Concepts & Constructs

MFA April 2022 Seminar - The Crits

Musical Forcefields I

Musical Forcefields II

First Crit - Facilitated by Dan Arps

Suminagashi paintings: Contours - Directional

Grey - depressions, could they be hollow?

Topographical references

Beauty feel to the graphite/drawing/painting

Sense of layering

Topographical gap - between a white line and a black line

Chalky mineral feelings

Presentation: right angles to one another

Grouping seems significant - not at eye level; not a classic hang

Layering and removal of layers - elements of taking away, scraping away

Marbelling like liquid; crystal slices

Description of something similar but in different ways

Diversity of techniques - some more concerned with mark making

Variety of marks, some gesture, some more direct like the arrows

Mineral - Earth bound - Geodes

Grey works - landscape feel; geo mapping; idea of terrain

Colours in the environment

Mountain range

Arrows and contours - orienteering - mapping - mapping an area

Same pattern, linear line, dotted, weather, diagrams

More wind and movement

White wash - like a snow storm or blizzard

May be different times of the year - reads as seasonal

Tends to make us decide which cues are working and which ones aren’t

Recurrent sense of describing land, mineral processes

Fluorescent non- natural?

No sunsets can be fluorescent (Caden); trap markers; doc markers, tracking and way-finding indicators.

Tonal shifts as a whole installation

Faintest recurrence of representation - cell structures

Not structure

Arrows - weather maps?

Grey ones - first settler - scene of the land

Energy/pulse/space that’s vibrating

Then I read out the statement and asked the group to give me some feedback about the logic of the arrangement.

Like a mapping of smaller maps

Constellation

Queried about why I had put some together and others apart

Discussed ideas I had about a French Hang for the next critique

Dan asked if I had considered adding an indexical quality like a date stamp, place and time etc.

Notes I took:

Orienteering and contours references

Grey Depressions

Geography

Topographical

Crazy beachy feeling like the feeling you get just emerging from the bush to see a beach

Figurative elements

Exploration of different materials

1-2-3 stages

Sense of layering in these works

Up and down

Pastel, chalky and mineral feelings

Arrangement on wall - not presented in right angles - constellation like. Significant grouping. Note not all at eye level.

Subtraction/scraping/opaque and transparent layers

Destruction/revealing/carving of the land through water

Sumigashi works contrast to the others

Liquid

Crystal slices

Overall something similar - interweave into…

Experience in different ways

Diversity of mark making

Pulse - contrasty - gestural

Notice more about them when I’m closer

Interacting close up

Mark making - variety - linear, gestural, opaque, watercolour, sense this mineral quality, geodes

Landscape - geomapping - gestural - of the environment

Little arrows and contours remind me of orienteering

Lightning - patterns - dotted lines - suggest weather - almost celestial - diagrams - vectors - marching ants

Wind, movement, snow storm - weather? Pollen?

Different times of the year?

Brown image quite different

Intentional they’re a group of quite diverse elements describing land/process

Colours and tones: fluorescent is synthetic, but you get those colours at sunset

Sinister feeling when sky goes orange

Pollution, nuclear bombs?

As a whole - trying to find relationships

Tonal shifts across them

Fluro - tracking and way finding indicators

Faintest recurrence of representation - roots - rocks - arrows

First settler depictions of land

Early colonial - watercolour - land based responses.

Portability of the medium

Mobility

Space in between

Opposite directions?

Energy of some sort

Space that’s vibrating

Pulse

Discussion about potential of using timestamps, geolocation information etc.

Musical Forcefields III

Second Crit facilitated by Noel (new installation with the works closer together)

Amanda took notes

I asked for a cold initial reading, then I read the statement out after everyone had responded

Topographical maps used when traversing landscapes

Ripping paper - like fabriano

Contrast to each of the works which draws you in

Cellular

Water

Graphic novel - long landscape (drawing on painting)

Depiction of space

The overall shape - perhaps quite representational - temple?

Is it deliberate?

Feeling for the materials

Different approaches but all in a commanding way

Compelling

Different mark making - can’t immediately tell the processes until closer up

Layers don’t immediately present

Natural pigments - coffee?

