Poems and Bruised, Healing 2016
The fear of knowing myself. The written word describes what I cannot translate into another form. I am taking something within me that I have not come to face. I fear guilt, selfishness, love of others and acceptance of self. These things I never really come to work within my practice of making art, the thought of those ideas makes me sick to my stomach.
The text in my work have recently evolved to my personal reflection of what type of media I like to use in my practice as an artist. I have strong interest in texts, with words and sarcasm, as well as the unintended and intended humour behind them. I like the fatal humour, where you laugh and then frown a little after a while. Which I thoroughly enjoy maybe because it relieves some sort of burden from what is negative into something positive. I like to take those burden of phrases I constantly hear around me into something I could work with.
The process started with the collection of words and phrases I heard through my commute and everyday life. They are accumulated to these sarcastic and hilarious sets of phrases. The concept revolved around others and what I could take from them, I took the words out of their mouths, without them knowing. These words are written on the white walls around the studio building. I used ink and a large brush to write directly on the walls. I went through this process for four weeks. I would write on the walls when no one was around every week, painting the walls white again and writing a new written phrase. There was something new on the walls each week, and the anonymity interested me in this process. I did get a few feedback from my fellow artists around the facility, although it only left me hanging on the other side because there was not a thread of conversation that I am aware of. Eventually my interest died, as the words on the walls are not giving me content of how I can expand the idea of telling the ugly truth. In the end, all I got was loud words, they are yelling and hard to focus on, not that you need to. However for me, it did not do much.
I turn back to my collection of words, diaries of phrases, while getting lost in between how I feel and what I struggle with internally. I need to put myself on fire or on ice cold water, I started writing about myself. Without much thought, I have done these writings in small cue card sized papers. When I look back, I am belittling my own inner demons that were easy to grapple and manipulate. The size of the piece translates into puzzle like pieces of my own thoughts, where I have to keep organizing and leaving some out when I put them together. I used ink to create a physical rendering of my thoughts. The work is presented on a table top, arranged in the way I feel in the moment when I place them together—they are not always going to be in the same arrangement every time. Writing one to two words on the paper I was able to break down my thoughts and feelings. They are separable, they are not infinite and they are not always cohesive.
There is a struggle of structuring the words together, the way our own feelings and thoughts work together, they are unstable and inconsistent with our perception and mood. Sometimes the words are separately written on multiple of papers, and repeated more than twice. Repetition reflects the way we are subjective of our own feelings and thoughts. We do not have to think about it too hard, but it exists. The existence of these ephemeral ideas are the struggles I live with, as to the next, or maybe not.
When I am present with the physical representation of my thoughts altogether, I feel uncomfortable but also accepting. Acceptance is hard to come by, because it is uncertain. Making a piece that does not primarily exist, makes me uneasy. The feelings of physically living with what I struggle with is a new experience for me. The Poems are the first steps to this acceptance. As I repeatedly wrote words I have also left some out. The process of elimination, as a way of saying to myself: you’re stupid for thinking and feeling that way.
As I extend with developing my work, the text work have interest me to draw imagery that reflects the same aspects of my feelings without using words. The challenge I struggle in this concept is that I do not want to draw from already existing objects or human figures. The concept of creating poetic imagery as I imagined are beyond what I expected from what I can physically mark on a piece of paper. I find the complexity of the idea of drawing out of nothing, means creating abstract images that will later on be perceived and related to an imagery that already exist. I began experimenting with ink and charcoal to create an image—where I struggled to come up with drawings that will express similar feelings from the Poems. In my mind I wanted to create various tones of greys and blacks. I started making abstract shapes with ink, soon I found that ink is not creating the lightness or rather I am not capable of reaching such tonal values. I then reached for charcoal, using various sized brushes I used the dust of the compressed charcoal to create marks on the paper. With this technique I was able to create dark and concentrated areas to very light faded bruise-like marks on the page.
