Elective Evaluation

Choosing this elective last term has really I think changed my outlook on art and how I make-work. I feel that my work has finally evolved into something I can be truly absorbed in; it has helped me to break away from the restrictions of painting and making objects. Doing performance you are not just creating an object for the sake of creating an object but doing something that seems much more connected with the real world in some way. An object will age with time, so a painting I made a year ago, for example, can always be re-examined.  If you remember it fondly from when it was painted chances are you will suddenly see all the flaws you missed in the triumphal high after finishing it. Much like visiting New York for me, somewhere you’ve always seen in films from a very early age, when you visit for a first time the reality is always going to be a disappointment. I feel I would much rather remember the fantasy or if that’s not possible maybe for witnesses to remember it in such a way. I feel this quote from Brian Griffiths is very relevant to how I feel about my work at the moment:

“I started as a painter and was so disappointed at the time people spent looking at them that I made large-scale objects that would have to be navigated around. It was a desperate statement: ‘try and ignore this’ ” (Griffiths 2008)

In a box of Quality Street I often pick the brightest and most attractively wrapped chocolate, I want my work to be noticed and remembered, and to present what I am interested in to others and I feel the best way to do this is to have a attractive “wrapper”. I feel performance is the perfect medium for me to create a spectacle, which will have a longer lasting resonance with the viewer than say a static object. This is an aspect that I am interested in that I am only just beginning to explore…