Hello Term 2
What a lovely feeling it is to know that we have lessons again every Thursday! These classes are genuinely a ray of sunshine in my week.
Term 2 Lessons 1 & 2 were the first in a series of “getting ready for the low residency” classes, which were very practical, and very welcome. We also went over key dates and everyone on the WhatsApp group started getting very involved with the subject of the Study Statement.
I had already started, and actually rewritten, my Study Statement quite a few times, due to the fact that I had spent so much time looking over previous Study Statements. Now I am looking forward to presenting a V1 to Jonathan and getting his feedback before submitting in February.
Looking over the upcoming planning like this - visually, linear, and clear - really helped to count backwards from the deadline, which is also what I do with my students, as well as with my own shows.
Every time I see “Seeker” I think of Harry Potter - this is just unavoidable. In addition, every time I see “learning outcomes” I panic a little, and hope that I have learnt something since September! Existentially speaking, I have necessarily, and unavoidably, learnt something. I have also definitely changed, evolved, and hopefully, improved. The facts are there, but now I need to make it clear to those observing.
We also went over the upcoming Low Residency, with visuals like this, which are great for imagining how we can take over the space.
Just like with the Milano Pride House stop-motion video, I would like to do something that takes me out of my comfort zone, while drawing roots from my comfort zone.
Perhaps a huge illustrated vertical canvas, in the style of an Asian calligraphic piece, but hanging floor to ceiling. Perhaps this should be double sided, with primer on both sides before painting, or perhaps it should even be two pieces of canvas together, in order to be as opaque as possible, when light shines through.
Perhaps I want there to be light shining through? How abstract can I get with my message of surrealism, feminism, and storytelling, before the figurative disappears into something very unlike my usual style?
Maybe I will make a sculpture, Greek/Roman-style, but ironic, or modernised, like Daniel Arsham’s futuristic quartz-antiquité remix statues, or Gaston Lisak’s metallic-antiquité remix pieces when I exhibited alongside him at Misonny Art Festival @ Le Consulat Voltaire?
So many ideas. More to come in upcoming blog posts to prepare the Low Residency!
The way that great artists steal has not eluded me.
It is as clear as day, and it used to deeply irritate me, especially if it was “gratuit” as we say in French - easy, thoughtless almost - but now I see the respect and the intelligence in that.
Just as the Chinese copy their Masters to learn and - one day - outdo their Masters, as they have done with the Luxury industry in the last few decades, I have been study the Masters again.
The piece I made in London during the Christmas holidays was inspired by my favourite Surrealist pieces discovered or re discovered in the Central Saint Martins library - L’Esprit Saint, The Wanderer in the Fog - and recreated from my point of view, to imitate, and improve. Definitely not to spoil.
The illustrations in the Milano Pride House stop-motion were also inspired by these pieces, and a few others - some illusions, some cultural references, some dreams I have had.
The subject of dreams is one I will dedicate an entire blog post to, as my Dream Diary needs to be integrated at some point, and I think that the idea of stealing, imitating, improving, and generally digesting daily life while creating and recreating some crazy new world - as we do in our dreams - is absolutely fascinating, and revealing, and this is one of the main reasons why the Surrealists looked so fervently to dreams as a way of life.
I have lucid dreams, this generally means that I realise quite quickly that I am dreaming, and I start to control or decide what I want, in the dream. This has quite a few positive points, such as avoiding nightmares (whenever something starts going south, I set it back on course, as shall be seen in the Dream Diary blog post). I also steer the dream pretty quickly towards the adventure I must absolutely go on, there is no avoiding adventure in my dreams, there is always some sort of underlying (or overlying?) objective, that I either accomplish in the millisecond before waking up, or I miss it and am mildly disgruntled for the rest of the day until I go back to sleep and give myself the impression of reworking the unfinished symphony.
So lucid dreams are definitely one of my ways of working through my experiences. I would say that my Dream Diary, coupled with the lucid dreams, and also love (obsession) with sci-fi, fantasy, and anything and everything in-between, leads me to have regular, even frequent, moments of travel, between portals. Let’s just say… I am very often disconnected from the reality of this world.
…Might lucid dreams not be a way into the afterlife… without dying?
It was quite amusing to see this slide, just after the conversation I had with Sofia Lambrou, who is considering joining the MA Fine Art: Digital class of 2026-2028!
What is art and what is theft? How inextricably linked are the two? Has art ever existed without some form of theft, of the art, of its meaning, of its value, of the artist, or of anything else?
Without theft - RE: Louvre Heist - would we have the insane value that certain objects and artworks have been picking up, these last few years?
Perhaps theft leads to art becoming that which transcends a beautiful object - it becomes desire itself, incarnated in an object, to be owned - illegally - and immediately.
I have a strange relationship with art. I also have a strange relationship with theft. Both have been interwoven parts of my inner and outer circles since childhood.
I mean this literally and metaphorically, of course. I have been stolen from - so many times, it hurts - and I have been the thief - so many times, sometimes unwillingly, sometimes unawares.
With purpose, I steal ideas to transform them into my own. With intention, I steal visual representations of these ideas and transform them into my images. Images of that new version of ideas.
There is a stillness that speaks, when you recognise something - obvious or not so obvious - in someone’s work. A silent “I’ve seen that before” or “That looks familiar”.
But when it is not as obvious, when the stolen reference is subtle - an IYKYK moment - then there is still magic in the counterfeit object.
Simulacra and Simulation.