Synthetic too - like the combination of the two

Re hanging - like how they fade like waves of energy

Colour scheming is more successful

Quite overwhelming

Strength together but some with more space

Titles - perhaps titles for each?

Constellation strategy may not be necessary because works speak of it in their own right

Japanese technique (suminagashi) is taking away from own way of working

Musical - shape of hang looks like the press play button

Careful with metaphors - musical may be confusing

Not totally convinced about the links to magnetic fields its not carrying it

Chemistry

Enjoy the chemistry of your making, your marks, your material at a certain moment

Maybe focusing on scale is to not that important, maybe its more bout the shape of the supports?

Compare material sensitivity now to previous Feb. works these are more successful

Is rock stock a necessary medium?

Chemistry drives the scale, don’t start with the scale

Notes I took:

Topo maps/landscape

Ripping of the paper interesting, its a bit askew

Enjoying the contrast in each work

Drawn in to look at conditions of each

Intimate

Cellular, cells

Wet

Macro and micro

Marbling type process

Was it cut?

Graphic novel, dystopian, moonscape, different registers, depiction of space, horizon like forms

Shape of arrangement - mirroring?

LIke a temple - straight line up down the left hand side seems deliberate

Enjoy the feeling for material - very different approaches

There is a command/feeling for material, explored on its own terms.

Different mark making, can’t immediately tell the process and I like that.

Layers that require an intimate reading. Intricate and they reveal as you go closer

Natural pigments/others synthetic - combination of natural and unnatural.

Hanging (I asked the group about potential ways of showing the work and scale)

Love it altogether but do you need so many suminagashi images?

Pairings - some good, others not so.

Caden preferred the previous arrangement

Feels cluttered

Needs more room

Like these together

Overwhelmed and the hard line on the left is jarring

Intense energy fading out to more undulating hang

Idea of hanging as a constellation, be careful 2 positives together can become a negative

Suminagashi - different tempo, not so original and Linda Gilbert way is dynamic.

Musicality/push play button in the shape of this hanging

Metaphor with the musical element

Interested in images, but not convinced

Prioritise the material not so interested in the narrative and your personal motivations (Noel)

Certain chemistry - really dynamic ways of making pattern

Scale? Different dimensions work - longer one is good

Not scale - shape

Is there a possibility of working with other types of paper?

Feedback from my Supervisors: Glen Snow and Yolunda Hickman

The first hang looked rather spartan

It was suggested I consider a 1500 hang so each work can be viewed on its own terms

We discussed various ways to fix the works to the walls - less is more

Regarding the suminagashi prints - I could consider integrating them with the rest by drawing over them, and not showing quite so many.

Continue along this track for July assessment

Post-seminar thoughts...

The rock stock, mixed media and my intentions around attraction and repulsion of Earth's magnetic fields is beginning to collide.

The feedback and experiments I made with different installations helped me to consolidate some ideas that I will use going into the July assessment.

Leading up to this seminar and during it - I experienced a shift. I appear to be letting the materials lead the way and trusting the process.

At first I was intending these works to be sketches for bigger, more monumental pieces. But replicating them would be impossible and the feedback confirms they are compelling on their own terms.

This has made me think about the boundaries I have crossed as I discover (or give myself permission to return to), my own artistic voice. Typically artists draw, then paint - yet here I am painting then drawing. Print-making techniques are employed with mono-printing and inscription. The works are abstract and expressionistic, but unlike loud and large ab-ex art they are small, intimate, and made on humble surfaces of paper. There is a wide diversity of mark making with little consistency, yet they somehow create an energetic and coherent presence. Are they drawings, paintings or prints? They are all of these things, integrated and working together.

As Julian Hooper said in his Artist floor talk at Objectspace (1):

"Trust the process, and whatever you end up with, that's the work."

1. Krystina Kaza & Julian Hooper, K&J, 2021, in the Group Show 'Mark Work', Objectspace, 12 March - 15 May 2022. Artist talk given 12 April 2022.