Without Title

Once the paintings are completed and it is time to have them go out into the world, they must be given a name. Some artists keep it descriptive ("Man with Pipe"), others keep it clinical ("Untitled #33"). I have always loved finding the right title for my works. I think it is a great opportunity for me to sit with the work when it is finished and reflect on its character. Writers will tell you the power of naming. We name something to try to understand it, to be able to talk about the phenomena it represents, to declare its existence, or to transform or influence dated perceptions. Names are powerful. They mean something.

As a visual artist, I think the title of the work is one last chance to get it right. I guess it's also one last chance to get it wrong - to add something to the work that may detract or distract from the experience of the painting itself. But I love it when it works. Lots of artists have played with the role of the title: Kara Walker's extravagant, narrative titles, John Baldessari's photographed text, Cy Twombly's integration of poetry and haikus, Whistler's borrowing from the language of music. I love these approaches. It's like the artist has given you a key to unlock the secrets that lie before you. It's a little poetic tease, a clue, a declaration of intention.

Which leads me back to my current problem. It's a big responsibility to give paintings a name. And with my new work, I feel like there may be an approach to the titles that I haven't identified yet. So time to brainstorm. I have to hurry up though - the paintings are leaving the studio soon.

Stripped Down

I updated my website today. After much consideration, I decided to take down my old work from the site, and simplify my portfolio to include just my most recent works. I feel more focused than ever in my work, and my website was just not reflecting that. Presenting my new work has also made me reconsider whether the works I have been doing are diptychs, or whether the individual paintings are strong enough to stand on their own. I have decided that they should go it alone. As I've been composing new paintings these past couple weeks, I'm finding this approach makes much more sense. I could compose an entire exhibition's worth of paintings based on one image - it doesn't mean that they belong together, that the individual works are somehow incomplete or insufficient without the grouping. To the contrary, I think it's more interesting to try to be more economical. Sometimes more is just more, not better. In some cases, it may make sense to treat a pair or multiple as one painting, but I think the multiple fragments in my work sufficiently suggest the notion of multiplicity and metamorphosis that interests me.

So I feel cleansed. Leaner. And ready to rebuild.

Fromage

Sometimes I get a little over-zealous. I admit it. In my crazed efforts to create months-worth of new compositions to paint, this week I have overwhelmed myself with possibilities, printing more and more source materials and photographing more and more ink prints. I was just beginning to lose all perspective, drowning in liquid images, when this afternoon I decided to stop. I picked a few sets of ink prints and started composing. It made me feel like I was moving forward, although I can't say I was coming up with anything that was that earth-shattering. Until I started to work with one image that I have completely fallen in love with.

It is reminiscent of Fragonard's paintings (like the ones I've posted here from the Metropolitan Museum's collection in New York). I know, Fragonard is not exactly Velasquez, but personally I think Fragonard is highly underrated. In person, the paintings are lusciously painted, and while most people just see his images as over-romanticized cheese, they are so visually seductive, so totally over-the-top, they actually remind me of the visual excess in today's celebrity and fashion culture. To me, he seems more relevant today than ever. And now I'm dying to paint.

Living on the Edge

I don't consider myself a writer, but I find it hard to process any idea without putting words to paper. I keep a journal, I make lists, I prefer email to phone most of the time, and my sketchbook is more verbal ramblings than visual notes. I generally have a terrible memory. I can't recall very many childhood memories - not being very sentimental, I can't say it bothers me much. I like to think I have remembered the most important things in my life, although perhaps they are the things that have become important to me because I remember them. It's hard to say. And yet while I don't hold on to memories of the details, I have a strong and potent memory of sensation. I may not always remember names, faces, places or dates, but I always remember the emotional tenor of my experiences - whether I was afraid, thrilled, seduced or dismayed, whether I wanted the moment to last forever, or whether I was dying for it to end. My memory is visceral. In some ways, I guess it has made me a woman of extremes. I don't really feel things lightly. I either love it or hate it, trust it or fear it, crave it or dismiss it. And I'm fascinated by the emotional gray zones in between, when the decision is made to go one way or the other. I know a lot of people who prefer to stay in the gray zone, who curl up and wallow in it, who take comfort in its stability. But when I find myself stuck in a gray zone, I can't stay still. It's like giving up in the midst of a game of Hot and Cold. If someone says "Warm! You're getting warmer!", do you just stay there? How can Warm be good enough, when what they're really trying to tell you is that you're getting closer but you're not there yet? Maybe Warm feels Hot after a bout of being Cold, but once you've experienced Hot, there's no going back to being satisfied with just Warm. Trust me.

