#aa.artist.statement

[aamjp]

Critique words

With this body of work, I’ve been exploring how painting might function as a chronicle of contemporary society.

These, then, are a kind of history painting, but one that reflects the distribution of narrative authority across myriad sources and a concomitant bower bird-like assemblage of individuated opinion within this.

Each of these works combine an image and a textual component taken from a single online news source, and record as their title the date of publication, and, as their subtitle a phrase assembled from the news article attached to the image and my workings from the same news source’s cryptic crossword.

Despite this relationship to traditional reportage they don’t record or attempt to relay a particular story, nor do they strive to assert any historical significance upon that date, in the manner of, say, Goya’s The Third of May 1808 or Richter’s October 18, 1977. Instead, they eschew objective narrative and record an attempt at quite literally working out and establishing subjectivity. Different people have descried them to me as sarcastic nihilistic paranoid pragmatic poetic mediative quiet introspective, and that’s how I intend them: as contemplative frame through which subjectivity might be understood.

Qs

I have one question about my inclusion of the date in the title in relation to the role of painting in my work.

Photographs are so fundamental to understanding contemporary society and they move so freely and multiply enormously in their circulation. But they rely on a context which is always external to the image through keywords and hashtags etc.

Foucault talked about pop artists and photorealists as not producing a painting based on a photograph, nor a photograph made up to look like a painting, but, instead an image caught in its trajectory from photograph to painting which “then takes its place enthusiastically in the circulation of images which it does its own part to drive on”.

Painting however has the capacity to absorb those external aspects whilst remaining ‘painting’. By this I mean, that it’s able to use photography and to use words but not be considered photojournalism or literature, say. So I think that painting is particularly able to alter the trajectory of images in this circulation and to offer an alternative means of processing information. Crucially though, being a visual medium, its still disseminated through those same networks, it still takes part in that ‘circulation of images’.

By dating the images am I restricting their movement?

Titles

July 8, 2017 (to break one’s duck with a strongly worded statement) July 13, 2017 (as I viewed the Pyrenees, he drove towards Penrith) July 17, 2017 (mon amie, the man who may have used the name ‘Alex’) July 26, 2017 (confidential crook croak and prototype of peri beri) July 30, 2017 (we knew them to say hello and they seemed nice, they ate crumpets for breakfast) August 5, 2017 (acetic us, slow out of the blocks and struggling in the middle) August 9, 2017 (go gentle on my mind, Uncle Boo, I’m clapped out) August 15, 2017 (Mr Laa Laa’s sandwiches were not up to scratch) August 22, 2017 (the easel and the painting; four adults, two 6-year-old twins, and Donald Trump) August 25, 2017 (he sheds his porous skin and leaves home) August 30, 2017 (the big cheese eats shoots and leaves) September 11, 2017 (a crystal palace wrapped in plastic) September 16, 2017 (it sounded like cannon, a bid for the other side)

[aamjp]

Critique words [quiet crowd, sir]

Workings.

I’ve been thinking of these as a kind of history painting, one that reflects the dispersal of narrative authority across contemporary society and the concomitant [bower bird-like 1] assemblage of individuated opinion [2].

[1 maybe: pick’n’mix, copy and paste, selective] [2 as well as the incessant process of the history and emphasis on now?]

Each of these works combine an image and a textual component taken from a single online news source, and record as their title the date [3] of publication, and, as their subtitle, [a phrase assembled from words within the article accompanying the image and from the clues, answers, and my own workings for that same day’s cryptic crossword 4]

[3 I think it’s necessary to state this in order to reinforce the history painting assertion... although I could probably remove the description for the sub-title [4 a phrase assembled from words within the article accompanying the image and from that crossword.

Despite this [relationship to 5] traditional reportage [and even black-and-white of the newspaper the monochromatic palette 6] they don’t record or attempt to relay a particular story [or assert any historical significance, in the manner of, say, Goya’s The Third of May 1808 or Richter’s October 18, 1977 7]; instead, they eschew objective narrative to offer a contemplative frame through which subjectivity might be [imposed and understood, within the historicised present 8]

reflect an attempt at making sense of my own agency (my biases, opinions, beliefs, etc.) [within the data maelstrom of contemporary society 9]

present an opportunity to confront subjectivity record only an attempt at working out upon the canvas my own agency

present an opportunity at understanding subjectivity, or, perhaps literally, of recording an attempt at working out my own the subjectivity of my agency (my biases, opinions, beliefs, etc) 

[5 maybe: referencing of or debt to] [6 need to talk about this somewhere; next para?] [7 include this?] [8 is this needed?] [9 something less pat than that]

[I’m using painting as a means of processing other types of information, as a means of working out and establishing my own agency within an increasingly entangled network over-saturated with information. 10]

[10 this, or similar, could nearly be the very first sentence]

I think that painting has a way of absorbing/encompassing aspects of visual communication, while remaining outside of the traditional means by which this communication would have occurred but, crucially, being able to coexist within the same networks. [It’s able to utilise photography but would never be considered a photograph; it’s able to use text, but would never be considered literature or journalism.] For this reason, I think that this allows a greater level of criticality or at least a different one, in that it’s not just another voice. . what i’m saying is that painting, and in particular non-objective (or, at least, a tending towards abstraction) in combination with monochromatic painting, is able to slow images and words etc. and alter the trajectory of their circulation within contemporary society. 

