 Names, ink and acrylic paint on canvas 30x30 cm (2015) Woolwich, London Thinking about how memory functions and ideas form, some names of people who influenced me are included in this painting: some invisible, some very faint. These are people I have not met, though a similar phenomenon can also occur with people whom I have; the nature of being where all experiences influence and touch our lives, they change and inform us though exactly who, where and what can be hard to pin down and sometimes impossible to know as it all mushes together. The name is abstract and removed from the essence of the person yet so central. With creative and academic inspirations I prefer to think of the peoples' and movements' names as signposts rather than labels and categories.
Whilst making this painting I posted it on social media, Dia Batel - an artist I respect (a print of hers is on my wall) gave it a like; which prompted me to consider how the way people fade from the world was also a factor. Names are so often the point of reference when we commemorate that people existed, their ideas, contributions and deaths. The pink text on the blue background sort of enveloped in mist does give that impression, more than intended. Below is a cross-section of practitioners whom I found encouraging and informative between 1995-2015. These names were all visible in the above painting at some point. These were the first thirty that sprang to mind. Tadao Ando (natural elements in architecture), Shirley Bassey (voice and style), Roland Barthes (The World of Wrestling), Joseph Beuys (tree planting), John Bowlby (attachment theory), David Bowie (imagination), The Boyle Family (Earth Pieces), Kate Bush (originality and timelessness), John Cage (Silence), Janet Cardiff (sound walks), Jeremy Deller (Folk Archive), Peter Doig (Blotter), Pink Floyd (album covers and music), Nils Fram (solo music), Jenny Holzer (text projections), Goethe (colour theory), Mona Hatoum (installation), Georgia O'Keeffe (Radiator Building) Melanie Klein (Envy and Gratitude), Yves Klein (signing the sky and painting with models), Richard Long (A Line Made By Walking), Bruce Lee (good name, great high kick - one of a kind), Yoko Ono (Secret Piece), Mark Rothko (fading, glowing paintings), Jenny Saville (nudes as a YBA), Francis Shapiro (bilateral eye movements), Robert Smithson (Earthworks), James Turrel (Crater Spaces), Lao Tzu - name given (Tao Te Ching), Sun Tzu (The Art of War), Paul Virilio (time-space compression and the architecture of movement). Comments are closed.
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