Alright, so the Hot and Cold thing may not be the most sophisticated of metaphors, but it's New Year's day, and I've been sitting here reflecting on the events of the past year and my hopes for the year that lies ahead. I like to think that so far I've lived my life with an intensity and passion that has served me pretty well. It has not been without trauma or heartache, lots of Hot and Cold, but I have few regrets. I have always said that I hope to have an interesting life. Pursuit of a happy life always seemed a little uninspiring to me, a little lacking in ambition. I certainly don't want to make art that people "like", that makes them "happy" - making art is too much of a struggle to be satisfied with such polite responses. I want my art to create visceral memories in others, to capture the prominence of sensation in the experience of life and memory, and to tempt others to live ever-increasingly outside of the gray zone.

So here's to a new year. A very interesting new year.

Speak for Yourself

I'm really proud of my new paintings. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. They're certainly not perfect, but for now they're the closest thing I've ever gotten to saying what I really want to say - or, should I say, seeing what I want to see.

But the closer my paintings get to expressing what I want, the more nervous I am of talking about them. It's just that I don't want them to be about me. But I also don't want to intellectualize them and drain them of their emotional content. Artists are always required to talk about their work, to explain their intentions - and I've certainly embraced those expectations so far, particularly in this blog. But over the last couple of months, my paintings have been making me grow more silent. They are more revealing than I expected them to be.

Back to the Blog

After weeks of marathon painting sessions, I am in the home stretch and should have my last painting of 2009 completed within the next couple of days. In a week, the masses (or hopefully at least a small mass) will descend upon my studio to check out my new work. It has taken all the willpower and patience I have to not post photos of the new work these past few weeks, but I am determined to have the first showing of these new works to be in the flesh. As always, I'm anxious about the response, but I'm hoping for some encouragement - some confirmation that I'm on the right track. It's been quite an experience to work for so many months without any feedback. It has forced me to focus more than ever on what I want my work to be, without fear of poor grades or poor reviews. But once the work is done, there is no question that I want people (not all people of course, but at least a passionate few) to respond to my work, to feel something, to reassure me that it speaks to more than just my own cravings.

Reflecting on the Image

In the last week, I've been to a couple of shows/events that have dealt with the relationship of painting to digital technologies (including photography): the show and panel discussion "Facing the Screen" at the University of Toronto, and the exhibition "Beautiful Fictions" at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

I should have blogged sooner about my response to these exhibitions, but painting has been (and is) consuming me these days. But I don't want to forget some of the key ideas that sparked my interest. So for today, I'll begin with a brief mish mash of some of the ideas from the "Facing the Screen" exhibition.

At the show's panel discussion, artist Michel Daigneault spoke of the screen as a "double skin" which can be penetrated through details of the image to expose the first skin, ie. the paint. My work has always emphasized the details of an image pictorially, and in my most recent work, the painterly details in the surface are taking on a new prominence. I like the metaphor of a "double skin" since in my work now, I am questioning the screen not only as a technological skin but also as a type of mask that conceals certain desires and vulnerabilities.

