Am I an Artist?

No, I am not going through a crisis of confidence but entertaining some thoughts about ‘what I am’. Sometimes I get nervous when I am introduced as an ‘artist’. Automatically I start to think how I am going to explain my art practice in the sanest possible manner…a task I have yet to successfully master. Conversations go something like this…

 Person: You’re an artist. What is your medium?

 Me: Err, um. Photography.

 Person: What do you photograph?

 Me: (Jesus, here we go…) Existential dread mainly.

 Person: Pardon?

 Me: My dreams, nightmares, delusions, etc. You know, streams of consciousness type stuff.

 Person: No, I don’t know. How do you photograph that?

 Me: Dolls mainly.

 Person: (Lifting a single eyebrow suspiciously, like Spock on Star Trek…) Dolls? Interesting.

 Me: Yeah…um, yep, um, excuse me I need to, um, go and, um, and, um…bye. (I quickly leave the venue and find a convenient lamppost to smack my head against.) Idiot, idiot, idiot.

Am I an Artist if I can’t verbalise my practice clearly and succinctly? I tend to want my art to talk for itself (like any artist I assume) but problematic if someone who hasn’t seen my art needs a coherent descriptor of what I do.

Is the term ‘Artist’ the problem? Too pretentious maybe? Perhaps I should choose another label, a different title to what I do. I could go back to using ‘Photographer’…no, far too many memories of the days when I was doing weddings, portraits, and freelance commercial work. Photographer, for me, is a term too broad and I am not even sure that is what I do is even photography anymore. Sure, I use a camera and the tricks and trappings of photography, but I do not readily see my work (the end-product as such) as a photograph…more like visual evidence of a thought experiment, a physical relic of memory, or a token from non-existent events. Also, the title ‘Photographer’ alone carries its own (historical and contemporary) baggage and tropes that I do not wish to consider in connection with my work.

So not artist, nor photographer, what then?

Perhaps it is not up to me to decide what I am – in the end, that could be for curators and historians, writers and critics to decide what I am and what my art is…that’s if the work is interesting enough for them to have the temerity to take notice, to look beyond the mere surface, to tease out the intent behind the visual facade.

Am I an Artist? I guess so…only for want of a better term.

What is Art?

Eons ago, deep within the Lascaux caves system in prehistoric France, early modern humans painted depictions of beasts they hunted in reverence, to honour the gift of food they require for their survival. These early humans ventured into the cavernous heart of the Earth, a dark sacred place, guided just by the flickering of their burning torchlight to look at these artworks to be inspired, to gather and pass down knowledge of the seasonal hunts. These cave drawings were not only there for their aesthetic representation, but communication vital for their survival. Of course, some of these early humans looked at these paintings and began to issue a series of grunts and growls in response to what was depicted. Translated into modern speech, this guttural uttering, the protolanguage of the cave dwellers would sound akin to ‘I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like’. I wager that primitive hairy bastard also invented the Beret as well…it was France, after all.

So…What is Art?

I guess it means different things to different people and simply cannot be defined neatly within a simple framework of understanding.

I suppose you could describe what Art means akin to ‘Faith’.  For some, they practice their faith all the time as they are on a pilgrimage to the promise land of milk and honey. Some only attend to their faith for a couple of hours on a Sunday. Some don’t openly practice but read scripture to fulfil their spiritual needs. Some preach to the converted. Some are fundamentalist zealots who believe that their brand of faith is the chosen one and denounce any other becoming gatekeepers of an exclusive doctrine and create a temple that few can entertain the notion of participating within. Yes, the art world does have its own Pastors and Popes, Pharaohs and Priests, Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses, all believing they are head of their own church.

As artists we are all practicing our own ‘faith’, and like any faith…to each their own.

As for me, what do I believe art is to me?

Let’s go back to the cave-people in France. They practiced their art as a form of communication, and that’s what I believe I do with my art. I want to communicate what’s inside me, what I am to the world and my response to whatever the world throws up to me. Yes, I communicate through action figures and photography my thoughts and beliefs, struggles and ailments both physical and mental. That is my language. Sure, like most languages foreign, mine can be hard to understand without a few clues…and there are clues, hints if you are prepared to look. Like English has evolved from German, French and Latin, which words can be understood no matter the dialect, my art has a smattering of common knowledge as well. I use the language of photography itself, black and white, grainy, blurry connotes old family photographs, memories, people and events long passed. There are dolls and action figures, some fictional from popular culture, some real and historical, there to jot the memory, introduce the familiar. I also use art history, poses and compositions from old master paintings/drawings/prints, so famous they are in the collective consciousness - hopefully to trigger a memory, creating a ‘hook’ within the viewer to connect with my art.

Art is my communication, my voice to the world. Sometimes it feels like I am being heard…other times, I feel like I am talking to myself. No matter what, I will still keep communicating – that is what art means to me.

Dark Thoughts Manifesto

Dark Thoughts Manifesto. I know, a stupid name for a blog…but here it is anyway. 

Get over it.

I have been wanting to write about my art practice for a while now. It has been a decade or so when I wrote my Master’s Exegeses when I was 50, and since then things have changed. For one I’m now a decade older, grumpier, jaded, more cynical. Back then I was an (not so young) idealistic artist with grand aspirations with my art practice in process and hopes of further academic study (PHD, whatever), et al. Those were the heady days of pre Covid, pre employment upheavals, pre life being upended by things beyond my control.  

As I said, I have been thinking about writing about my art practice, but also my thoughts about art in general…warts and all if necessary. Don’t get me wrong, I am not going to present myself as some sort of expert or Svengali, far from it, although I do have a couple of degrees (ok, one 1st class Honours and two Masters, but who's counting), and spent over 20 years in art academia dealing and galleries with academics, students (under and postgrad), artists, curators, administrators and the like. I have seen many come and go, the humble, the confident, the overconfident, the clueless – some very talented, some not so much. This over the years has put my own practice into some perspective that I thought I may have something worth sharing…only if in the end to myself. Perhaps this writing may be a start of something bigger, or merely words treated for what they are, uttered by a mad old man shouting at the incoming tide.

My hope is that my writing will fall somewhere between the style, wisdom, and cynicism of Robert Hughes, art critic and historian whom I greatly admired and the absurdist humour of Douglas Adams whose words I consumed with such joy.

For anyone following my words has any questions about my art or anything art related, please ask. Send a message through my Facebook or Instagram pages and I would be happy to share any insights about my practice be it technical, philosophical, or just plain interested in what I do and why I do it. As I said above, I’m no expert, but do have opinions and thoughts (no matter how dark) that could start future conversations.

More to come…