‌

Beginning

I started this course to change. I was tired of my usual ways of making art and I wanted some kind of breakthrough. Although I didn’t know what it was then, I was ready to try. I started doing research on one of my favorite artists, Francis Bacon. I didn’t know much back about him; it was just that his paintings touched me every time I saw them.

Bacon’s Inspirations

‘I would rather practice the injury in private by which I think I can record the facts of them more clearly’ A bold statement by Francis Bacon. There are two things I took away from this statement.

Firstly, it is the idea to work from a photograph instead of a live model. When I work from live, there is always the urge to capture the observations as realistically as possible, it makes me focus on minute details instead of the big picture. The other thing is how disruptive it is to have another human being in the room with you when you create. I love working from the unconscious, but if I am self-conscious all the time with human beings around, I will never be able to dig deeper into myself. I never thought of this before learning more about Bacon, why I work alone most of the time, and how collaborating artworks with other people never feels complete. I often push myself to do live sketches, although it helps me stay in the moment and step out of my comfort zone, it is a relief to know that there is nothing wrong with relying upon photography when the time calls for it.

Secondly, the phrase ‘practicing the injury’ intrigues me. In honesty, I still can’t fully understand this concept after digging through Francis Bacon’s life. Considering Bacon’s subjects are always people that are close with him. My take would be him treating the canvas as a window to a parallel world, where he could regurgitate the good and bad he sees in that person, into this window. With every stroke from his brush, he is creating his own realism. Trying to make the portrait ‘as factual as possible, at the same time deeply unlocking.’ His idea of using his unconscious to create deeply resonated with me. As a traditionally trained illustrator, everything is planned and coordinated. I was never the one to splash paint around or go with the flow. My interest in repressed emotions is quite similar to Bacon’s theme, I started to see in what ways I could bring out my own repressed fear through drawing. Under Bacon’s guidance, I started experimenting with drawing on paper as a meditation process.

In the Process

A few of the drawings I did inspired me to do a series on push and pull. I encountered another problem here, how do I express such raw and immediate emotions through the slow process of printmaking? In my research, I came across Marcelle Hanselaar, her ways of storytelling through print and oils are mad but controlled.

In one of the interviews, she said ’etching and graphics have a particular directness about them, which I think is very telling. There is a glorification to painting, even if you’re showing a horse cut in half, dying. Think of Rubens. There is a beauty to the dying bodies, a particular kind of romantic drama, which isn’t there with printmaking.’

Historically, printmaking was always for the common people, a vessel for propaganda, instead of high art. Even though printmaking has transformed into a category of fine art, that concept is still imprinted in our brains, and who says I can’t lean into that? Make the print as drafty and direct as I can, just like the draft I have.

I looked into how Marcelle makes her prints, with simple hard ground as the backbone, and myriads of technique layered on. The spit bite she did also reminded me of some of Norman Ackroyd’s prints I have seen in Eames. They are the exact polar opposite, Normans’ are controlled and calculated, which is phenomenal from a technical standpoint, but I can’t relate to it as much as I can with Hanselaar’s prints. Marcelle’s prints feel much more immediate and raw, and that is the way I want to move forward.

Marcelle’s philosophy on her artworks-’Like to stir people up, make them slightly uneasy. All my works are all unease in me.’ Her themes are quite similar to my themes, the only difference is the scope of it. I mostly draw inspiration from my fear, and how it feels to live with those. Besides drawing inspiration from the self, she also draws them from the external, like war and inequality. It makes her imagery much more relatable to a wider audience. I might have been too narcissistic to see it, but after discovering her ways of working, I feel like I could broaden my scope a little bit onto more tangible subjects. The thing I find hard to do is walk the fine line between the tangible and intangible. I always get tipped to one side, and just keep leaning on that side. It happened when I created illustrative works like hers, or when I created more self-centered works like Bacons. It is something I will need to remind myself, every time I try to create new works. I feel like I am still finding the balance between these two all the time.

Book Research

I always want to understand the reason behind fear, and how people deal with this existential fear in day-to-day life. ‘The Denial of Death’ by Ernest Becker is the book I am currently reading, it explores the psychology behind repressed emotions, and goes in-depth on a number of theories that support his way of thinking.

My artworks always have a sexual undertone in them, and the more I explore drawing with the subconscious, the more of these undertones are brought to the forefront. To me, this phrase by Ernest Becker summed it up for me-’ It “The body” offers experiences and sensations, concrete pleasure that the inner symbolic world lacks. No wonder man is impaled on the horns of sexual problems, why Freud saw that sex was so prominent in human life, especially in the neurotic conflicts of his patients. Sex is an inevitable component of man's confusion over the meaning of his life, a meaning split hopelessly into two realms-symbols (freedom) and body (fate) …This is why the mystique of sex is so widely practiced’ I always avoided topics with sex in my art practice before, it is something I am not comfortable with sharing to strangers that look at my artwork. I was denying the close relationship fear has with the physical, I worked purely on the symbol realm of fear. I now understand, in order to delve deeper into the subject of fear, I need to let go of this taboo I had against expressing sexual relationships openly. This new realization unlocked a lot more symbolic imagery that I could work with.

Additional Artist Research

Goya

I went to the print collections in the British Museum and requested some Goya and Holbein prints. Although Goya’s prints are not as well printed as I thought, the aquatint is very uneven and the amount of plate tone scattered through the plate is just plain unprofessional. The imagery brought me to my knees, the most successful ones are the static imagery shown in the Disasters of War series. They give you space and time to reflect on the consequences of war in front of you. Lizzie(friend and student) told me my artworks are full of movements and energy, which got me thinking about Goya’s work. Do I need that much movement in my work? Is it distracting the audience from thinking? When they are navigating the chaotic scenes in my image? I want my audience to have time to ponder on their own these are all questions I might need to explore in this upcoming term.

Otto Dix

“I did not paint war pictures to prevent war. I would never have been so arrogant. I painted them to exorcise the experience of war. All art is about exorcism.’-Otto Dix.

I have never experienced war and I hope I never will. Otto Dix was a gunner for Germany in WW1 and his way of living through the horror is to depict his view on the war through personal experience honestly. This honesty can be seen in his other works as well. I often feel like my work needs more metaphors, details, and characters for it to feel worthy of being an image. Otto shows me that expressing yourself doesn’t need to be complicated to be successful. Be honest and the image will explain itself.

In the next term, I want to create more personal work, and constantly remind myself to be conscious of when I feel like the image is finished.

Marcelle Hanselaar, He had nothing more to say, 2015. Etching and aquatint. No.3 from the set The Crying Game. © Marcelle Hanselaar.