Branding

Continuing tenuously from believability of art - I was wondering around a shopping centre today. I knew full well that brands tried every trick in the book to entice people to buy into their identity but it only struck me today how potent the use of music was. Each shop clearly creating their own Eco system of energy and tone!

Believing Art

Realism, according to Collin Renfrew, is dead yet the human draw to so called figurative portrayals of life seem a constant draw.

This will be a second short post sadly but this idea appeared walking through the asmolians new Egyptian rooms. To many; to consider just the aesthetic of a Egyptian wall tablet may exert a very dry and lifeless impression due to the un-natralistic distortion of the body. The egyptian viewer believed that images,however had the power to preserve the soul and that by displaying the human form in its utter most entirety by distorting the pose was adequate to illustrate what was known to be there instead of a need to depict a truly foreshortened representative form. In short realism was un-nessisary for the function they played, and maintaining the belief within them through assumption and greater social constructs. Constructs which are far different today, my extreme comparison being a occasional general attitude that photography has made painting today somewhat redundant. As an artist this I know not to be the case but nonetheless I have been approached by these questions and ideas. There's nothing wrong with this, it is merely an observation that I will continue to turn over until a lot more refined!

Frames

Ok, so it took me longer than I thought to actually get round to this new post. However I am back now! The long post still not quite there but I’m aiming to finish is now I have motivation for the blog again. I discovered I need to rant about something... frames. 

I never like framing my own work, it seems to smother it somehow, but my work isn’t important in the grand scheme of things. My outrage is an internal one that bugs me pretty much every time I walk in a gallery.

Frames are greatly useful, and the effect of them can be beneficial to the composition. But recently I keep finding paintings completely dwarfed by the ostentations decoration of some half a foot thick wooden mass restricting it.

I discovered this annoyance when walking through a Lowry exhibition and I realised that this has actually bugged me for years. I have started to discover that the white box, idea of galley space doesn’t appeal to me and always feels so sterile. I could walk around galleries for hours but feel shattered by the end as it’s a methodical journey from one picture plane to the next; yet walking through Klaus Webbers spectacle of an exhibition in Nottingham Contemporary I could spend hours and only feel more energetic after.

I think what I'm getting at here is why does the work have to stop several centimetres before the edge of the canvas to allow for a frame. I feel that occasionally this really disrupts the feel of the painting.

There are times when frames are majorly beneficial though; I have recently been studying Hogarth’s 4^th print of his series An Election, and the frame does wonders for creating a sense of wonder and discovery within the chaos of the celebratory parade. It entices you into the foreground space and makes you ask que4stions about the displayed characters and their personalities.

My opinion will change painting to painting, but I know I never want to frame my work. Though in fairness my work seems to only last a few months before it is whitewashed anyway! =)

I just feel sorry for artist’s ad paintings which have been oppressed by their frames!

Anyway this is my short rant to get back into Blogging, I’ll be back very soon!