BRIEF:
- Set up a system within your work that introduces the element of chance to your process. Allow this to play out and then set up another opportunity for chance to disrupt the process further.
- Push a work or series of works to the point of failure and then work to recover or redirect the work. List the actions taken within this process.
RESPONSE:
How did this experience challenge and/or shift your intentions for the work and your sense of knowing and control?
As an artist, I’m quite a planner, so this painting was quite uncomfortable for me. Even though I started it before Week 17, I started it with the intention of creating something entirely spontaneous, not planning any elements of the piece, and instead allowing the phases to unfold organically as I went along.
What do you learn about your intentions and ambitions for the work from these processes?
Though I had not planned this piece, I did have a vague initial intention, which was to paint light, joyful and gentle colours, and that I wanted to find a way to depict some of nature’s repeating patterns, such as the fact that the brain’s neural networks, the cosmic web in space, and underground mycelium networks beneath forests have almost identical patterns and shapes.
For me, it is important to have some semblance of an intention around the work, even if it is as vague as just a feeling that I’d like to process or try to convey.
Adding the element of chance was one of my main goals for this piece: no plans from one layer to the next – not even mixing enough of one colour to see the layer through – when I ran out of the colour I was using, I mixed a different one, not even attempting to match it with the one that I had been using.
Taking the piece to a point of failure was not actually intended at all… I knew from the outset that if I was to embark on such a speculative piece with zero plans, that at some point it was likely to fail, but I endeavoured to remain unattached to the outcome of the piece. The point of this piece for me was not about the outcome, but rather about forcing myself to work more spontaneously, in a space of unknowing, with absolutely no control over the outcome.
Do these processes change the tone or character of the work, if so how?
These processes absolutely change the tone and character of my work! They are teaching me to have more faith in myself as an artist – to allow myself to experiment and risk.
Debbie New 