part of my own practice: in terms of how I gather the things which I need to have, in order to reject them. For example, in selecting a used envelope to draw on, I reject the sketch books and blank cartridge paper in my studio. In picking up a discarded piece of wood to paint on, I reject white primed square boards that are stacked up, ready to be used. I reject materials that I have already. Importantly, these materials were accrued with a genuine intention to use them.
In an interview with Elizabeth Fisher, Phyllida Barlow describes how the evolving nature of her studio is conducive to practice: ‘the debris of the studio is a great resource’ (Fisher, 2013, p.100). Similarly, the debris of my studio, ranging from paint-splattered pieces of wood on the floor, to old paintings which I now cut up and collage together to create new compositions, is all accrued with a consciousness of its importance as a resource for my practice.
However, I’m led to wonder whether a rejective practice that results from a lack of materials can be considered in the same way as one that rejects materials that are readily available. If I didn’t have any boards ready to paint on, then using debris to make new paintings would take on a different meaning. As such, my painting-constructions represent a determinate negation of my previous intentions to begin a new series of work on the blank white boards which remain stacked in the corner of my studio. In these new painting-constructions, I consider the debris of my studio as a potential resource, as well as previous paintings which become recycled into the new work, and take these up as my materials in place of the white boards which were originally prepared in good faith.
Fisher, E. & Fortnum, R. (eds.) On not knowing: how artists think. London: Black Dog Publishing
Schwabsky (2010) The symbolic studio. In: Jacob, M. J. & Grabner, M. (eds.) The studio reader: on the space of artists. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press. pp.88-96
