Month: September 2009

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12. InPonorland

 

ponorhatter

Right, here we go with this thing :) – I’ve been a bit fuzzy about this project (Project 1) not because I’m uncertain, but because of the way I think about things – I tend to let things evolve. (More about that some other time.)

First, I made what I called a “backboard” to work from – a smaller version to use as a starting point for working up into a larger canvas. I stretched linen canvas to a board, ruled off eighty squares and painted some in some colours to start. Then I assembled some objects. It took a while to choose and collect interesting, suitably-sized and coloured objects.  At one point I had enough for three paintings and had to put things aside. Why all the small objects? The simple answer is I have a love/hate relationship with stuff! I am curious about what people collect and what they throw away one of the oldest forms of European painting styles is the Still Life . There’s also the practicality of making the visual image work in this instance.
 
If you make a painting you will usually find that there are areas of the canvas that are very much less “busy” than others. For this project to work, I needed to make every single square important and interesting as the whole composition has to work from a viewing distance of some metres as well as functioning in the tiny detail once the finished canvas is divided up into smaller areas. This isn’t something painters tend to have to think about, as a painting is usually made to be looked from a fairly fixed distance. So this means there’s going have to be a fair amount of painting going on and why it’s taking a while – I’m now about a third of the way through… fingers crossed!

The original idea was then to cut up the canvas and put the eighty pieces up for sale as separate artworks but also being a part of the whole work nevertheless. Why? One answer is that it’s very hard to sell original artwork online, not least of course because anything original and hand-crafted tends to end up being expensive. You’ve only got one item to sell after all the work you’ve done on it.  Ironically, this of course also increases its value, and is why people choose to invest in art.

Another answer, is that the concept of making a larger work and cutting it up appeals to me as it fits well with ideas/themes in some of my previous work. Also, I think it’s quite appropriate for the net. I really like the idea of people who consider buying one of the eighty pieces being interconnected.  I might make a website of all the finished paintings together before sale too, can imagine some nice moving links, but that’s a bit beyond me technically.  (Ideas on this appreciated just let me know .)working

When I first starting talking about making this I got some terrific and helpful feedback, (Thanks again!)  Also, I got some great suggestions. One was about framing, suggesting framing the whole thing before cutting so that the edge and corners pieces have the frame attached.  Also, lots of you thought of making a good quality print of the whole before cutting it up.

Work in Progress