HOW TIME AFFECTS MATERIALITY

I knew that deep in an old journal somewhere I had once had an idea about restoring old paintings and bringing them new life. This is what I found:

Restoring and salvaging a love for classical oil paintings in all of the gallery visits during March and early April 2018, I’ve felt a compelling need to tighten up my skills again. But alas, the practice is more than a tad outdated and I needed something to bring it back to life. I wanted the paintings to breathe again. We’re deeply immersed in the age of technology and experiencing it as a norm since birth has left me unaware of how immense our power is until I stumbled upon an article on Aaron Koblin’s Light Echoes. The piece may just be some moving lights but it shocked me how something so simple can completely captivate our lizard brains.

Manifestation: Classical paintings, flood them with moving lights. Or alternatively, flip this and revert back to my old abstract style c. college where I discovered acrylic for the first time and and depicted the moving lights of the all important, omnipotent ‘RG’ music scene, arguably in it’s peak at the time (2016). These could then be layered with projections of living, breathing, moving people in audacious stylings not too dissimilar to John Bock’s Hell’s Bells: A Western.

Aaron Koblin & Ben Tricklebank (2013) Light Echoes

In a tutorial with Rosie Gunn discussions covered how to actually manifest something from the concept of the affects of time on materiality. We conversed about a series that could depict similar subject matter but in a variety of mediums which would lead me back to a largely Fine Art based conclusion. Although, I would need to decide upon relevant content that interlinked with the concept of ageing. In workshops with Nicky Hamlyn and Peter Renn, I have explored physical creations such as developing colour film photography, altering video film negatives as well as colour analogue printing. Originally, I was inspired to explore time/materiality based on old classical paintings, so although the workshops have been very photography focused, I am more interested in painting and varnishing techniques. I would also like to explore the use of time lapse video which would call for digital filming rather than the analogue film which was used with Hamlyn.

Mat Collishaw's lecture featured his 2014 work Black Mirror, Leo Minor. This piece particularly resonated with me because on the surface, it is very much the original idea that I had in mind. It was exhibited at the Rudolfinum in Prague where the relationship between Collishaw's work and the rest of the works in the space was the integral part of his thinking process. On this, and as discussed with Rosie Gunn, I need to decide what I want the final outcome to achieve, how it would reach an audience and who the ideal audience is.