If my face had a face I'd punch it.

I feel like flip-flopping again.  I'm having a hard time reconciling this abstract stuff...  Maybe it's best if I stick to what I know?  I spent the last 3 years taking figurative classes, maybe I should just...  do figurative art.

[edit:] yup, yup.  I hate myself.  Going back to the first idea.  I'm sorry abstract art, I'm just not ready yet.

Trying new things...

Yeah... I'm definitely working a new thing now.

This is a maaaaaaaajor upheaval of my entire art practice.  I was a figure painter/drawer, now... I'm a whaaa?

Where does this come from??  Well, it was something I had in mind for a while...  maybe not this specifically...  But it was an idea from last year during my Book as Art class.  I was thinking about making a book with my own made language, or code.  Maybe take a series of stories and translate them in that language/code, or translate an entire story phonetically.

There's something about language that's intriguing. 

So today...  I took 26 random sunflower seeds, randomly assigned them to a letter of the modern English alphabet (A-Z), and drew them out black and white.

I had been staring at the idividual boxes for so long today, I wasn't even sure if I was confident with how this would entirely turn out. When I got home I scanned it into Photoshop, and ta-da! Not so bad looking...

Why sunflower seeds?  WELL...  They were at hand?  I wanted something mundane?  Sunflower seeds are incredibly simple objects with such complexity in design and pattern...  There are various reasons...

Where am I taking this?  I foresee a large sheet.  A bunch of encoded words.  And a world of backaching pain.

Suddenly really glad that my proposal isn't due for another week...

Slept on it, and I think I'm going to take a chance with the non-objective, non-figurative road.
It's all this guy's fault!:  

 

Drawing a Hypothesis: Figures of Thought  by Nikolaus Gansterer

I thought I knew what I was doing, but then I picked up this book, and it changed my world.  How dare you change my world!

I also want to take a chance on it, because maybe this can help me get off the surface of the page and into space...  Maybe?

Okay I know what I do, but kinda don't.

Lately I've been struggling with myself, determining what I kind of artist I want to be.

One side of me, which as been the most dominate... is a figure artist.  I draw people.  I draw faces.  I draw bodies.  I have done that most of my known art practice.

But lately, a new side of me has been craving for a more non-objective pursuit in my art practice.  Perhaps this is normal, I have been running in one direction for so long, maybe it's just time for a change.

Part of the problem I'm having is why and for what reason I like non-objective art.

Currently my studio space...

I kinda have an idea for where I want to go with my thesis work...  but I just need to get reaquainted with drawing.  ...also trying to scavange for source material.

Recent Work: "Growing Thoughts". Summer 2012.

Paper Sculptural Installation: Hemp + Abaca, Flax + Abaca, and pigment.

I still have the artist statement for this one!!

"With this project, I utilise the properties of high-shrinkage pulps to explore the theme of growth and maturation of ideas.

In creating my piece, I tried to minimize my use of materials—mainly hemp+abaca and flax+abaca pulps, and a bit of pigmented pulp--, and broke it down to simple structures—free-formed cylinders.

The suggestion of maturity comes in the contrasts between the air-dried structures, and the pressed sheet structures.  The “mature” structures are hardened, opaque, and ragged, whereas the structures that have been pressed (representing “immaturity”), are translucent, clean cut, and flexible.  There is a literal interpretation to be taken in the description of materials to describe these metaphorical ideas—i.e. immature thoughts are open to flexibility, fresh and clean, where as matured thoughts are more condensed, well crafted, and have developed given time."

I wanted to mimic the look of mold, or other surface spreading organisms (others have mention sea anemone and plants, etc.) because it suits the idea of growth, and potentially the installation can grow and mass in numbers and area.

I tried considering other presentations of this work.  This one is in a corner and by a window...

Old Works #8: Drawing stuff.

Self-portrait.  2011.

Self-portrait as a Gorgon. 2010.

Portrait. 2010 (sorry for bad photo)

Portrait. 2010. (again, another bad photo)

Figure.  2011.

Sketch in Queen's Park. 2011.

Sketch in Queen's Park, Looking East (?).  2011.