Studio a1 Crit Session

The Way (i) - The Hill/10

Had an excellent crit session at Studio a1 yesterday. Seven of us Inside Out artists got together and spent a very enjoyable three hours reviewing each others’ current work and helping solve various stumbling-blocks – those “what do I do now?” questions we all have from time to time.

It really was a great afternoon. I’ve always enjoyed these group crits – when I was a member of the Columbian Artists I thoroughly enjoyed their “Art at the Wall” crit/review sessions, and the one Inside Out one Diana hosted with Sue Mann and Peter Davies was a real high point. These kind of sessions are always so useful, that’s the main thing about them. It’s one thing to get criticism and review points from non-artists – but it’s another to get them from other artists. And it’s always a bonus when you find a group that you really consider to be your peers – artists whose opinions you respect and find useful.

I brought my most recent study and sketches for “The Way”. I didn’t come with any particular problem in mind, although I wasn’t entirely sure about the direction I was taking. But I came away with a lot of really good comments and suggestions for which way to go – partly through thinking in terms of what other people were having trouble with.

One of the themes that developed through the afternoon was a discussion of the underlying structure, geometry and palettes that we each of almost unconsciously developed in our work. That made me think more about my choice of colours and the idea of balancing consistency with sparks of out-of-palette hues.

Brenda’s wondering what to do about her sunflowers, Des’ estuary prints and Heulwen’s descriptions of her degree show work raised the idea of works in series, and how one viewed them. Diana brought up the question of the relationship between paintings and installation and how she wanted to merge/balance them in her own practise – and as the conversation moved onto my use of signs, symbols and writing in my paintings I was suddenly struck by the possibility of creating not just a series of paintings, but an environment in which to display them – Heulwen mentioned sound and Diana mentioned smell, too.

I was also a bit worried about the level of detail in my paintings, but as Sandy pointed out, they’re actually quite empty – a good thing, she suggested, as it seemed to give much more emphasis to what was there. And Heulwen’s suggestions about viewfinder-ing down onto portions of ideas to give them much more impact was really useful. As I suspected, I’ve actually got about three or four paintings in each study – breaking them up into a series would make much more of an impact and bring each set of details to the fore.

So now I think I’ve got some really interesting ideas about “The Way”. Instead of developing my studies into fewer paintings, I want to think in terms of a series – and in each work, bring a single idea to the fore. I like the strong geometry and emptiness I’m developing and want to keep that – but I also want to develop a consistent palette that allows me to use colour to bring additional focus and highlight. I’m going to up the sign/symbol/text content of the paintings and maybe play around with them slightly – using unfamiliar language and/or alternative symbols matched with familiar “railway” forms. And I’m going to think about creating an environment in which the paintings are a part.

Phew! Lots to think about and process – but I think the track ahead is clear…