I am revisiting a body of work I completed in 2014 I think (really… was it that long ago!?!) in which I used the coast line of the Lake of Galilee to form the compositions of a series of pieces. I was speaking to a Mr. Jeremy Bournon, an artist I hold in high esteem, and we were talking about potentially having a joint exhibition come January 2018. He’d looked through my past work and liked the idea of approaching a coast from above rather than from the traditional viewpoint, so here I am thinking again.
This work for me held a conceptual meaning as well. I was considering how we often pick at ourselves in an “I’m not good enough” way, focusing on our faults and failings rather than seeing ourselves as a whole. We pick and pick at ourselves until we can become undone. And yet it is often these things, once overcome, that shape us into the people we are. They can define us in a different way. The coastline is textured through using stitching and yet the perspective is from above, removing the focus from the small stitches to the bigger picture.
This summer we went to Malaysia and there I seemed to find myself. For me it was such a real and raw place, everything uncovered and lain bare. You wanted a fish, it was gutted in front of you. You want something mending and the equipment used was there for all to see rather than hidden in some back room. And in contrast I felt I was all hidden away, false almost. During the holiday I felt these pretences falling away and in some respects I discovered my value again. This is something I want to express through the artwork to come.
The coastline of Penang and Malaysia will be my composition but now I’m trying to work out how to create the texture so it is both aesthetically pleasing and significant to me in a symbolic way.
One thing that really appealed to me was the walls. They are broken and yet beautiful. They are the background to some of the most stunning street art on the island, artist Ernest Zacharevic transforming these walls through hand painted murals. I like the idea that part of my work could be broken and yet held together and still beautiful. Time to experiment in the shed.
artannacrook 