I have been rather elusive thus far. What I mean is I haven't really talked about what my work is.
That is the point though, if I've been paying attention, to avoid those statements 'this work is about'.
But I'd like to try and give some more concrete description, If I'm forced then what is my work about?
Okay If I'm going to be pressed, to press myself for an answer then...... it's difficult.
Perhaps an explanation in comparison to something we can quantify, we do have enough of a generally agreed understanding of.
If you like, what I paint are dreaming pictures.
Visionary then?
No; I'm not Forrest Bess.
Symbolist?
Or Odilon Redon.
But my work doesn't seam to adhere to a specific format; there is no consistency in design, no real preference for any specific pictorial or painterly device. Surely dreaming pictures hold with some kind of cultural right, some ritually significant lineage.
Yes and yes but these rights I believe I just referred to were developed in cultural isolation and crystallized by the late arrival of some culture other than that which is its own. My visual cultural history and even my spiritual cultural history are awash with outside interference.
The threat of an alien influence does several things?
Yes exactly. It strengthens resolve to preserve and is an invitation to mix things up at the same time. But this is already irrelevant to someone in my position; I am defined by my relationship to alien culture and yet my own culture is alien to me. It's a blessing and a curse to some extent.
So I can paint what I like and how I like is that what I'm saying?
Not at all, in fact the exact opposite I think. I don't think I do have a choice and that is why I'm free to act. That is why they look the way they do.
Am I avoiding the question again?
Not at all.
If I think about it; pre-colonial artists were not free to create artworks not relevant to their own cultural heritage were they? I mean they were free but the thought that they were free, or not, never crossed their minds. There was no point because what they did served or came to serve a specific purpose.
Came to serve?
Well I think the will to create, to do, to express is intrinsic to the human condition.
And that's what I'm saying?
Perhaps look at a survey book of say contemporary Australian aboriginal art (though someone as old school as Emily Kame Kngwarreye was breaking new ground culturally quite early in the period of assimilation of this kind of work by western gallery systems) and compare this to that which is considered traditional. But if we come bang up to date and see what is going on then we begin to see radical points of departure, the acceptance and assimilation of foreign visual and spiritual culture, of reflection on these new pathways into making a work, not just in painting but the use of non traditional media or traditional media in novel ways. The act takes on new significance, the why has changed. The difference in the resultant work and its lineage are clear to see but the why has changed.
How?
Not how but why and the why is cultural assimilation I think.
I think I'm moving away from the question again.
I said you have to begin from the point of 'I can't answer the question' then you're free to answer it any way you wish. I'm trying to hook into something buried deep and I negotiate my way towards that through painting. By deep I don't necessarily mean deep in a spiritual way and by spiritual I don't necessarily mean relating to religion.
How does this relate to dreaming pictures though?
Well a dreaming picture is a map of something external, a diagram even, or a story of something which to all intents and purposes is real to the people who interact with it, who operate within its culture, as it exists internally.
But a painting is external.
Yes but certain types of painting are expressions of the internal, the unconscious mind.
So like Thomas Nozkowski paints things which he has experienced and tries to find a way to express these experiences?
Yes using the language of paint. But, and I'm only guessing here, the kind of art and artists I'm referring to didn't traditionally make a distinction between conscious and unconscious. Not in terms of value at any rate.
And that is what I'm doing?
Not exactly, no.
Avoidance?
No; direct confrontation. There are those who relate stories and these are direct. Then there are those who relate…… no that's not quite right. Hang on let me get this right.
Okay, take your time.
These are my dreaming pictures but I have no story, I'm not certain of the facts, I'm not even sure there are facts as such as I've said. My culture developed not in isolation, and so the means by which I purvey this lack of a story is not fixed. Each time I attempt a painting I have so much to go on that in effect I have nothing to go on and so what results is a struggling search for a dream, a story. I see value in questioning the facts and progress is a matter of opinion.
That is the difference then? Is that what Nozkowski does?
Not really because he paints something specific; he claims to at least.
You don't believe he does?