Metaphors of the screen often reference a type of reflection, as mentioned by Daigneault with respect to the work of Peter Doig (see photo posted above). I admit I have not looked at Doig's work in this light, but now it seems obvious. Certainly the association of the screen and reflections is a natural one, since the reflective surface multiplies the real by way of an image. Repetition of an image is commonly used to reference technological reproduction, and has always payed a critical role in my work. But now that the images I am working with focus on images of the body, the notion of reflection and references to the mirror is an important conceptual step backward for me (backward in the sense of moving from an emphasis on the digital reproduction to the mirror's crude reflection). An exploration of the digital screen's relationship to painting undoubtedly remains in my work, but the rich associations of the mirror (with vanity, beauty, solitude, confrontation, etc) are giving my work a more sensual, emotional resonance.

Conquering Ugly

Ugly is so much more difficult than beautiful. Or perhaps rather, likeness is easier than distortion. I am currently working on the more distorted half of a diptych, and the image is so much more challenging than the other half that I've completed. The "beautiful" side is staring at me while I work, intimidating me and her "ugly" twin. But as I've struggled over the last few days, my eyes are beginning to adjust. It takes time to see an ugly that works. Embracing the abstract nature of the fragments is a start, but it's not enough. Visual expectations need to relax and shift. The challenge is now to ensure that the two sides have equal strength, and maintain a relationship that is confrontational yet inseparable.

The Work of Art

So after all that talk about pleasure, today was just a whole lot of work. I've been painting with the flu for the past week, and even that wasn't as tortuous as today's painting session. I started a new canvas, but began with the more abstract slivers - bad move. I wrestled all day with what should have taken me a few hours. I won't know if I pulled it off until I complete the alternating fragments. One would think that the smallest abstract fragments would be the easiest to paint, but they still need to provide enough visual information about the figure without causing grotesque distortions. It's an incredibly difficult line to walk. At least it was today. And the paint is drying so quickly, I probably won't be able to move too much around tomorrow - but I guess we'll see. I've been trying to keep my studio as cold as possible - cheaper heating bills, but I'm also hoping to slow down the drying time. It's probably not making a difference, but at this point I'll try anything.

Please

Today I have been thinking a lot about words, the pleasure of words, and the significance of pleasure. Forced to leave the confines of my studio to buy more Cobalt Blue today, I found myself wandering astray from my designated errand and into a dangerously glorious bookstore. Bookstores have become forbidden territory for me. You see, I have a weakness for books. I think I have mentioned this before. I don't think I have ever been able to leave a bookstore empty-handed, and trying to live on a less than adequate budget these days should preclude me from indulging in my compulsive addiction to the printed word. But once inside a bookstore, surrounded by the promise of a million ideas and insights, epic narratives and perfect poetic phrases, I have no choice but to succumb to temptation. And today was no exception.

To ease my guilt, I usually buy books related to art. These can easily be justified as a necessity for my studio practice and as an investment in my career - and they do feed my painting. But lately I have been craving inspiration and experiences that lie outside the world of art and images. Lately, I have been craving pleasure. Art and painting give me pleasure, of course, but I engage with art with an intensity and intentionality that, let's face it, is work (not that I'm complaining). But now putting the brushes and art theory books aside here and there, I have begun to play the piano again, pulling out the Beethoven Sonatas and Chopin Etudes that I once played effortlessly. And I have been searching for the next great novel to read, startled to discover that I have no unread books of fiction left on my shelves. I want my mind to wander, to feast on new flavors, to be prodded by new sensations.

Strolling through the aisles of the bookstore today, the word 'pleasure' kept coming to mind, along with its insistent cousin 'please' - not the ingratiating 'to please' or timorous 'pleasing', but the desirous command. I want to feel it. I want to see it. I want to understand it. Please. I am not referring to the easily understood experience of sexual pleasure, but to the more complex and mystifying forms of pleasure that are experienced in the mind. I'm convinced this experience of pleasure is still full of visceral need, not a form of indulgence or merely part of the pursuit of a simplistic and fluffy 'happiness'. It is the pleasure of great art and haunting beauty, big ideas and fresh perceptions. It is necessary. It is at the core of what makes us human, of what makes living interesting and wondrous. And I want more. I need more.

Please.