*Transcribed directly from the back of my October Bank Statement in preparation for the VP Crit with Susan Barnet, 29/11/17*
WHAT IS MY PAINTING ABOUT?
- One work in a series looking at simultaneity, memory and mental romanticisation – people making mental links.
- Have been looking at Paul Virgilio’s idea of the ‘young picnolept’ and how we ‘stretch’ our memories to patch up gaps in information. I wanted to play with this by removing the context for events + solidifying these new constructed situations through the deliberate act of painting. I chose to try & look at this through the imagery of wrestling – it has interested me for a while but I can’t quite figure out why – Barthes explains that it’s more of a performance than a sport + I suppose that’s the key. It’s a theatrical display of emotion through form + speed, and when slowed down or stopped completely this emotion is only exaggerated.
- I paired it w. a still from the anime film ‘Akira’ – one that doesn’t involve many fight scenes but one that stands out to many for its brilliant animation – the epitome of ‘anime physics’, a weird bending of time that creates a delay between action and reaction, similar to wrestling – – also aesthetic links ! —
- The two overlaid images and both secondary, both unknowing of me and of each other. However, the similarities in form link them, first aesthetically but, from that, on a deeper level. The separate characters seem to be in sync, with only a slight delay in motion keeping them from being one. However, they are not one, and never would have been otherwise.