I'm not here to paint pretty pictures

So yeah, art philosophy problems creeping up on me again. Allow me a ramble, as I get thoughts out of my head and onto light.

I fervently believe that art should have a message, a point beyond 'look at the pretty picture' and tend to be very dismissive of any art that does not fit into that.

And yet, and yet, I feel that I am as guilty of falling into the trap of making pretty art. Or at least art that might just 'look' that way, unless you understand the reasons behind it. And I am not good at letting the reasons behind my work out into the world. Should art require homework? Homework that the artist may not have made available?

Art is interpretation, and each person interprets art differently. I am not content with that, I am trying to impart a feeling, an emotion, a disquiet or disconnect. Impose an interpretation without forcing it?

Compromise my vision? No, as egotistical as that may sound. Art as a way of showing myself to the world, begging for understanding, but never giving the viewer the clues they need to unlock the meaning, the message the feeling? Sounds about right.

And now I take an extra level in obfuscation. Titles, where given, are now being written in a sort of.. techspeak? A mixture of letters numbers and symbols. It's all very Reanimation. Not a place I thought I'd take inspiration...

Paintings a grungy industrial ethics and shiny cyberpunk titling. Drawings of missing memories and emotions and feelings, a stolen kiss you can still feel in the darkest hour. Sounds and music, noises and samples and abusive figures. Spinning circles coiled tighter than an ouroboros, dancing in the gaps between time. Where are we all, in the end? Anyway. Art as message, as meaning. Am I wrong to think this? And why is my message so overwhelmingly "Someone please understand me"

One of the reasons, I think, that I've liked the red works of Rothko. Works of such infinite depth and complexity, when I first saw it it was like being engulfed, smothered in warmth and sensual suppression. A pleasure almost physical that I have tried to find in the rest of my life and experience with the people around me.

I came close to finding this peace once. And I don't even know if I trust that memory. Memories are fickle, they fade, they change. Hence the place my drawings have gone.

While thinking of Rothko, I found this. In it, the actor Alfred Molina plays Rothko and says so much better than I what I am trying to create.

Pithy Title

The art grows difficult.  It swings from feeling like I'm exposing myself too much, to not being personal, to being just a step away from pornography.

I mean, I'm dealing with a theme that justifies this, and as art these drawings are fine.  I worry about what other people will think when they see them, that they'll judge me badly and not want to have anything to do with me.

Example 1: How much room for interpretation is there?

And yet.

Still, I'm considering selling prints.  Get me an Etsy store set up, maybe?

I'm running out of images from my muse, and when I just use random images from the internet, it doesn't feel right.  Given I am not in contact with one person and the other is not comfortable with this, I'm not sure where to go next.

I have found a couple of online models who are aesthetically in the right ballpark but I don't have the money to actually work with them, and it feels wrong to use their likenesses for anything other than these sketches.  Even for them, if I'm honest, but needs must.

Meanwhile, moving back into photography...

It's pretty, but not sure where it goes.  Another path to follow, so I've bought another pinwheel to try and progress things.  

The Ace Of Pentacles and The Four Of Swords

This is gonna be a disjointed one.

Lets get the hands thoughts out of the way first.  A  potential problem occurs to me, in that on some of these, the hands don't seem to indicate a complete image. Example: 

This is one distinct image.  I know it is, I drew as such.  And yet, I'm still seeing it as two seperate drawings on one page.  If even my eye is fooled, then what of someone coming at this cold?  

The obvious solution of course, is to connect them somehow.  Maybe add more lines from the body?  

Quick sketch of a solution.

Does this make things too obvious?  The more elements I introduce the less room for interpretation there is.  Is that important?
 Is taking away visual freedom in order to guide the viewer down a path worth it? How far can you take it before it becomes too obvious?  Before the viewer has no paths but the prescribed one?  And yet....

I want to enforce a feeling. But a feeling isn't obvious, at least, not to me.  I don't want to be obvious.  I've never been able to be obvious, or is honest the right term? The risk of overthinking is strong.

Feelings are strange things.  As I may have mentioned previously, I was in London just prior to the Lockdown and looking through the national gallery.  Room after room of famous Important artworks.  And I felt nothing.  Nothing stirred me.  They were just... pictures. I used to feel things from art, and indeed, I remember doing so with a work at the Tate last year, but since then?  

So how do I present these physical feelings in a way that communicates best to a viewer?

So the other thing I need to try and work through.  Matters of consent.  I created art from images taken with a friend.  I had full consent for that, and for the creation of the work.  But she did not like the finished artworks, so I've pulled them.  No worries, no hassle.  That's what consent means.  I'm disappointed that I don't get to show the art, but I'm not disappointed that she wasn't comfortable with it.  

