deskilled process

Drawing (coca cola crate), 2008
cast iron grindings, acrylic, Fabriano paper, 10 x 13 inches

Well, the wood grain in the last picture is not the real thing, but it looks like it. Here the coca cola crate does look like the real thing, and was actually created by the real thing, but it doesn't look the way we expect it to.

This is one of a series of "drawings" created using various powders, and gravity. We are familiar with photograms, which use light sensitive emulsion to record the effects of an object deflecting light. Here gravity is used, and the object concerned deflects particles - just not photons, but physical particles that accumulate showing the effects of that deflection. The result describes the object quite faithfully via its edges, so can be considered a drawing, but is not created as traditional drawings are, through the mediation of the artist. Its a kind of factory drawing.... more direct than the "Leonardo Drawing" you can buy at the mall...

And very much in tune with my paintings - that use particles of paint set in motion by the compressed air in my spray gun - that record the deflection that occurs to paint particles when a stencil is placed on the canvas, obstructing their path.

process

Space (tags and inserts),2006
acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches

My work could be thought of as process-based though not in an entirely pure sense . My method revolves around deskilled processes but with a wider focus.

Deskilled processes are those from which the skill has been removed. Industrial production relies on particular actions repeated indefinitely and mechanically, each the same, each having the same, perfect outcome. Industry moves towards perfection in this way (no "unskilled" mistakes) because it speeds things up, increases profits, cuts down on waste. My interest is in using these deskilled processes for different reasons, obtaining different outcomes. Stenciling and printing are basic forms of deskilled processes.

Stenciling is also used in homes as a deskilled way of creating yards of customized decor. It has a domestic flavor, low end. Craft magazines. You, too, can have a beautiful home with this easy project. Country cottage, cottage industries. It can however be hugely impactful and effective if designed or applied by someone with an eye for color, composition etc. So the creation of the design could be called skilled (there's a whole can of worms here about taste and evaluation but we won't go there), and it can then be applied by someone else who doesn't want to bother with, or hasn't thought about those other factors. Who isn't being paid to have those skills etc. There are numerous cultural references woven through the idea of deskilling.

So, to create shapes on the canvas I take a shape and stencil round it - shazam! Done. No drawing, observing from life, imagination, anything. Deskilled... but not deskilled. What happens next? Why am I using it, what for? I love the effects - the hard and soft edges, the crisp curves. I love that it is actually creating a particularly contemporary shape, lifted straight out of my daily life. The deskilled process used in industry is importing the direct evidence or traces of an industrially produced object, but the same method has been seen in cave paintings from the dawn of history. It is thought that a mouthful of pigment was blown onto the cave wall over the artist's hand, leaving us with hand stencils - Kilroy was here in the most basic sense!

Stenciling relies on single or simple combinations of paint colors applied in layers... and what has been happening all through my art practice but paint being applied in layers! Why? Because layers naturally avoid perspective and optical space, but by layering stenciled shapes I begin to create the illusion of space again, engaging with traditional visual mechanisms. Via a different route - a route that is not limited by the assumptions of real experience or the conventional ways of abstracting imagery from it.

abstract turning points

(above ) Found objects in green and black with light rods, 2006
acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

Here are two paintings with obvious links to the painting Harlem Window shown in the last post. It is also obvious that they have no further need of real life situations because the focus has shifted to visual dynamics. As understood in a fine art context, the situation on the canvas has enough of its own references to continue exploration.

Sounds simple, but there was a lot of searching done between 1998 and 2005! Making artwork when I don't know exactly what I'm going to end up with is the only way I can stay excited about making art. (I can compare the experience to stumbling around a room blindfolded, believing that doors exist but not knowing where or what they are). The night scenes I painted before, for example, were only fresh and interesting while I was using them to explore the unknown. After that they became formulaic and dull. They still seemed to sell, but I couldn't keep painting them as a main practice. I think there are still exciting "realist" paintings in me, but I don't yet know what form they will take, exactly.

(below) Space # 7, 2005
acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches

moving on

Sardine can repeat on pink, 2007
36 x 36 inches, acrylic on canvas

Nothing concrete in the background of this painting, no realist associations as with the windows and wing of Plane. But the same principles of line and separation apply. I have moved on to the more abstract (as in thought, not as "traditional" modernist abstraction) use of shape. The fact that the shape is derived from a manufactured object ready to be thrown away and achieved by deskilled processes of printing and stenciling introduces aspects of mechanized production. Anonymous replication... but messed up with drips and mistakes that bring it to life. I was thinking about Warhol's portraits of Marilyn while doing this, the colors and the grainy mess of black... With all that reference material, who needs to refer to physical or "lived" situations? Cultural situations have become much more interesting. They are more fluid, less restricted on all sorts of levels. They open themselves up to new outcomes more easily.