Today's Ramblings

Thoughts I had this afternoon while sitting in my studio.

- Trying to discover how I can produce a painting that is deliberately made to look unfinished; my aim is to make that notion the focus of the piece and remove any ambiguity from it for the audience. But now I am thinking about whether my themes and contexts need that ambiguity. Is that what makes my work? But my work's main criticism seems to be this appearance of being unresolved and unfinished. Why does it have to be resolved? I prefer having this continuity within it that creates opportunities for further questions and expands my concepts and methodologies for each project. I'm starting to view all the pieces of work I've made as a whole discovery unit. All the physical works are part of the 'voyage.' When does an explorer stop exploring? They don't (usually) as there are always new things to be found out. That is the beauty of it, for me at least.

- Photography, once its been taken, can be edited but not removed: it will always  = actually not true, digital cameras have now proved this! Maybe this is why I have such an interest in past photographs and old fashioned photography processes = once the picture is taken, that's it, and there's no removal of it. The image forever remains in one time and one motion. However, I can edit the pictures and try to create new things from them = my own interpretations and an expansion of meanings/concepts/contexts.

- Obsessive focus on old family photos I feel is me trying to acquire or recover things from them; either that I didn't know and want to discover, or that I did know and wish to remember.

- The whiteness in my images is a focus on the removal of that part of the picture - in this case; the gradual or sudden disappearance of the figures. I am also thinking about the effect this has on the remainder of the image - in particular how prominent/noticeable it is. Can the whole image still work/function despite the white gaps of blank space? It is understandable that with these white gaps; an image would not be viewed as finished, yet what I am trying to question is, the notion of the blank white spaces being unable to be recovered or reclaimed and therefore not able to be filled in with the 'missing fragment' of the original image. I am attempting to make this clear to my audience.