It would take a lot of work to explain the means beneath my appetite for painting. There’s a logical relation between it and my work as a sound designer – I want to broaden my knowledge and experience of working with visual art. At first, I thought of photography to be the ideal format. It is a painting that paints itself instantly. It also plays with film – film is a succession of many “photographies” at once. I derived from photography due to its logistical side. Either I would have to take these photos, or I would have to find someone who could take them from me. Photographic Sound, a term coined by the journalist Louisa Shepard, will be a format to be explored posthumous to my graduation. Painting is indeed the only solution viable enough to work. However, I need to learn how to paint or where to start.
To seek inspiration, I went to the Tate Modern to look at some paintings, and I found interest in abstract artists such as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Sonia Delaunay, Fahrelnissa Zeid, and Mark Rothko. I’ve explored more deeply, and I found a particular interest in the following:
- The avant-garde Russian movement rayonism (Natalia Goncharova).
- Tachisme (Jean Dubuffet, Sam Francis).
- The British avant-garde movement objective abstractionism (Rodrigo Moynihan).
- Northern American abstract expressionism (Rothko, Pollock).
They all stem from the same intention – for some particular reason, these were the movements and artists that were the more “sonorous” for me.
While looking at paintings, I stumbled upon pictures of exciting minerals and rocks. And they are also very sonorous for me. Therefore I decided to visit the Natural History Museum in London and take photos of interesting minerals.
Why paint abstract art?
In an article written by Adem Genç entitled Social Function of Abstract Painting (not dated), he states:
“An artist can only be creative if he can transmit his rebellion to his work.”
To some extent, I’m against my practice. I’m trying to overcome the idea of audiovisual and broader it to new horizons, such as sound paintings (a term I coined myself) and photographic sound. Adem Genç also refers that:
“Many artists do not feel they belong to a group or a school. By definition, they are individuals, because there are always some artists who cannot be fitted neatly into any category or division.”
Indeed, I am not a painter, and I don’t know where I fit in the format. What motivates me is the effect of sound on paintings and how both can relate and provoke the development of synchresis – a topic I will later break down and research into my practice.
“The social function of non-representational painting is that Abstract images subordinate the conventional reality to the inner dictates of human consciousness, and thereby functions to create a new reality for the collective perception of society.”
What is abstract art?
While reading Lisa Tallano‘s Why Abstract Painting Now? (2019) explained the ontology of canvases yet to be painted as “something that will soon be covered in clichés”. These clichés are linked to how the artist feels and thinks. Therefore, when one paints abstractly, one get’s rid of these clichés that work as anchors for creativity. One often is obsessed with pictorial organisation, which could also be called social standards.
Lisa Tallano often quoted Gilles Deleuze, a french philosopher who did remarkable curational work around Film and Fine Art. In regards to Jackson Pollock’s pieces of art, Deleuze stated:
“(…) Pollock’s pictorial space departs from the purely optical to discover more haptic forms of spatialisation.”
Interestingly, this is how Jay Beck describes Lucrecia Martel’s work regarding the use of sound in her films. In La Cienaga, the spectator is not invited into the characters’ minds but is welcome to feel the emotionality sound has towards the scene as aural objects (Metz, 1980).
What’s next?
Now I have to find ways of learning how to paint. The most plausible is connecting with an artist inside UAL who can help me break down the project.
References
Tallano, L. (2019) Why Abstract Painting Now? New York.