Models Addenum:

"I don’t think non-consent is an issue, photos were taken by him with my consent and therefore owned by him. It wasn’t a case of not liking the finished artworks but not liking the visual representation of myself within them. I’m disabled through chronic illness, a collagen defect means that my joints aren’t held in place properly and so I feel “broken”. The artwork took that further into visual representation, parts of my body not connected to others and very much reinforcing how I feel about myself…”broken”. Being confronted with your inner thoughts in visual form is difficult to content with and so when asked my opinion, the only words I could form were “I don’t like it”.

I don’t think this would be a problem for other models or photos being used as inspiration in this way. I think it’s a very personal issue that most wouldn’t be aware of or consider when creating art like this. I think continuing with this theme is a good idea as it raises awareness of issues like disability and visual representation, and how an individual’s perceptions can be wholly different to intent." 

The problem is, the work I'm creating is based on images I created with someone else.  Who was with me when the source images were taken (obviously) and who also said yes to my creating art from them.  But who doesn't now have the opportunity to give consent to the final outcomes.  Who might not be happy to have themselves exposed in this way.  There isn't any facial recognition involved yet, but the marks are there for those who know what they're looking for.  

I worry about the fallout from this.  Is non-consensual art a thing?  And how will affect things if we were to start talking again?  Part of my reasons for working from these sources is to try and deal with the overwhelming feelings of loss and rejection that I've been left with, but is this right?  To use the images of someones body without them able to give consent to the finalised image?

I don't know.

Further Thoughts

One of the interesting things about this is the use of negative space.  The absence of shapes and forms, the absence of the people.  All that remains is the memory of touch.

One of the things I have to bear in mind on a case by case basis is just how far do the arms extend?  In an ideal world, I'd only be drawing the fingertips, but then you lose visual language.  The story, the message is lost. So it's a compromise from the start, in a way.  

I like the fact that the actions are not obvious.  But there has to be enough shape there for the hint of a story to unfold.  To see that these are hands.  But is it just one person?  Two?  More?  How close are these people, is there intimacy or distance? What stories are being told in peoples heads?

The next week or so I am moving on from hands, to lips and mouths, possibly feet.  Feet I am less sure of, as that may be too unrelated.  I simply like drawing feet.  But they are still a part of some of my cherished physical memories, albeit as a passive actor so... lets see how that works going forwards.

The ultimate form of this, as my uncomplicated animal brain understands it, to make people understand the feeling of this would be to literally strip them down, blindfold them and then touch them in the ways that touch has been or is being deployed in these works, in my memories.  Then there would be an understanding, and the participants would  then have memories of their own to take home and live with.  Obviously and understandably there are issues of trust and consent here, that cannot be overcome, so in a way I am working from a place of initial compromise, to an ideal that can only ever be compromised.  It kind of fits.

In a way what I am thinking of is the opposite of artists such as Milo Moire or Marina Abramovic, whose works invite audience participation in the opposite direction.  Here is the artist, they said.  Here is your invitation.  What will you do with it? Abramovic's The Artist Is Present was the unquestionably braver and most groundbreaking of the two and involved the possibilty of actual harm, even death, to herself, while Moire's Mirror Box (NSFW) was less obviously dangerous, but more intimate and sexual.  Moire blurs a line between art and pornography, and yet still draws from from Abramovic, as I draw a line on a further tangent.

Thoughts for the future, anyway.  For now, until I can move again (currently under Governmental shielding orders and having a busted knee) I shall continue to draw the feeling of the touch of my memories.  

It's Time To Get Sexy, No If's, And's or But's

Okay so it's been a productive day.  Taking an idea and thanks to my new toy actually being able to rattle out a fair few ideas.  I approve.  Biggest operational problem is that it's so hot in here and leaving sweaty smears on the paper.  This can be fixed in Photoshop but it's still something I'm going to have to sort in real life.  For these sketches and playing about, no worries though.  

New toy: lightbox!

More adult, but in a non-explicit way.  Sex and sexuality, sensuality and memory.  Interesting starting point.  

Crazy minimalist.  Don't know how well this is going to play with everything else.  

Anyway. so I do not forget: What the hell am I thinking?

I guess, this all starts with the pandemic.  Being kept on my own since March has given me a lot of time to think and, well, remember.  The things I miss the most are the people I miss the most.  I miss the feeling of being around people.  Online communication is no substitute, for the most part it's a lot harder for me. 

Thoughts contract.

I miss people.  Persons.  I miss the feel of being with people.  I miss the feeling of people.  I miss feeling people. 

People touch you, in different ways.  Emotionally, intellectually, sadistically, abusively.  but the one I miss most, the one I focused on: physically. 