Bruised, Healing is a series of drawings of bruise-like images on thin yellow-brown paper. I used various tones of browns, blues, reds and black charcoal to mimic the effect of bruises that are left on the body. In this process the feeling of being sick, growing infection or disease comes to my mind looking at these abstract marks. These drawings are still growing and accumulating as I go back to them and create more. The bruising marked on the paper for me expresses pain, without the fixation of being in burden with the feeling too much. I also feel that physically placing the pain elsewhere like on the piece of paper relieves me from that burden. A bruise happens with quick pain, sometimes even unknowingly then later exist as mark on the body. The pain becomes present, but it also the sign of healing. Internally the body is working to heal the blood cloth that is happening in the bruise. The pain I feel when I draw these bruises are the feelings I tend to ignore, I do not like to talk about them. They are easier to mark on the page than express them verbally. Not all pain needs to be talked about, nor a clear explanation of what kind of pain they are. I want these drawings to speak across and pass the borders of pain and healing.
Pain and healing is something that could be and are experienced by everyone, like in the series of Poems, different words speak to an individual differently than the artist. I am okay with that; in fact I want that to happen. When I think of pain, I know I want to quickly get over them even though they hurt and I am aware that it is okay to feel this way. It just seems unnecessary to feel like shit for a long period of time, but maybe that is part of the healing process.
As I work with these drawings I have decided to layer the papers for installation, they are mimicking the size of a human torso, the paper measures 18 x 24 inches. I am layering the paper because it creates density to the existence of bruises as it gradually accumulate, but can also show the healing process of the bruises as layers of almost empty marked paper is layered to the front. As my progress in this work comes to an end, I finalize the installation to be on a table top viewing. The papers are stacked in one pile and will be flipped one by one, by the viewer. The action of flipping the paper like viewing a book is reminiscent of time because of the delicacy of the paper. It relates to how wounds, bruises and scars, takes time to heal—similarly how feelings are cured, though not always and some linger longer.
I am not sure if I have achieved the imagery I like in response to the Poems, as they come from the same feelings that I do not like to deal with. Though as they exist physically I feel like I do not need to longer serve them. I think feeling them and physically living with them is similar to that process of just dealing with it as a healing process. Even now I hate talking about the process that I go through with my work, I do not know if I make you understand me less or more. Feelings suck overall.
The fear of knowing myself. The written word describes what I cannot translate into another form. I am taking something within me that I have not come to face. I fear guilt, selfishness, love of others and acceptance of self. These things I never really come to work within my practice of making art, the thought of those ideas makes me sick to my stomach.
The text in my work have recently evolved to my personal reflection of what type of media I like to use in my practice as an artist. I have strong interest in texts, with words and sarcasm, as well as the unintended and intended humour behind them. I like the fatal humour, where you laugh and then frown a little after a while. Which I thoroughly enjoy maybe because it relieves some sort of burden from what is negative into something positive. I like to take those burden of phrases I constantly hear around me into something I could work with.
The process started with the collection of words and phrases I heard through my commute and everyday life. They are accumulated to these sarcastic and hilarious sets of phrases. The concept revolved around others and what I could take from them, I took the words out of their mouths, without them knowing. These words are written on the white walls around the studio building. I used ink and a large brush to write directly on the walls. I went through this process for four weeks. I would write on the walls when no one was around every week, painting the walls white again and writing a new written phrase. There was something new on the walls each week, and the anonymity interested me in this process. I did get a few feedback from my fellow artists around the facility, although it only left me hanging on the other side because there was not a thread of conversation that I am aware of. Eventually my interest died, as the words on the walls are not giving me content of how I can expand the idea of telling the ugly truth. In the end, all I got was loud words, they are yelling and hard to focus on, not that you need to. However for me, it did not do much.
I turn back to my collection of words, diaries of phrases, while getting lost in between how I feel and what I struggle with internally. I need to put myself on fire or on ice cold water, I started writing about myself. Without much thought, I have done these writings in small cue card sized papers. When I look back, I am belittling my own inner demons that were easy to grapple and manipulate. The size of the piece translates into puzzle like pieces of my own thoughts, where I have to keep organizing and leaving some out when I put them together. I used ink to create a physical rendering of my thoughts. The work is presented on a table top, arranged in the way I feel in the moment when I place them together—they are not always going to be in the same arrangement every time. Writing one to two words on the paper I was able to break down my thoughts and feelings. They are separable, they are not infinite and they are not always cohesive.
