Paddles

Cleft Paddle - Same, not the same. /  by Justin Harrison

Same, not the same.

More paddles, there is some kind of satisfaction in making these. Touching on presence and absence, time and space. I am also tempted to return to the ‘imaginary bundles’ stacking elements in and around. Items being grouped, bundled and divisible.

I do wonder about the drawing technique - is it too simplistic? Childish. I find it is a useful short hand to explore the negative, which I am also making up larger in card. I still want to make large drawings more involved and descriptive.

Also what am I saying about the paddle? Anish Kapoor talks with Homi Bhabha about making series - the value to it. But I don’t want to be repetitive and not develop my visual language alongside my research.

I keep on finding more connections to space and time and I’m not sure I can justifiable pull them altogether. I’ll try to document as much as possible but it feels like the accumulation of information and evidence is becoming overwhelming. Just trying to find a system to categorised and catalogue everything would be a work of art worthy of an MA in itself.

 

There is nothing new /  by Justin Harrison

In researching for my art and paper - I am on an interesting/infuriating and yet somehow not surprising route. By ‘interesting’ I actually feel like none, a non route, nowhere. The more I read the less sure I am what it is I am doing. (Standard MA Fine Art emotion)

Frustratingly, but then perhaps mercifully I see work that I am making, or about to make, or want to make. With Theaster Gates I see the shingled roofs I begun to explore. The RePlacement of materials, I like to choose. Especially reclaimed wood.

With Von Rydingsvard, I see the paddles I have been drawing and want to carve out of wood.(She make shovels to be specific, but they are so close I can’t ignore them).

Repetition feels like a little death. I need there to be a significant departure from what has gone before to justify my making. Especially If I am going to ask others to view the work.

I also struggle as an artist, with the continual re-presentation of objects and images to be interpreted again only slightly differently, with the burden of interpretation on the audience to discover the newly imbued meaning. Especially with my own work. Originality is a troublesome notion. Very little is new, yet creativity for me requires a healthy does of originality, rather than a nuance one.