Self Portrait Part 5

Angel for Life

The Wedding Song

These are silver wings
These are golden eyes
These are floating clouds
Angel for life

Dreaming alone and I feel that someone
Listens to me
Angel for life

These are silver wings
These are golden eyes
These are floating clouds
Angel for life

Heaven is smiling down, heaven's girl in a wedding gown
I'm gonna be so good, just like a good boy should
I'm gonna change my ways
Angel for life

Of all the saints alive
Don't I feel like a saint alive
She's not mine for eternity
Though I'll never fly so high
I'm smiling

I believe in magic
Angel for life

Lyrics from The Wedding Song by David Bowie: Black Tie, White Noise

Images of Disquiet

So I've just started reading "The Book of Disquiet" by Fernando Pessoa, something I've been meaning to do ever since I saw the Serra piece "Pessoa" in a recent show at the Gagosian. Billed assertively on the front cover as "One of the 100 Greatest Books of All Time", now halfway through I can find nothing about such an extravagant description to argue with. Except that I can't think of another 99 books that are its equal.

Now, that Pessoa was a great poet is a sort of given and that the prose piece here in question is touched by more than a little of Pessoa's magical poetry in the style in which it is written is undoubted; but reading a book that is essentially about the daytime reveries and inner life of its putative hero, Bernard Soares (here it is tempting to substitute Pessoa himself), naturally provokes reveries of one's own. Namely the connection between image making, words and the images one creates in one's own mind provoked by the lyrical and descriptive text on the page. Images created in one's mind can take on any appearance one desires, externally created imagery, and here I'm specifically talking about photographically created imagery, if not necessarily firmly rooted in reality, needs must at least have some connection to it.

Apropos of my musings I here select, pretty much at random, a paragraph from Pessoa's text:

Outside, slowly in the moonlight of the slow night, the wind is shaking things that make shadows as they move. It may be nothing but the clothes hung out to dry on the floor above, but the shadow itself knows nothing of shirts and floats, impalpably, in mute accord with everything around it.

Picture it... I guess we can all create the appropriate imagery in our minds.

Photograph it? Now that's a proposition of a totally different order.

Impossible? Maybe so, and yet I am compelled to make the attempt...

And here it is:

This may, or may not, be a joke...

The Secret Meaning Of Clothes

Image is everything...


Armani Jacket, Nicole Farhi Shirt, Dolce & Gabbana Cravatte and Grey Armani Jeans


Alfred Sung Jacket, Gucci Shirt and Valentino Jeans


"Dress is a very foolish thing; and yet it is a very foolish thing for a man not to be well dressed." Lord Chesterfield, 1745

"As Architecture is the art and science of building, so Dress is the art and science of clothing." E. W. Godwin, 1884

"No one finds difficulty assenting to the commonplace that the greater part of the expenditure incurred by all classes for apparel is incurred for the sake of respectable appearance rather than for the protection of the person." Thorstein Veblen: The Theory of the Leisure Class, 1904

"How should one dress? Fashionably. When is one fashionably dressed? When you draw least attention to yourself." Adolf Loos

"The difference between style and fashion is quality." Giorgio Armani

"Clothing sets your taste; it's your outward expression, it's the first shot, it's what you say about yourself to the world." Ralph Lauren

"... polo was not a well known sport in the Bronx of Lauren's youth." Forbes Magazine, 1986, on Ralph Lauren's Polo trademark.

A Self Portrait Part 4

"Self-portraiture is a singular in-turned art. Something eerie lurks in its fingering of the edge between seer and seen." Julian Bell

"Self-portraiture is something one should never get involved in, since it is wrong to lie even though one endeavours to tell the truth." Ingmar Bergman

"I loathe my own face, and I've done self-portraits because I've had nobody else to do." Francis Bacon

"An act of naming should quite rightly enable me to call anything a self-portrait, not only any drawing, 'portrait' or not, but everything that happens to me, that I can affect, or that affects me." Jacques Derrida

"The self-portrait is an act of objectifying the self and in that regard is a unique form of portraiture." Burton Silverman

"...between what's flesh and what's fantasy" Jungleland: Bruce Springsteen

"Public image
You got what you wanted
The public image belongs to me
It's my entrance
My own creation
My grand finale
My goodbye" Public Image: John Lydon

"I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made." W.B. Yeats


My self portrait... Who is the 'I' that I wish to reveal?

Oh God, anybody but my self.

