It Never Entered My Mind [Miles]

So this week I’ve been experimenting, because I know at some point there’s an ‘Intensive’ assessment coming up but my memory’s so terrible I can never remember how much time I have. Aiming to have something adequate to show for a semester’s work, and ideally some kind of explanation of what I’m doing. What am I doing? Not a clue.

Acrylic and wax on paper, with white ink, acrylic resin and soft gel mediums

There are a few things floating around in my head… Firstly, I want to start a series of paintings that look at… a correlation between the physical nature of paint and emotions or mind states. I don’t know how to explain in words what I’m looking for by experimenting with wax and gel layers, but I guess it would be like looking through an opaque layer that separates you from what you’re seeing. And paint does stick to wax, if you’re persistent. The other idea I’ve been thinking of, and just discovered a word for, is [the?] palimpsest. This term originally came from the act of erasing writing to reuse a piece of paper. There’s still a trace of what came before, the palimpsest gives objects history, which could be argued as giving them a life (Boris Groys: “Art in the Age of Biopolitics” in Artwork to Art Documentation: Art Power). If painting is a reflection of the creator, maybe it should have a life of its own. Maybe the traces of where the painting began and how it evolved reflexively with the artist is what gives it character, in this instance at least.

Pencil on paper

Acrylic on paper

My living room around 7am