A series of ink drawings from Matthew Barnwey’s ‘River of Fundament’. I’m using the drawings to think about Matthew Barney’s work and my own. I like the deeper inspection that comes with drawing, not just visually but also cerebrally. There’s a freedom of thought that seems unique for me when I draw. A deep pleasure in finding marks that describe, especially when they look nothing like the article yet still evoke it
{{{Currently I’m reading ‘Consciousness Explained’ Looking the the nature of our consciousness how we think and perceive. It’s interesting as it explores the visual nature of our thinking which is a contradiction as our brain does not hold physical pictures but converts these things to electrical impulses - well that’s a crude reductionist version. So how is it that we can make images and drawings and they hold not just symbolic presence but deeper emotive and intuitive values too?}}}
I want to make more drawings - go larger and deeper add a little colour too. I always return to drawing in my practice >>> I’m happiest when it hovers somewhere between Abstract and gestural evocative of something familiar yet slightly beyond our recognition.///
I find him Matthew Barney hard one to decide upon. DO I like his work or not? Do I think it succeeds?Or is it all just sensuality opulence?The truth is I am seduced by the materiality of his work. As a sculpture he engages with the visceral physicality of metal, wood, vaseline >>> all kinds of materials. And he does work very closely with his conceptual enquiries taking a the threads of a principal or narrative and weaving his own. However I do have to ask the same question I ask of my own work - how is his audience and what can they take form his work.
Self indulgence is unavoidable in our work, we have to work with what moves us - yet I feel it should be with one eye on our audience, for what is there with out a viewer?
But still I can’t get enough of huge cast metal objects - demi gods of the space they occupy. The presence beyond the work an aura. Then there are the sets he makes sunken corridors of ruin, or vaults of human senses. People and objects set in a charged miasma///similar to Gregory Crudeson, Barney’s work is flooded with symbols, materials, ideas, questions and possibilities.
Hmmm I guess I do like his work then.
Currently Reading///
Consciousness Explained - Daniel C Dennett, Penguin
Why We Believe What We Believe- Andrew Newberg, Free Press
Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Madella,Little Brown and Company