I thought I was working my way towards the end of this project. I’ve been doing some research on ‘fire’ – in art, in photography – because I feel that will be the ‘end game’; burning the book! But, inspired by the exhibitions in London – David Batchelor’s October and the Adventures of the Black Square (see here) – and by reading about Mel Bochner’s Misunderstandings (A Theory of Photography) 1967-70 (see here), I’ve produced two new images in the last few days. They could take the project off on another detour, which might be a waste of time, but I’m quite pleased with them. I can’t tell whether they ‘work’, in the sense of having the potential to be ‘read’ by a viewer in a manner that the viewer finds to be of any significance, but they do seem to be coming out of somewhere that matters to me – so I’m sharing them here and ‘reflecting’. I’m not going to give them titles – not yet.
The aesthetic owes something to David Batchelor – shades of the colouring book and the doodle – with a hint of student’s studies (wonder why?!) and a touch of the ransom note thrown in for good measure! I’m reminded of the surrealist’s automatic writing – though it isn’t purely automatic of course. There’s a linguistic ambiguity that seems to work alongside the visual ambiguity of the ‘constructs’ that I’ve made – hints of ‘meaning’ that never quite deliver, a search for certainty that was never there.
So I have a feeling that these have potential to add value to the project (and further delay the end game!); but they are new and raw, so not entirely sure, yet!