I don't believe it matters anymore, the story of his work comes before the work and the work carries the story before it, people are looking for the specifics within the paintings and I believe that will get in the way. I believe he does however constantly question his own vision and his own practice. He measures what he produces against how he remember what he has seen and his yard stick is towards the end of modernism and into the post modern.
So I make paintings about nothing?
Don't be so awkward that is highly improbable; think rather I make paintings about as little as possible.I'm outside the tradition where internal and external are undifferentiated. Maybe I'm trying to find a way back into that in a way acceptable to my cultural position.
And by association?
Yes, by association.... the story isn't mine to tell.
It's the viewers to read?
Yes I think so.
So I have nothing to say?
I didn't say I had nothing to say I said I had something to say but I don't know what that something is specifically.
So we are talking work which has no distinct cultural heritage?
No, not at all, it has a distinct culture of being from a culture which has become indistinct and that culture is becoming even less distinct and this is a threat perhaps to some quarters. But I must emphasize not a threat to me. It allows me freedom.
Isn't that post modern?
No beyond that.
How?
Post Modernism was far to sure of itself, actually far to sure of its own unsurety if that can be so. The only thing it could be sure of was that it didn't want to be modern. The point is I no longer have the luxury of choice.
But surely Post Moderns didn't have a choice? Aping and parodying what went before and what we became. What does that have to do with it?
Everything, with regard to what we said earlier; I'm so far removed I can't find my way back to the departure lounge. Plus It operates on the premise that we can't become anything else and the problem with that is it doesn't factor in the type of digital openness we are currently seeing. It's a throw back; a techno hippy dream come true.
Am I Tom Hanks or Timothy Leary?
Not quite, I'm not trapped in the airport but I have less and less of an idea which flight I came in on. And I'm not about the loss of ego. I think ego has a role to play just not a dominant one. Also you have to avoid the position of nutcase to some extent whether you agree with that or not!
So.....
So if you know where you came from it is more apparent.
You decide what to keep? What new parts to add?
Yes but if you head west then it is to the land of assimilation.
And as a mirror the aping of or mixing of a 'western' style by traditionally non western styles of art highlight their difference, their separateness. I can only ever use a cultural style as commentary?
Yes.
And I don't want to comment is that it?
Not directly no. I don't see it as my place.
Wait though. Isn't someone like Nozkowski Post Modern? Isn't he referencing Modernism?
I don't see that. What I see is a stream of modernism which runs parallel to Post Modernism. Actually make that a language that Modernism helped to re-establish. He is using a specific language which formally hasn't changed but our reflection upon this kind of work is altered by our current perspective. The kind of language he uses has always been around I believe It is just that at times this language has been obscured or distorted or rarely seen for what it is. It's an ancient conversation; pre anything spoken and certainly prehistoric.
It's a none specific prehistoric dream?
Actually it is specifically a dream about nothing specific, protracted, drawn out and thought through in the only way left to a painter in this position.
I can't say this is what it is?
Because you can't say what it is. I think this is in part because this type of language is endlessly adaptable, able to absorb new ways of seeing because it is an expression of a multitude of things all at once.
I'm off track. Let's recap.
I think what I do highlights a lineage to something very old which has been acadamised out of history. Intellectualized out. Certain things had been relegated to craft and the position of craft. What constitutes craft and what raises certain types of things denoted as craft up has only just been re-established (relatively speaking). Figuration and more the exact likeness are still seen as a pinnacle. I think the hardest thing left to us is to negate this historical aberration. That is how I think I see it. It is a question of skill being the prize. What is the usefulness of skill? What constitutes skill? For painting this is still a huge problem I think. This also relates to craft and the relegation of the term craft to a secondary position. One above kitsch. This I think Post Modernism did us a favor but in the backlash we may be going to far back in the wrong direction. It's a question of value. The placement of value is controlled by the markets and in this respect our current position sees the market in a period of difficulty and this I think is a blessing and a curse. As artists we could be in a similar position to musicians. Similar but not the same and yes I have gone off track. Can I pick this up another time?
Yes. This is beginning to feel like a completely different can of worms.
The worms in the can are all related perhaps. I'm very unsure.
I thought that was a good productive position to be in?
It is.
