traveller

Bag Dump /  by Justin Harrison

I’m not entirely sure where this is going… but there is a thread that runs out from this. I’ve collected these images all formally arranged elements from a bag. There’s something about collection, organisation, display and function. All the items are things I’d like to own, but beyond this it feels like a narrative is buried beneath all of this.

I’ve had this though about travellers, individuals ‘passing through’, there location being ‘in passage’ and place being where they pause for a time, and or where they are going.

There is an element of folk law to it too, I feel like there are deep stories that I need to unearth, maybe in the making, as I make and collect elements for a travellers pack.

Who is this traveller?
What is their purpose?
Where are they heading?
Where did they come from?

Currently Reading:::
The Rites of Passage /// Arnold van Gennep

Currently Listening To:::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46VHdzSdB7k

 

Jericho /  by Justin Harrison

Not too shabby I took of the clamps off the experiment from last Thursday - ‘disrupt the average’. I decide that I do like it after all.

I think about putting it in the interim show and my internal maker starts hyperventilating and wants me to spend hours on it. ‘People are gonna see it and think I am a moron’.

I fuss with it a little bit and realise that actually I am gonna need to re-wet form the leather, its a minor technical thing but how I’ve cut the leather means I’m not gonna be able to stitch it well or at all. Not being super picky just need to make it work, AND I start to think that this is part of the work, I want the leather to be exquisite because I’m using such crappy wood, this is the premise for the dialogue between the materials - allowing them to speak. Value systems. Also the wood has value because of it’s source. An invisible quality to the material.

As I’m fussing the art work tells me that its called ‘Jericho’ - I don’t understand this but know better than to push to deep at this stage - I may be informed later - if the work feels like it,///

Hopefully I can finish this off fairly quickly - I want to play more with the faster and slower rhythms of making.The idea was impromptu andI guess this will just have to be.

Also there are other questions to ask about what other processes or materials could come into play. Do I burn the wood or add copper? Or perhaps these are second and third piece and this one should just be. Plus I really son’t have long…

This piece is also leading to some other ideas about abstract/representational work, and a narrative about travellers and what they pack…

 

Dear /  by Justin Harrison

Following yesterdays post I looked up Game painting, specifically deer. The major players Jan Van Weenix and Frans Snyders. I guess it would come to this sooner or later…dead animals. So here is my confession.

Hi my name is Justin Harrison and I have a thing about dead animals. My friends if the see road kill - think of me or send pictures. This theme always seem too manifest sooner or later in my work.

I guess maybe the MA is the place to follow this moribund thread.

I’m thinking about a body of work and this actually plays very well into it, I’ll need to research some more, but revolves around ‘bag dumps’ that you see often on Instagram, Youtube - If you follow Bushcrafters or survivalists. I like the idea of making the contents of a bag dump but for a 17th Century Game Keeper of for an imagined traveller/ initiate.

Kit for the rite of passage///
Knife, Compass, cordage, bag, invented tools.

There is something I love about the game paintings, the colours and lighting, a strange tableaux. As I look through the galleries of images I could collect more…

I feel like there are some interesting and deeper connections, but having had very little sleep for the past few days I’m gonna trust that I’ll figure it out…

Image References:
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/a-huntsman-cutting-up-a-dead-deer-with-two-deerhounds-jan-weenix.html
A Huntsman cutting up a Dead Deer, with Two Deerhounds
Jan Van Weenix

https://www.passionforpaintings.com/en/art-gallery/sir-edwin-henry-landseer-painter/of-a-dead-stag-oil-painting-reproduction
Of A Dead Stag
Painted originally by: Landseer Sir Edwin Henry
Recommended: 25 x 18 "

http://community.artauthority.net/work.asp?wid=64064&pos=2
Title: Still Life with Dead Deer, Heron and Hunting Implements
Artist: Weenix, Jan
Year: c. 1690 Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 47 15/16 x 62 3/8 in. (121.8 x 158.4 cm)

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O131738/still-life-with-a-dead-oil-painting-snyders-frans/
Still Life with a Dead Stag
Snyders, Frans 
Oil Painting 1640s Antwerp

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/still-life-with-dead-game-138951
Still Life with Dead Game
Frans Snyders (1579–1657)
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-591
A Dog and a Cat near a partially disembowelled Deer, Jan Baptist Weenix, 1645 - 1660 oil on canvas, h 180cm × w 162cm × d 12cm × w 46kg