Leaving Plato's Cave

Humankind lingers unregenerately in Plato's cave, still reveling, it's age old habit, in mere images of the truth.
Susan Sontag: On Photography

Plato's Cave: The Allegory of the Cave

Looking at photographs, is all we see mere shadows and echoes of reality?

A photograph of a thing is never the thing itself... there is not, can never be, the truth or essence of a thing in a photograph. That is something, a concept, we can only grasp with our minds. All we can ever see is the thing as it appears in a photograph. Mere shadows indeed.

A photograph is not worth a thousand words; and even if it were which thousand words? It may, conversely, need a thousand words to clarify what and how it means. In any case it is obvious that any photograph, or image for that matter, in and of itself needs to have some sort of clarification, corroborating evidence as it were, before it can even approach any truth or reality. We need to name what we see, to take possession of the concept of it, to truly understand it.

It's at that point that photography, on its own, must always struggle.









Time to leave Plato's Cave and seek the clear light of day...

For Linda...

In the section on her website devoted to her Hanger series of paintings and sculptures, painter and artist Linda Sgoluppi talks about how finding inspiration in a mundane object, such as a humble coat-hanger, became, for her, a method of warding off "Artist's Block":

Hanger Series (1993)

A literal image of a coat hanger was the motif for the Hanger paintings. At a time of personal transition the use of a coathanger was a way to avoid what could easily have been ‘Artist’s Block’. It was a good move because both mentally and visually I discovered new ways of working.

I really enjoyed painting The Hanger Series; for one thing I had avoided being blocked and also because the ideas that churned around in my head while I was working on the paintings kept my synapses firing for quite a long time.

It also amused me (yes, I am easily amused!) to play with the notion of hanging the inspiration for a painting on a ‘Hanger’.

Hanger #2: Oil On Canvas © Linda Sgoluppi

Just as Linda found inspiration in a coat-hanger so I find inspiration in the pieces she subsequently produced. The image shown below is entitled For Linda and was created as an homage to the work of an artist who continues to challenge and inspire me.


With this image I have come full circle...

Linda Sgoluppi

...Artist, Russian Doll, and Tweeter!

I am very excited and proud to announce that, on the occasion of the launch of a beautiful new website featuring an extensive overview of her stunning work, internationally renowned abstract painter, artist and much valued friend, Linda Sgoluppi, has graciously agreed to write a guest article for this blog outlining the work processes and thoughts that have led to the absolutely amazing body of work that she has produced in her career so far. She also has some interesting things to say about social networking in general and Twitter in particular, with which I totally concur!

Following the article, you can see four examples of Linda's wonderfully elegant and beautiful abstract pieces. Be sure to click on the images to see the larger versions!

Here is Linda's article:

There is no intention to portray, self-examine, conceal or reveal myself in my painting. However what drives the ‘subject’ in my paintings is the same thing that drives me and it may be that what is not intended, happens anyway.

I sometimes feel as if I’m a Russian Nesting Doll. Nesting dolls are the ones where you undo one doll and there is another inside and so on until finally, inside the inside of all those others is the tiny one at the core.

Few people can resist the compulsion to go find the last doll. Individually, apart from the last one, each doll is hollow inside. When we find another we take it out, open it to find the next and so on. We focus on getting to the core, finding the last tiny doll, but is that final core the essence of the Russian doll?

Each discrete doll differs from the others in the visible external property of size, and one differs from the others in the hidden internal property of hollowness. From the outside, they all seem to be the same doll except for size.

Suppose you put the dolls back together one at a time, hiding each within the next larger one. You could stop at any point, and you could present what you have assembled as a complete set. Without knowing that larger ones were missing, any one of the dolls could be the exterior doll, the ultimate hiding place. So what really is the difference between the inner and the outer? Is this the essence of the Russian doll?

Painting is integral to my experiences; I’m the painting the world creates. My relationship to a painting in progress is a symbiotic one, just like my relationship to the world. So, when I’m asked what I paint, the question is almost unanswerable. My reply is usually an economical “abstract painting”.

You might be thinking, what has all of this to do with a Russian doll? When I put paint on a canvas to create a painting, it is a bit like assembling a Russian doll; the paint both hides and reveals. What it hides or reveals about me, the person, the artist, is by default a certain existential awareness. I have to make my own meanings; if I didn’t I might drown in an ocean of despair at being such a futile speck in the Universe.

