Art Development
Research
Applied Arts
and Expression
I'm not sure whether seeking creative revelation naturally results in artistic statements, the bridge between creativity and commentary is never easy but it's clear our artistic statements grow out of personal research and subsequent art development.
The difference between art and crafts can refer to creative expressions on one hand and a given skill set on the other. Obviously they don’t have to be on separate paths and thankfully I travel both, working commercially as a freelance cameraman and previously as a bookbinder, I've learnt how to be accountable within the applied arts and still retain a degree of creativity for its own sake.
In terms of an artistic vision or statement a wise man once asked me what my art was about, 40k words later I found my art was adapting to the question...the wise man probably thinks I'm avoiding him, in fact having followed the quest since 2019 my art has become a response to the question, if only he was satisfied with that.
As we all know creativity must go hand in hand with personal research. Out of this practice came an extremely simplistic painting I called a 365 Detox which eventually turned into a larger painting called the Symmetry of Time. To me these paintings developed from a foundational interest in units of time, beats, frames per second, patterns, and sequences.
In a not unrelated way to moving images and stills my recent paintings were a response in part to viewing digital representations within zoom calls during lockdown as well as viewing and presenting art online in local Art Salons. The participants, victims of circumstance, presented themselves within the “decorated” home setting on low resolution/bandwidth webcams. Unfortunately the details of many a treasured household artefact remained mere pixilated blurs. Did art in these circumstances require a simplified yet bold approach in order to communicate and express personal branding on the international stage or to the wider family? Combining the above I'd say my art grew out of a response to modernity at large and a personal journey in the specific. The history of art and its philosophy require an upgrade rather than a low bandwidth pixel version and I hope to capture these nuances in my personal use of art mediums.
