Title: Painting a visual language that interprets my personal world
Abstract: This research project is based on the pursuit of a new personal visual language that
interprets my immediate world. My paintings and drawings are grounded in my
immediate environment and evolve directly out of personal experience. Central to my
investigation is the development of a new set of symbols and an examination of how they
have evolved. Recording these experiences in an autobiographical and diaristic way is a
fundamental part of my process. Journal sketching and independent drawing is critical to
the evolution of the paintings, particularly their combination of pictograms and text.
The work charts my navigation through space and also describes the characters that I
come in contact with, communicate with or just bump up against. The characters I
describe fall into three categories; people I know well, people I hardly know and people I
imagine and would like to meet. I have an unusual neurological condition, which
involves problems with balance, weakness and tremor. These influence how I look and
behave in a way that makes me appear and makes my view of the world and
my place in it unique. This element of being different results in me being involved in
some situations which make me feel uncomfortable, uneasy, vulnerable, and at times
frustrated. My physical limitations also determine my painting style.
This project is positioned within the field of artists who came to prominence in the 1980s,
representing a move away from Modernism's international language and a return to the
developing of a personal language. Such artists include the Americans Jean-Michel
Basquiat and Philip Guston as well as Australian artists Gareth Sansom and Gordon
Bennett. These artists all sought and articulated a personal vocabulary of signs and
symbols relating to contemporary popular urban culture, and informed my own pursuit of
a visual language with particular iconographies and modes of expression.
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Language: en
Type: dissertation
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