So with the latest painting failure, I've been busy reassessing. In my thesis painting, finished in March, my thesis advisor Anda remarked that it reminded her of a hall of mirrors.
The idea has stuck with me, and yet in many of my works since, I have taken a more cinematic approach to the composition, building long horizontal structures that force a more linear, narrative reading of the relationship between the fragments. I've been disappointed in this approach. Having already decided to return to the type of fragmentation evident in my thesis painting, I realized today that I should try to make the compositional structure and size of my works mimic the relationship of a viewer to a mirror. The emphasis of the images would then become more about the "slow gaze" at a reflection, rather than a reference to the passive gaze at a moving image.
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| "Communing with Las Meninas", oil on canvas, 96" x 144", Amanda Clyne |
The idea has stuck with me, and yet in many of my works since, I have taken a more cinematic approach to the composition, building long horizontal structures that force a more linear, narrative reading of the relationship between the fragments. I've been disappointed in this approach. Having already decided to return to the type of fragmentation evident in my thesis painting, I realized today that I should try to make the compositional structure and size of my works mimic the relationship of a viewer to a mirror. The emphasis of the images would then become more about the "slow gaze" at a reflection, rather than a reference to the passive gaze at a moving image.