There is a struggle of structuring the words together, the way our own feelings and thoughts work together, they are unstable and inconsistent with our perception and mood. Sometimes the words are separately written on multiple of papers, and repeated more than twice. Repetition reflects the way we are subjective of our own feelings and thoughts. We do not have to think about it too hard, but it exists. The existence of these ephemeral ideas are the struggles I live with, as to the next, or maybe not.
When I am present with the physical representation of my thoughts altogether, I feel uncomfortable but also accepting. Acceptance is hard to come by, because it is uncertain. Making a piece that does not primarily exist, makes me uneasy. The feelings of physically living with what I struggle with is a new experience for me. The Poems are the first steps to this acceptance. As I repeatedly wrote words I have also left some out. The process of elimination, as a way of saying to myself: you’re stupid for thinking and feeling that way.
As I extend with developing my work, the text work have interest me to draw imagery that reflects the same aspects of my feelings without using words. The challenge I struggle in this concept is that I do not want to draw from already existing objects or human figures. The concept of creating poetic imagery as I imagined are beyond what I expected from what I can physically mark on a piece of paper. I find the complexity of the idea of drawing out of nothing, means creating abstract images that will later on be perceived and related to an imagery that already exist. I began experimenting with ink and charcoal to create an image—where I struggled to come up with drawings that will express similar feelings from the Poems. In my mind I wanted to create various tones of greys and blacks. I started making abstract shapes with ink, soon I found that ink is not creating the lightness or rather I am not capable of reaching such tonal values. I then reached for charcoal, using various sized brushes I used the dust of the compressed charcoal to create marks on the paper. With this technique I was able to create dark and concentrated areas to very light faded bruise-like marks on the page.
Bruised, Healing is a series of drawings of bruise-like images on thin yellow-brown paper. I used various tones of browns, blues, reds and black charcoal to mimic the effect of bruises that are left on the body. In this process the feeling of being sick, growing infection or disease comes to my mind looking at these abstract marks. These drawings are still growing and accumulating as I go back to them and create more. The bruising marked on the paper for me expresses pain, without the fixation of being in burden with the feeling too much. I also feel that physically placing the pain elsewhere like on the piece of paper relieves me from that burden. A bruise happens with quick pain, sometimes even unknowingly then later exist as mark on the body. The pain becomes present, but it also the sign of healing. Internally the body is working to heal the blood cloth that is happening in the bruise. The pain I feel when I draw these bruises are the feelings I tend to ignore, I do not like to talk about them. They are easier to mark on the page than express them verbally. Not all pain needs to be talked about, nor a clear explanation of what kind of pain they are. I want these drawings to speak across and pass the borders of pain and healing.
Pain and healing is something that could be and are experienced by everyone, like in the series of Poems, different words speak to an individual differently than the artist. I am okay with that; in fact I want that to happen. When I think of pain, I know I want to quickly get over them even though they hurt and I am aware that it is okay to feel this way. It just seems unnecessary to feel like shit for a long period of time, but maybe that is part of the healing process.
As I work with these drawings I have decided to layer the papers for installation, they are mimicking the size of a human torso, the paper measures 18 x 24 inches. I am layering the paper because it creates density to the existence of bruises as it gradually accumulate, but can also show the healing process of the bruises as layers of almost empty marked paper is layered to the front. As my progress in this work comes to an end, I finalize the installation to be on a table top viewing. The papers are stacked in one pile and will be flipped one by one, by the viewer. The action of flipping the paper like viewing a book is reminiscent of time because of the delicacy of the paper. It relates to how wounds, bruises and scars, takes time to heal—similarly how feelings are cured, though not always and some linger longer.
I am not sure if I have achieved the imagery I like in response to the Poems, as they come from the same feelings that I do not like to deal with. Though as they exist physically I feel like I do not need to longer serve them. I think feeling them and physically living with them is similar to that process of just dealing with it as a healing process. Even now I hate talking about the process that I go through with my work, I do not know if I make you understand me less or more. Feelings suck overall.