EXHIBITION PLANNING – preliminary thoughts
Question:
What and who are the paintings for?
Preliminary thoughts
Up to this point, the work has been a personal journey, it’s what life is about for me, each day looking for something I’ve never seen before, something I never knew before and something I’ve never heard before. I suppose it’s being excited by life!
The work has progressed over several stages. During the first two elements of the level 3 course, the journey led into a deep personal look at myself as an migrant and my relationship with my home country of Australia. I know this was a very important part of my development as an artist because it released an acceptance of the strong influence of the colours, the textures, the sounds, the memories which have remained part of me as a person and how I express the world through my painting. This acceptance brought confidence which I think can be seen in the body of work I am preparing for the exhibition.
Two elements of today’s world have influenced the work. Firstly, the present restrictions have necessitated working within my immediate environment. As the images focus on the natural world, using the garden has not been a problem and I’ve been able to find inspiration in our own beautiful natural world and continue my interest on ‘listening’ to the earth and connecting with it beyond just seeing it. The second element which I’m deeply committed to is supporting every effort towards changing attitudes to the climate change debate. I want the work to talk about hope and to connect people with the wonder of our world so they too can be excited by its mystery and revelations. Poetry is a fundamental part of my creative process, even before I begin to paint and so this element needs to find a space in the exhibition.
But now, exhibiting the work is giving me the opportunity of presenting this personal view of life to others.
The exhibition – who is it for?
First, I want the paintings to delight! And to bring upliftment to a very troubled world! I honestly can’t think of a better reason for looking at a painting, certainly not one of mine. So the work is for anyone who responds to it. The majority of the work is of domestic dimensions.
Second, I hope the complexity of the work provides thinking space. I believe the images have the capacity for a dialogue with the viewer. Each of the pieces has emerged from a complex process over several weeks in many cases and if, given time, will continue to communicate. This is an important factor in the curating of the exhibition. The paintings need space.
Third, the work needs quiet. One of the most important factors in the creative process for me is ‘listening’. Each piece reflects the sonic landscape of parts of the garden. Interestingly the three lockdowns we have experienced have allowed for a more prolonged silence.
There is also a fourth area to consider and that is the importance of my poetry in the creation of the pieces and I suppose this comes under the umbrella of ‘thinking’ and ‘listening’.
As I have been writing this and considering an exhibition space which encourages a dialogue between viewer and image and an atmosphere of thinking and listening, I am reminded of Roland Barthes’ essay, ‘The Death of the Author’. In it, he suggests that the author, artist, photographer may believe himself to be the originator of a work of art but in actual fact the author is an accumulation of experiences, memories, information, impressions, all of which come together on the canvas, in the poem, in the photograph. The author then becomes a mere ‘scriptor’, transcribing multidimensional information. “Succeeding the Author, the scriptor no longer bears within him passions, humors, feelings, impressions, but rather this immense dictionary from which he draws a writing that can know no halt.” (Roland Barthes, page 144) The interpretation or understanding of the artwork then lies with the viewer and the first viewer will be the artist. In his book, entitled ‘How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry”, Edward Hirsch echoes this thought in connection with poetry. In the chapter, ‘In the Beginning is the Relation’, he writes, “The reader completes the poem, in the process bringing to it his or her own experiences.” He is seeing the reader and the reading not as something static but as a dynamic unfolding.
So to sum up, I will need to be considering :
- The paintings need to be seen physically to appreciate the vibrancy of the colour and the energy of mark making.
- The space tmust allow for connection and dialogue between the image and the viewer.
- Somehow the curation needs to include the facility to cut out noise and allow for silence when looking at the painting.
- Words need to be shown in some way