The Art of Forgetting

I have undertaken to try and produce a range of artworks that are eminently forgettable. I want to see if I can erase my ego and produce works that are unnoticed or eclipsed by the setting or the everyday around them. I want to do this for several reasons, firstly to push my thoughts on memory and art and secondly, to understand why some artworks are forgotten, and what is happening in the process of forgetting. I hope that this exercise will shed some light on how the memory works and whether it is possible to consciously produce forgettable art or whether art becomes forgettable because its bad, indistinguishable from works around it, falls outside the artistic canon or for some other reason.

So sitting down with materials and ideas, I begin making work. But none of it so far appears to be forgettable. Am I doomed to failure before I start or is there something else going on in the way I make art.

With colleagues this week I showed them the work I’ve been making and solicited their feedback. But I could have answered the question myself. The work I made was memorable, particularly the film (working title armless which will become The Jealous Memory).

I think this is happening because before I can make new work I often have to purge myself of all the remaining ideas for work that have been swilling around my head for weeks, months or sometimes years. These ideas have a habit of popping up after a gestation and I cant do anything until I have attended to them.

Gregory Hayman, The Jealous Memory, film 2014

It is curious. As an undergraduate, I found that I sometimes was at my most creative after a unit hand-in. It was as if I had been incubating a body of work during the preceding period and adrenalin or the relief of completing and handing in work unleashed an excess of creative energy that I could not ignore. Sometimes in these post-hand in periods I often produced some of my best works – like the piece which was short-listed for the Jerwood Drawing Prize – this and the other pieces linked to it emerged in one of these creative orgies.

So in the past few weeks I have made 7 artworks worthy of documenting and sharing, and another 3 are in production. What then of the project to realise the forgettable? Clearly, I have failed thus far and with several other works doomed to fail I am seriously running out of time or energy to attempt my quest. It may be that after this period of artistic fecundity, I will have provided myself with the space to attempt the works I plan, although, I know not what form they will take. I am thinking about the pared down or stripped back aesthetic of artists like Gedi Sibony or Carla Black but I wonder whether that is too easy an ambition to seek to develop or whether it is too darn difficult and that to make things which seem simple is in fact the most challenging artwork to make.

Talking about Drawing

I gave a talk at the Jerwood Drawing Prize exhibition in London. I was asked as one of the shortlisted artists to talk for 15 min about my work along with 3 other shortlisted artists. After speaking, the audience asked us questions.

I wanted to explain my drawing which physically was a screen print, within the context of it being a drawing.  For me any activity, whether its human or mechanical which produces mark-making, is a drawing.  so I planned to expand on this idea.  Thus, for me, printing, takes the process of drawing and mark-making out of my hands. I take an image, manipulate it, transferring it to acetate, then to screen, and finally printing it. Negative Perception considers the phenomenon of Proprioperception – the body’s unconscious awareness of movement – echoed in the pose of the figures. That perception has been turned into its negative by capturing stillness on-the-one-hand, and making the marks in white on black, producing the effect of a reverse image or photo negative. It raises questions about what is real, what is authentic, what is generated and what is sensed.   

The Jerwood people had told me that only about 15 people would attend the public event. As it turned out, there were over 60 people. I thought it easier to stand up and talk about my artwork in that way I could see the people at the back of the audience as well as those at the front. That way, I could gauge the feedback as I went along. The other artists were all teachers and used to talking about the art and art in general. Afterwards, some of the audience came and chatted to me about my work and the comments I made regarding drawing being the evidence of all the activity of any kind of mark making. Some clearly found that idea hard to understand and cleaved to the more traditional skill-based notion of drawing. But some others found my ideas interesting.

There was a lively discussion, particularly around my belief that anything could be construed as drawing.  I’m afraid that some of the more traditionalists in the room found that idea hard to digest. 

 

I just want to add that whilst my approach to drawing may appear unorthodox, drawing is now a site for lively discussion and new thinking.  It has been slightly neglected as a discursive topic hidden by activity and debate around painting and sculpture.  I feel its now coming into its own, which is great as far as I am concerned as I have always preferred drawn – loving the armature that drawings represent and often disappointed by the finished artwork.

The man who organized the Jerwood prize also came up to me and congratulated me on my talk. He said I was a real credit to NUA and that I should go back and tell them that and that I given really good talk and account of myself.

Whilst I have prepared something that I was going to read, I found it easier to just talk and also to reference things that other artists and said. I think this was really useful. It was certainly a great opportunity and a great learning experience for me. The really exciting thing for me was that the following day my picture also sold! So I don’t have to worry about what to do with an enormous picture.

 

Negative Perception – an explanation

 

I have been encouraged to explore the possibilities of drawing as mark making, by devising tools to draw with and ones which draw automatically.  I have become fascinated by the pixilation of images and the processes of pixilation or mark making which go to make up a composite or drawing.  For me, the process of printing, takes the process of drawing and mark making to a level where the mark-making is taken out of my hands.  In this case, I have taken a found image, which is manipulated and transferred to acetate, then to a screen and eventually printed onto paper.  Each stage involved yet another process or layering of pixilation.

Negative Perception is the outcome of this process of mark-making and also deals with the curious phenomenon of Proprioperception  – the body’s unconscious awareness of movement, or things being part of the body – here echoed in the pose of the figures.  That perception has been turned into its negative by making the marks in white ink on black paper, producing an effect of a reverse image or photo negative, and capturing stillness – the negative of movement.  It raises questions about what is real and what is automatic, what is generated and what is felt or sensed.