Process
I've started this journey, revisiting my memories in my aunts house - more specifically certain moments in the house that are core to my memory of it.
All works are painted in acrylic.
Painting Process / Studio Diary.
This is the first painting on the journey I embarked on in trying to paint the memory of my aunts house. I chose to paint the view from the balcony that would stretch across the 3 bedrooms at the back of the 200 sq meter apartment. My cousin and I cousin weren't allowed on the balcony unsupervised. We would always run across it whilst playing hide and seek, because, we could escape from one room into the other.
In the painting on the left I just focused on the view and placed the colours in loose marks onto the canvas. I really tried to place myself there and feel what it felt like to stand on the balcony ~ feeling the warm summer sun peeking through the shadows of the leaves as they gently moved across my face. I spent maybe 10 min on this painting as I felt that I captured what I needed from the space. The painting on the right is looking more at the structures of the built environment that encloses the balcony. Again this was a very quick painting looking at the painting compositionally. Both of these paintings work as primary sketches for understanding the space.
At this point my aim was to get an accurate reading on the memory of this space. I wanted to prove to myself that I could paint it from memory. That, that's how connected I was to the space and how alive the space was within me. So combining the two things that I learnt from the sketches above, I painted a more comprehensive view from the balcony using only memory as reference. To me, this mind eye to hand coordination was important to grasp. This painting was like a marker to see where I am at. I was happier with the middle phase of this painting, as I felt like that captured more essence of place. In the final layer I was trying to force too much detail that I knew existed but it wasn't clear enough for me to represent honestly. However, I pushed this ones further than the ones above to test my limit. To see what would happen if I kept painting. I think this painting helped me find the threshold of what was natural and what was forced. If I'm trying to find the essence, than its important for me to stick to the essence rather than to force the information.
On the left, here I started painting the same scene again, trying to break at the threshold while adding a level of surrealism by playing around with the shapes and forms, and their shadows. The shadows from the balcony balustrades are combined with an old photograph of the people that inhabited the space. The shadows echo the past. I was experimenting with how I could incorporate old photographs into my paintings in obscure ways. I ended up over working it and painting it all white, apart from one element that I still liked. However I do not have an image of the final stage of this painting as I lost it. I left it in the room that I had my first crit and I decided not to go back for it.
After my first tutorial with Yvonne she told me she wants to know what it felt like for me to be in the space. She said she doesn't see me in the previous paintings. I painting this painting as soon as she left. Something took over me; this piece was very intuitive. Still embodying the sensation of being in my aunts house I painted this abstract piece - which I now feel like it resembles her hallway and the light that would fall through the stained glass divider from the bedroom window. There is an eye that represents me looking. The multicoloured form on top of the composition is the dried paint peeled from my pallets and moulded into two figures dancing... me and my cousin. I feel with this piece I was able to get out my frustration with working so rigidly on the previous paintings. This panting sparked a sense of freedom and released the pressures I was placing on myself to prove that I remember these memories and can depict them accurately, with vivid details.
With my new sense of freedom, I decided to care less about the finished product and focus more on "has the painting worked for me." I started this painting a bit more abstractly by blocking out shapes to represent different spaces within the home context of the home that held memories for me. I arranged the together connecting them together whilst allowing them to float in this blue sky painted as the background. Is it successful? Not entirely, but, it is doing something for me... Again this feels like a sketch for something bigger to come. Here i was looking at different scenes that were prevalent in my time spent in the apartment as a child and I was trying to piece these places together through the narrative of me and my cousin playing.
I felt like I needed grounding. I felt that my hand was still weak. So, I looked at some photographs from that time, just so I could give my mind a break, and get out of working from my head alone. This was fun for me as I could copy the image but only focusing on details that were interesting to me and manipulated it to create a sense of "my style?". In figurative paintings like this, I like to use a limited pallet to add a bit of challenge while also keeping everything relative to each other. I started by blocking the space then blocking the shapes that made the people.
I then started to add the paint peels collected from all the previous works. I placed them on and moved them around until they found their final resting place. I liked this stop motion that was created with these paint peels... Perhaps in the future I should document this process better. I decided to paint the reflection of the light on the plastic wall it to tie my connection to this photograph to the present. I also added that tortoise I saw in my dream - as I started dreaming about my aunts house during this process.
This work on paper is in response to the sketches I started to draw in my sketchbook of the spaces that I value in Ame Pari's home. This was very experimental and I don't like the outcome but it was a good exercise to let go and focus on the process.
This work on paper is a continuation of what I was doing above. This time focusing on a different composition from my sketchbook. I like this one more, but there are still elements that have been overworked and it became messy. Still I must remind myself that this is all practice. I do feel as though I captured a sense of liminality in the dark hallway on the right and the use of colours are feeling more vibrant and purposeful. Here I realise that the floating stairs are an important motif in my work.
For my next work, I decided to start by painting the background in response to this paint peel, left as a gift from the painting above. Something about it's calm colours and evoking marks called to me. It reminds me of one of Samuel Bassett's pieces.
This has been the largest piece I have painted so far during the MA. I started with large gestural marks, sweeping and swooshing about the paper - trying to capture the essence of the layered, splattered paint in the acrylic peel. I think I did an okay job of this. I don't remember what I was doing with that pink on top... perhaps I was trying to mark out the space but decided it wasnt working. I then wrote "It was too soon" out of frustration. As I dragged some wet paint and I should have been more patient with the piece. I like how this statement could allude to something more than it actually is in the eyes of the viewer. The white splatter was to bring in some of the chaos from the paint peel back. The splatters represent the 5 people and is in response to my reference photograph above. I painted the people in the photograph to show the scale of this space. Some details below.
The Process of Painting Lauren's Sculpture of My Memories
It was revolutionary for me to sketch a rough pencil drawing of Lauren's sculpture before I started to paint it. I know it's not much, and also nothing out of the ordinary, but for me it was something new. I tend to go straight in with paint and I map out the composition using blocks of colours. Here I decided I needed a guide and I think It really helped me get a strong finish to the painting as I didn't have to worry about the composition post sketch. This practice of planning a painting with a sketch or underdrawing was something I hadn't done in 5 years and now having had time away from it I appreciate it again.
Lauren's sculpture has shaped the direction I want to proceed in with my current practice. I understand myself better looking at this sculpture. It was also freeing to paint from Lauren's sculpture and not my memory. When I look at this painting I am reminded more of the sculpture than the representation of my memories. I think this separation is important to recognise and apply to my future works in order to connect more with my viewer. Up until this point I was painting for me, this is the first work I feel is for everyone.
The paint peels here tell a narrative of the people who used this space. Yasaman and I are sitting on the steps looking at the girl in pink next door as she stands in her garden next to the water fountain. The yellow blob on the step is Maziar on his phone. The black dress in the warmly lit room is my aunt preparing for a party. At least that's how I like to see it...