In conversation with a spewing parrot.

How does my work work? What am I trying to do? Am I saying anything?

That's a lot to answer. The whole thing is important, the paint, the way the paint is applied, the mistakes, the chance, the tradition, the anti tradition, the history, the lack. The conscious, the unconscious. What I’m trying to get at with this work is a sample from the great well of the unquantifiable.

Is it important, a big deal?

No it is just more stuff so it is a big deal.

Do people need special knowledge to enjoy it?

No people don’t need special knowledge to enjoy it.

Do I need special knowledge to understand it?

The answer to that could be and is both yes and no. it depends on whether someone thinks they need special knowledge personally to enjoy something. How wrapped up are they in the esoteric? I think it has more to do with personal separation or connection to some group which is considered favorable and I’m anti that if we like.

How is the work actually made?

The work is made by my egos attempts to avoid the contrived. I will always try to avoid direct conscious intervention or the injection of abstract gestalts.

So if I recognise abstract gestalts in my work are they a failure?

No they are merely the representation of the loss of the battle in that particular work.

Does this make my work conceptual with painting as the delivery system?

I’m not sure of this; what I think is that with this kind of work (abstract painting see explanation to follow) you can’t put the cart before the horse; what I mean by this is the project comes first, is bigger than the artists’ ego.

What do I mean by this?

I mean by this that you can’t ever say in this arena my work is about or this is a work about.

So I mean to say that painting is about painting?

Yes.

And anything else finds its way back to the painting via way of association, via current cultural whims?

Yes and these are mutable, constantly in flux and not really crucial to the construct.

They give people who don’t really understand the project a way to relate to the work?

No it gives them a way to feel warm and cosy in their misunderstanding.

What is it about then?

Everything and nothing.

Is it important?

No.

Why do it then?

That is and always was the point that there is no point.

Is it abstract? At least tell us that.

No it is not abstract because it is a direct representation of some things.

What things?

The things which are crucial to making a painting.

Does this throw up any problems?

Only if I allow myself to think that I got it right because I never did.

Why is there no steady progression in my work?

Because this would mean that I believed it was a question I could answer and that would lead to a dead end which is often called a career.

What am I doing again then?

I’m taking it as read that I can’t solve the problem/problems so I’m trying to solve the problem/problems as they arrive and history teaches us that the answers are multiple choice and all possibly right and wrong at the same time, or not, dependent on your current cultural frame of reference.

That is like scientific theory.

Yes it is but rather than smugly declaring the last theory wrong and the new theory right, as if it were a new fact, I recognise that the facts are only right until the new fact comes along. I accept and understand that fact is not a solid immovable object; that at some point in history he said this and she said that; that people have vested interests and choose sides.

Whose side am I on?

Currently Paintings

Is that because it’s the truth?

There is truth in it yes but that doesn’t mean it is the truth and there are several types of thing which masquerade as art.

Do I have a problem with those?

No I love them as long as the people who make it understand that it is not art.

What is it then and what about the audience?

It is opinion using a form which may resemble art or be called art for ease of classification. Whether the audience understand this or not will be ultimately irrelevant but immediately critical to whether this opinion and the visual vehicle of its delivery is art.

Does this mean that I don’t think art is visual communication?

Yes and no. I think art is something which eludes any straight narrative; is too slippery for language to grasp and resides just beyond the reach of the conscious; it completes itself unconsciously.

So everything else is just a visual metaphor?

I didn’t dismiss it as just did I?

So I’m making art is that it?

I’m not sure to be honest. Actually yes and no. I’m using painting as a vehicle to deliver my ideas on what painting is for, is about, but what painting is, is for and is about allude description to some extent and to some extent not.

So the formal and that which is beyond formal?

Yes. I think it is a physical and to some extent quantifiable representation of something un-represent-able and unquantifiable.

The Universal mind?

Yes. Collective memory, time, the meaning of life, the universe, every thing. And some physical stuff that links right back to the beginning of thought which I presume we would, with our current scientific and limited we are clever aren’t we vocabulary, call abstract thought.

Which has more value?

They are both of equal value as anything which provides a jolt is a mighty tool.

To make people think?

Yes but not if that thinking remains within the strictures of the institution.

The gallery system?

Yes.

Education?

Yes but it thinks it is a help and it is necessary but not if you think you or the work is made more special just by entering the room.

But why then do we persist in adding back stories to certain types of work?

It makes people believe they understand what they are looking at and it sounds nice in a catalogue it’s another selling angle.

I don’t think you can work like that with painting?

I didn’t say that I just feel that you’re either painting or your talking about something else which would be better served by some other means of delivery. Such as; I don’t want to get personal but say you need to hear my work is about the way that feedback loops work for example (I use this example because I can’t think of anyone trying to make a painting about feedback loops) in order to feel like you can understand what the work is about. Find a way to demonstrate what feedback loops do, are, with something that has at least something to do with feedback loops. Find a visual analogy and perhaps accept that it may not be art. You can still be an artist it’s just a title which has little bearing on what you do so why think it’s necessary to have added stuff it’s just a distraction.

So am I an artist a painter? Is what I do art or idea delivery?

Again I think this is mutable I’m not sitting on the fence but trying to find out what is important to me.

So…

So I’m interested in painting and I find that painting falls down when the painter tries to add extra meaning, extra flavour/s; it becomes like to much salt.

But we have the basics then and does that not get tired?

I don’t get tired and I think you have to please yourself or there is no point. I’m not looking for a pat on the back.

What about the other strand then?

Well I find this a great way to highlight things, connections I find interesting and by way of explanation but to myself. I find that working in that way for me the best way is analogy as I’ve detailed.

What about titles?

Some times I work with a title in mind or even an idea but what follows always feels vain and contrived until I leave it behind and make the work get on with the job.

You’re bringing something new?

Yes while commenting on something very old rather than just commenting on something which seems currently relevant.

Does that mean what I do is irrelevant?

It all is that is the point of it isn’t it.

So anyone can do it?

Yes but some do it better. These are often overlooked or not but misunderstood. The thing is that where we’re at makes it more accessible to those who where previously excluded.

So what about titles?

They attach themselves and it’s probably my conscious trying to make some sense of what I just did which is a vital part of the whole project.

They could be untitled?

Yes if I want but my conscious mind would still categorise it the wavy one, the green one, the one with the spewing parrot etcetera.  Maybe it’s my attempt to say how I see it or perhaps to confound the viewers’ expectations or as a reference to how I made it; how that experience felt to me. I think I’m trying to understand the mechanism of my own thoughts which may bear some similarity to those of others; universal constructs on multiple levels and these I see as important things I suppose.

 So If I want to have an explanation my work is about painting which I believe is a way to say I was here and this is how I thought. Expunging the verbal, and the external as it exists externally on as many levels as I could, at a number of different occasions, in a set of self contained works that represent the statement contained within this paragraph.

That is what my paintings are about

This work is about a piece of work.

This work is about what something can look like.

This work is about how you can make a piece of work.

This could be how my thoughts look

This is a painting about nothing specific and so is a work about something specific

Could all be possible titles and are topics I am working on in tandem but by highlighting these things as central to my practice I have already separated them out as something else. So they will become ideas or commentaries, opinions about art which aren’t necessarily art that I will try to explain using a vehicle which is currently acceptably classifiable as art.

Thanks

I’m welcome.