Titles \ There is no such thing as the ‘purely visual’. All art comes with a text and a context. The viewer is more often than not told what to think, in all those books, magazines, reviews, labels and titles. All art is transformed by text and a change of context. \ Most of this writing is by critics, journalists, reviewers, art historians, curators or gallery education departments and very little by the artists themselves. \ In all this noise, […]

Meaning The meaning of a painting is probably nothing to do with the artist; rather meaning is something that is not within the artist’s control. No matter what the artist’s intentions, no matter what the  artist planned or calculated, no matter what is proposed, meaning comes from the viewer. Looking finishes the work. Meaning is ascribed to the painting after it has left the studio, and this meaning can change. The meaning of works of art is fluid. If the […]

Subject, content and meaning z There is a difference between subject, content and meaning. z The painting might be a landscape but it could be about space; that is, the subject is a landscape whilst the content of the painting is pictorial depth. Or it might simply be that the painting depicts a landscape and its real subject is the illusion of space. Of course a landscape could be about many things: ownership and wealth or labour or majesty and […]

Optimistic or Pessimistic? z I used to ask students whether their painting was optimistic or pessimistic. They usually looked at me a bit bemused; nobody had ever asked them that question before and they had never considered that thought. z The best answer is both, that the work is both optimistic and pessimistic. The best paintings are ambivalent. z Art is ambivalent and can ‘hold’ contradictions; paradox is the dialectic of life. See Lesson 16. z This is a list of […]

Learn from your successes z Learn from your successes and not your mistakes. z I never understood what people mean when they say they learn by their mistakes. z What can you learn from a mistake? z Not to do it again? That seems to be a bit too easy. z However, what does not work in one situation might be the best strategy in another circumstance. So it would be a mistake never to repeat your ‘mistake’ again. z […]

Make a big mistake z Making a big mistake is much better than making little ones. A big mistake can more easily be recognised and is usually easier to fix. z If rectifying is necessary. z A really big mistake can be a shift of context and no longer a mistake. As Stuart Brisley has said “Just something else happening“. z Lesson 27: Make a horrendous mistake or botch something up you like and then look at it and consider […]

Cooking Lessons This chap went for a job as a chef. By way of an interview, the head chef told him to make an onion omelette. i So the guy throws two onions up in the air and chops them up mid air with the skins going into the bucket and the finely chopped onion into the hot pan on the hob. He then throws six eggs into the air, whisks them, again, in the air with the shells dropping into […]