A painting communicates visually. The communication is on the painting’s surface and also between the layers of paint. The way I know when a painting is finished and ready to be released from the studio is when I see that the symbiotic relationship has stopped. With its independent identity, the finished painting then becomes its own ambassador, one that wants a letter of introduction.

The artist’s statement is the painting’s letter of introduction. For me it is where the unanswerable has to be answered in some way. When I write my artist’s statement I feel vulnerable. I imagine the critical knives being sharpened ready to tear me and my statement and my art apart. Do I censor what I reveal because of that? Perhaps. Does that prevent me from taking risks in the studio? No.

When I first started to paint, I had no idea that I would end up painting what I paint in the way I paint. Each of us creates personal mental maps to navigate our way through life. Maps are made, used then abandoned in favour of new ones. What I say or write about my painting is part of my personal map. I talk about the map, but as Korzybski stated, the map is not the territory.

Painting has been my tutor and my mentor. My formal Fine Art training was more than a net gain of art techniques. It was the start of broader education previously denied to me. I learned to explore an abstract world beyond my previous life and to do it through painting.

The form of the painting is concrete; it’s content is abstract. The abstract content is connected to abstract ideas that have become part of my life. These ideas include maps, mapping, grid structures, language, temporal considerations, and the idea of ideas.

Each painting is pared down to its essential idea. In the City Series of paintings, I played with the idea that cities have an outer and a hidden life. The Document Series were about layers in meanings. The Terra Series combined the idea of map and surface as one, and the Interstice Series were about gaps, spaces and repetition. Do I unintentionally reveal something about myself through these interests? Possibly.

Because of the symbiotic relationship I have with painting, a comment from anyone at the wrong moment can disrupt the flow of communication. For a long time now I’ve had a rule for anyone coming into the studio that unless invited, no comments are made about work in progress. If I do invite comment or I talk about the intimate communication I’m having with the painting, it is because there is a need for me to look outward for a time.

I joined Twitter.com recently. I had very little prior experience with a social network, so I observed it for a period before I started revealing myself by tweeting. Bit by bit, I began talking about what I’m doing in the studio. This is such a departure for me; not only have I opened the door to the studio while I’m working, but I’ve done it to potentially thousands.

I’ve been considering this new Twitter relationship. Twitter allows just one hundred and forty characters per tweet. It is astonishing just how much personality is revealed within that limit. I’ve wondered if this happens despite or because of the limit? Setting aside possible deliberate intention, do tweets inadvertently reveal more than we intend? I wonder.

I like painting to be demanding. I like to find stimulating questions. My paintings are my expression. So in this context maybe I’ve found a connection between the nature of Twitter, the nature of painting, and the Russian doll analogy.

In tweeting about on-going studio work on Twitter, I’m still shaking my head at myself. If a painting failed before, something thankfully rare but not unknown, it was between me and the painting and a bonfire. Now I am revealing myself, failures as well as successes in a totally public way. It’s like some of my inner Russian Dolls are exposed, standing naked on top of the Empire State Building. I’ve yet to find out how I will feel about it.

Bio:

Artist Linda Sgoluppi is a painter. Her studio is located near the Grand Union Canal in Northamptonshire England.

“I paint what’s in my minds eye, and I like that eye to keep an open mind”

Linda Sgoluppi's Website



Terra: Acrylic On Canvas © Linda Sgoluppi


Interstice #1: Acrylic On Canvas © Linda Sgoluppi


Amsterdam: Mixed Media On Canvas © Linda Sgoluppi


Transitions # 1: Acrylic On Canvas © Linda Sgoluppi

The Husband Store

A store that sells new husbands has opened in New York City , where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:

Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs

She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.

'That's nice,' she thinks, 'but I want more.'
So she continues upward The third floor sign reads:

Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.

'Wow,' she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.

'Oh, mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!' Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store

PLEASE NOTE:

To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store just across the street.

The first floor has wives that love sex
The second floor has wives that love sex and have money and like beer.
The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited.

A Self Portrait Part 3

Environmental Codes...

Order is, at one and the same time, that which is given in things as their inner law...
Michel Foucault: The Order of Things

Part of a set of images from home.

My home.

No information is given as to where I live or even how I live, they merely explore the connections in the spaces between just some of the things that constitute my daily environment.

This is the order of things in my perception of that environment...

A Self Portrait Part 2

The Mark of Cain...

I am the son and heir
Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way...

Morrissey and The Smiths

Oh brother, where art thou?