This is something I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been taking images from the same day and trying to paint them within that 24 hours or so. [I’m not as dogmatic as someone like On Kawara in this respect, but there was a currency to each of these images.] In some of these recent ones i’ve been trying to post live-updates of their progress. I’m working out these images and processing the news, the world, my own agency within it, whatever while making these images. 

monochromatic painting slow down the image and pushes the image further to abstraction, in that its at a greater psychological distance from reality 

I think that painting has a way of altering their trajectory And, monochromatic painting, particularly in slowing it down.

Slowing it down through removal of surface detail through having dragged a brush across it, through collapsing the caption and image into one, through removían grammatical context

sarcastic / nihilistic / paranoid / pragmatic / poetic / mediative / quiet / introspective

[aamjp]

In Residence:

To better introduce myself, here's some recent work exploring how painting can act as a chronicle. I'm interested in what that might look like in a society where each moment is historicised within competing and often contradictory narratives.

These are each titled with the date and a phrase assembled from the news article attached to the image and my workings from the same news source's cryptic crossword. The first is 'August 25, 2017 (he sheds his porous skin and leaves home)'.

[aamjp]

In Residence:

This week Aaron Perkins @aamapepe is taking over this account! Aaron is an emerging artist in his final year/weeks at the Queensland College of Art. His practice explores how words might function within a painted, rather than grammatical, syntax. Through an abstracted combination of text sourced from cryptic crosswords and news photography, his practice seeks to activate the space between text and image, where any ‘meaning’ inferred is akin to a conspiracy, in that it may only be grasped instinctively or suspected. Welcome Aaron!

[aamjp]

In Residence:

hey, I'm Aaron (@aamapepe) and I'm in charge of In Residence’s IG this week! I'll be posting old and new works, things right-now-in-progress, and then whatever just happens. 

I’m an emerging artist in my final weeks at QCA. My practice explores how words might function within a painted, rather than grammatical, syntax. Through an abstracted combination of text sourced from cryptic crosswords and news photography, my practice seeks to activate the space between text and image, where any ‘meaning’ inferred is akin to a conspiracy, in that it may only be grasped instinctively or suspected.

[aamjp]

Catalogue text

The assemblage of individuated worlds of opinion and concomitant undermining of narrative authority is the contemporary context for the process of history. Although referencing traditional reportage and utilising news articles, photography and crosswords, these paintings — history paintings — eschew objective narrative to offer a contemplative frame through which subjectivity might be imposed upon, and understood within, the historicised present.

[aamjp]

Mid-sem critique words

Each of these works utilise an image from an online news article combined with my workings for that newspaper’s cryptic crossword of the same day. They record as their title the date, and, as their subtitle, a phrase assembled from words within that article and from the clues workings and answers of the crossword.

July 8, 2017 (to break one’s duck / with a strongly worded statement)

July 13, 2017 (as I viewed the Pyrenees / he drove towards Penrith)

July 17, 2017 (mon amie / the man who may have used the name ‘Alex’)

July 26, 2017 (confidential crook croak / prototype of peri beri)

July 30, 2017 (we knew them to say hello and they seemed nice / they ate crumpets for breakfast)

August 5, 2017 (acetic us / slow out of the blocks and struggling in the middle)

I’ve been thinking of these as a sort of history painting: one that reflects the levelling of narrative authority within contemporary society and the concomitant bower bird-like assemblage of individuated worlds of opinion (as facilitated by the internet, social media, etc.). My work eschews any objective narrative, and, instead, reflects an attempt at making sense of my own agency (my biases, opinions, beliefs, etc.) within the data maelstrom of contemporary society. They’re intended, I guess, as quiet works of skepticism and respite.

***** Do I need this next bit?

To do this, I’ve tried to establish a tension between the image and text, between looking and reading, between surface and interface, so that the text might elucidate some meaning within the image and that image might give reference to the text.

It’s from between the image and text that the subtitles emerge as a subjective moment discerned from ostensibly objective sources. // It’s between the text and image that I’ve been trying to do this, this ‘reading between the lines’, so to speak.

***** Questions? Concerns?

- some of images lean more towards abstraction than others (e.g. MISSILE AND HOODED FIGURE); does abstraction of the image enable   - whether my hand dominates or precludes a third party’s reading of the work - avoiding Richter?

*****

Influences: On Kawara, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly; but also Javier Marías and Ben Lerner

They’re works of skepticism and respite.

[aamjp]

I haggle with cryptic crosswords most days...

Although on the surface these are seemingly innocuous, albeit peculiar, arrangements of verbs, nouns, prepositions, et cetera, in grammatically befitting sentences, each clue is a deception. To read, for example, that “unstable antimatter tests result in a creative dissertation (6, 9)” and conclude that a physicist is fudging the facts (a ‘pseudo scientist’?) is to ignore the layers of meaning resident within each word. In this instance, the intended six- and nine-letter answer describes this form of writing: the ‘artist statement’.

My work makes visible these possibilities of language through employing a painted, rather than grammatical, context. Utilising text sourced from cryptic crosswords, internet search results and survey marks painted upon roads, in combination with press photography and art historical images, it chases the incessant and ineluctable human need to discover — or failing that, to impose — meaning in all things.