Project#18: 2014

Saturday 13 December 2014

Recentacquisitioninthelendingroom

Rowan Belcher #17(detail) Project#12 2011 Oil on Board. private collection of the artist.

Excerpt from MFA dissertation Painting Exile and Return (The New Frontiers of Modernity) 2009:

The painter Bernard Frize has contributed to the pre and post millenarian period. He uses paint with purpose but at times its application and the procedures he uses are very simplistic and he produces a style that has reduced painting to its most pure form, the application of colour and paint on its support...
Bernard Frize has consistently used colour and its application to the surface as the core activity of his process. His surfaces are usually coated in white resin which he uses as a ground on which he applies paint with wide brushes. These glide across the surface depositing fine traces of colour that weave and overlap as they pass across it. The viewer is constantly engaged in the process of discovering how and where overlaps occur. Thus they are drawn into the process which is far from simple and the more you observe the more you are drawn into the work’s complexities. When looking at his work it is impossible not to attempt to mentally reconstruct his process. Trying to determine such things as surface and ground I am drawn into trying to decipher the before and after of his layers. The process becomes paramount to the viewing of the work. The question that constantly arises is how the artist achieved this effect?..

Belcher, R. (2009). Painting, Exile and Return (The New Frontiers of Modernity) Unpublished MFA dissertation. Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, Auckland, New Zealand.

This work #17 was produced in 2011 post MFA and was part of the exhibition at Tairawhiti Museum, Project#12. Embedded in my process, the techniques of great French painter Bernard Frize.
http://project12-rowan.blogspot.co.nz/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=9

Saturday 27 September 2014

HOUSEWORK

The work I'm doing now is about home: about moving house or not - will we stay here or go? The type of house, New Zealand architecture, Modernist post state housing house, and about the belongings in the house and the ever changing process of living in the house. Its about the rough edges, the art works the influences and inspirations of the artand music in the house. Art has become life and the house is the vessel, everything that is required to make the work is in the house, or in it's surroundings.

A series of works will be made concentrating on still life, and landscape painting. Some works will be paintings/photographs/watercolours. Some film and soundtrack is in production as a small instalation work and thus projectseventeen (research blog) and Project#18 have come together. Some more tactile and less representative objects which reflect surface - wall papers and silver leaf have been made and an ongoing series of such works is in production, somewhat interrupted by the move in May. As a whole the projects will reflect life story, process, feelings about life and death and the journey inbetween.

Monday 14 July 2014

Conflation

Listening to music from the film we watched last night (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycOKvWrwYFo) - finding the album on Spotify: creating a play-list - listening to and adding to the playlist - sharing the playlist on Facebook. Making a blog, finding images to place on the blog, listening to the play-list on Spotify through good speakers - adding new tracks to the playlist. Loving the old songs, liking the feeling the record deck and amp and good speakers had. Adding links to other blogs and website - saving to the cloud - communicating on WhatsApp and Viber - checking Facebook again - messaging on facebook- whats on Twitter? - making a film and uploading it to Youtube ...

Projectprogressandongoingdevelopment

Projectseventeen was all about responding visually to film clips and music: particularly 70's of origin such as Ken Russel's "The Boyfriend", music clips from Meltdown in London last year and classic Bowie clips from years ago - photo images from Tom Ford's "A Single Man". Improvised film and sound clips from "John Butcher (saxophones), Okkyung Lee (cello) and - in the dark - Christian Marclay (turnatables) and Steve Beresford (electronics). Filmed by Helen Petts in a very underlit Cafe Oto, London. 7th May 2010." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swnYWNGznaU#t=84 2014. Cool Daft Punk dancing clips.
Painting using the wheel and the disk with some new developments of silver leaf and photo release appearing: filming the silver disk on the wheel a direct link to the silver suit worn by Christopher Gable who dances with Twiggy on the giant surface of a turntable/record a throwback to the Busby Berkley movies from the twenties https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb0YrJ5U2tg. Packing and posting works to other parts of the country. Writing a workbook of studio process.

I have so much needed to bring this most difficult artistic time in my life to some sort of formality. Creating blogs is a relatively new found way for me to bring ideas and experiences together with the hope that a resulting 'whole' may one day become evident. Realising the potential for the art to be recorded as part of life, reviewing MFA projects/concepts of blogs and daily life becoming the work.

Project#18 is about the life changing or changing life processes we have undertaken, with the goal of liberating some of the extant dreams and desires of ours, with the aim of freeing up time to become further immersed in the most enjoyable and rewarding experience of producing Art. Whether it be in the form of a digital recording, ie. this blog, a film, a play-list, the collecting of inspirational films clips, painting, or producing work for sale. Manipulating the living experience where art lies at the core of everything we do. Inherent in us all and often denied is the instinct to create.

Bloginthedevelopingstage

Hence the website Project#18 - The State House - this is a turning point, moving into a house to attempt to adjust our lifestyles according to what we need. Garden, light, warmth, less financial burden?
State House Project 2014. http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php

Blogs and links to other projects 2009-2014