This is where it gets a bit more personal. I am an 'always switched on' person.  I cannot relax, or stop thinking about things.  I worry, I stress, and nothing can stop this.  Nearly nothing.

I'm also a very sexual person.  And not just in a hurr hurr horny way. The act of sex, the ways people express themselves, the various ways sex has developed as a cultural force.  The why's and what's of sex.  I am an intellectually sexual person. (note to self, this still sounds off, rewrite later) I am fascinated by sex and sexuality, sensuality and why people do what they do, why I do what I do.  I am curious about everything to do with sex.

So sexuality is one of my driving urges.  I am closest to those I am intimate with.  It makes life complicated, and I am still hurting from that going wrong.  But here's the thing:

Fingertips trace memories on my skin.

These works are memories.  If you close your eyes and remember how a person touches you, then these are a pictorial representation of that.  Tenderness, caressing, forcefulness, intimacy.  Yes, that dreaded, terrifying, wonderful intimacy that I avoid at all costs now.

As before when my clay work was more creating my memories into shape, so this is in a similar vein.  

There is an ambiguity to these pieces, they are just hands.  What are they doing?  To my eyes, it is obvious, but to those unfamiliar?  It's hard to find images that fit my memories that are still clear enough to isolate the handiwork. 

Where does it go from here?  Well, I need some more varied source images to play with.  These are good, but will get to be too hetronormative for my tastes soon.  Then it might turn into a case of upscaling them?  Selling prints?  Oh, so Capitalist of me.  

For now, I'll just build up a stockpile of images.  These might even be able to be used in the screenprint workshop in some way.  Just keep pushing forwards and see where the steps take me.

Self hate for fun and profit

Okay, personal post.  I haven't slept,and I'm waiting for some meds to kick in so I can eat.  Bit of time with nothing to do but think and write.

I am struggling right now.  Overwhelmed and angry.  Lonely and sad. The days stretch away filled with emptiness, and that doesn't even make sense.  I feel so very lost, and uncertain of my place in it all.  I hate myself and everything about me, and the fact that nothing ever changes me. I can't go out.  I have no outside to go to.  My neighbour checked in on me and told me I look like a caveman and that's the only real human contact I've had in months.  I'm not good at talking to people, and online interaction doesn't feel real.  I miss having another soul around me.  A specific soul?  I talk to people in my head, a memory made manifest, except it's not a memory because it never happened.  A longing made memory, fantasies of a life that even before this pandemic I had been forced to lose.  And maybe would have remained that way but for a chance encounter.

I'm losing myself in all this.  I don't even drink to stave off the loneliness and boredom anymore.  I'm too poor, or at least, I'm afraid of being too poor.  The threat of being cut off from the government safety net looms large and I am rationing out what is an 'acceptable' spend, yet I find myself comfort eating and spending more than I should, or what I feel I should.  And so, I hate myself some more.

I hate my neediness, my constant need for validation, to be told that not just I matter, but that what I do is good.  And even then, top tier good.  I have to be the best.  And told it.  Such a fragile ego.  

Honestly, I don't even feel like I'm a very good person with all this. How can I?

I don't know myself very well.  I feel like... you know when you meet someone for the first time and they just give that vaguely unsettling feeling?  You don't like them, don't trust them, but you don't know why?  That's how I feel about myself all the time.  Constantly second guessing myself and trying to be all things for all people because I don't have a sense of self to anchor to.

I don't know how long I'll post this for, or even if I will.

Update 07.06.2020

So, who wants to know what I think of whats going on right now?

#BlackLivesMatter (2020, Procreate, digital)

And if you disagree, get the fuck away from me and my art.

Moving onto personal stuff, I've found it increasingly hard to create these last few weeks or so.  The heat and lonliness that online only contact cannot compensate for have thrown me for a bit of six.  I have ideas that I want to work on, but I just cannot.  It's a pain.

The best I can do is make dumb little digital art pieces like this:

Abstract #1 (2020, F12019, Playstation4)

Which have been created on a Playstation in the photo mode of a racing game.  At some point I think I should get it into photohop and try and remove the game stamp, but is that honest? Which again makes me wonder: What the fuck is art anyway?  Crippled by doubt and my own lack of self esteem, I need validation and that is the one thing I do not seem to get.  Or at least keep.  My narcissistic ego is going to be the death of me.

The last thing I created.  A TF comic round robin affair.  A group of different comic creatives all take turns in continuing a story.  No-one knows where the story will go after they have finished their page.  My pencils, layouts, inks and script, and two friends letters and colours

.https://twitter.com/tfroundrobin

for the rest of it.  It's ongoing over the summer and for as long as we can maintain interest.