Here is a poster for an upcoming exhibition at CMR gallery in Redruth. I will be showing some work from my pilgrimages in Cyprus and Spain. Currently I am working through the images and new work for this exhibition and we will be working with the curator Clare English. Here is the poster to copy and share.
Monday, 1 September 2014
Tuesday, 5 August 2014
Re: Timelapse videos
I have recently been uploading videos I made during the residency at Málaca Instituto Flow and Art project. On my Vimeo site you will be able to see the evolution of the painting I produced on the curved wall of Room 521 in Club-Hispánico. Below is one video and it you click the link you will be able to see the others.
1 rendered from Adam on Vimeo.
1 rendered from Adam on Vimeo.
Update: Images from Sketchbooks
Since arriving back from Spain I have been sorting through what I have been done. None stop everyday as I begin to sort and decide my next steps. In the meantime here are a few pages from my sketchbooks for you.
Tuesday, 1 July 2014
Friday, 27 June 2014
The Pilgrim: Mapping Reality - Thoughts of this Day in the Present Moment
JOURNEY AROUND BELALCÁZAR, SPAIN | JUNE 2014 |
Throughout the ages society has sought to map reality, to grasp the world and contain it on rock (rock art), walls (cave art), Art, minds (myths passed on through the ages containing vital information - Hamlet's Mill), paper (scrolls, Atlases), globes, monuments (Stonehenge, Great Pyramid, Henges) and now satelite GPS (Google Earth, Street View). Mapping influences the way we view reality and how it is presented to us, changing the way we see the world and giving us insights into the way our ancestors viewed their world (Hereford Map, Piri Reis Map).
Yet, we can not be sure what is actually outside of our mind because we can not see the world without our mind. We can only create a simulation/ simulcra, a copy, a mime, a creation of symbols that have replaced reality. [For example: Alan Watts, a British Zen philosopher points out that money is a symbol we have come to believe in, forgetting it is nothing more than a symbol akin to 'inches'. Not having enough money is like saying we haven't enough inches... an absurd reality when dealing with the econmic system that ultimately affects lives].
Through various ways of interpreting the world, using symbolic representations we re-construct the world-view and reveal something about the negotiatiated reality. I have been following these ideas over the last two years - trying to understand how we interpret reality and the ways corporate media presents the world to us. I did get lost in this world of the media and the facts and figures. These symbolic constructions that replaced the very reality we are gradually losing, due to giving over true reality to a symbolic reality of order which now destroys the very environment we depend upon. A time-loop, a 'Groundhog Day' of repeating imagery and information fueling the very fires which seem to consume the real - and we await a new birth of the Phoenix, a new age. My Phoenix was to lose oneself in the landscape in another land and nationality, seeking the voice of nature - re-focusing and seeking another path to lead me back to the real.
JOURNEY AROUND BELALCÁZAR TOWN | JUNE 2014 | SKETCHBOOK |
JOURNEY TO CORDOBA | MAPPING THE JOURNEY BY BUS | JUNE 2014 | SKETCHBOOK |
Now I allow the polemical to come through the work subconsciously, natural via line, marks, colour. The erosion, time, weathering, division, history and mythology - all leading to my current ways of mapping reality and the way I make sense of the world, and in a way as a symbol of the culture I grew up in.
JOURNEY TO CORDOBA | JUNE 2014 | SKETCHBOOK |
Thank you Cyprus College (Stass, Margaret & Michael Paraskos), Málaca Instituto, Málaga (Flow and Art Project - Ida and Nieves) and La Fragua in Belalcázar (Javi and Gaby) - you have all given me a valuable year of growth in time.
Monday, 12 May 2014
Monday, 21 April 2014
Friday, 11 April 2014
Friday, 28 March 2014
Today's thoughts whilst painting: Reality through abstraction
Over the last couple of weeks I have become more aware of my interest in abstracting from observable reality. Case in point in my observation studies from local rock formations and how my mind makes judgements. When I paint I extract information from the observed object, through this I make decisions based upon my experiences from the last 25 years.
The decisive marks made try to capture the moment of decision and evidence reality; reality grounded in the way our minds' choose particular realities we live by - based on a past that is remembered and the choices we have made which have led to our present moment we are living.
For me painting evidences many realities which are competing for a position of authority and the artist has to make judgements to reign in the authoritative position of the mark and colour, seeking an aesthetic balance between all the marks and results of the decision processes.
This has led me to the process of abstraction in making, drawing inspiration from the natural world and seeking syntheses between the reality of the observed and the reality of imagination. We could say, possibly, that everything we see and experience is nothing more than our imagination and it is us, in our denial, who creates a false reality based upon the needs and desires of our inner-self. Of course this can lead to such problems in our personal reality. In this case we must get to know ourselves and not rely upon others' ideas of ourselves to construct our reality.
The decisive marks made try to capture the moment of decision and evidence reality; reality grounded in the way our minds' choose particular realities we live by - based on a past that is remembered and the choices we have made which have led to our present moment we are living.
For me painting evidences many realities which are competing for a position of authority and the artist has to make judgements to reign in the authoritative position of the mark and colour, seeking an aesthetic balance between all the marks and results of the decision processes.
This has led me to the process of abstraction in making, drawing inspiration from the natural world and seeking syntheses between the reality of the observed and the reality of imagination. We could say, possibly, that everything we see and experience is nothing more than our imagination and it is us, in our denial, who creates a false reality based upon the needs and desires of our inner-self. Of course this can lead to such problems in our personal reality. In this case we must get to know ourselves and not rely upon others' ideas of ourselves to construct our reality.
We are the result of experiential realities, therefore we as a species need to become fully aware of our contribution to society and the world through the interactions we have.
For me the abstract is the only true reality and therefore one must submit to the abstractness of reality and see the world for what it is... abstract information which is used by our ideologies to construct a linear reality grounded in desire.
This is an inescapable truth - we are seeking the pleasure of living - how we find this pleasure is different in us all. For myself the pleasure gained from seeing something beautiful is the key to syncing out of the time/ space continuum and into the other world - a world of no thought, no ideology and no questioning. This is possibly, as Krishnamurti in his Flowering of Life booklet makes
one aware of: The only true reality is when one gazes upon something of
such aesthetic beauty, which is independent of another person's
thoughts of 'ideal' beauty - it can then be possible to say we are
touching the edge of the sublime reality of truth and full awareness of
'being'.
The act of creating something, of seeking the necessary truths of
balance, composition and arrangements is the seeking of the divine
within all acts of creation. This goal in seeking a synthesis of
various competing realities that inhabit the Universe, metamorphosing
into forms which encapsulate the sublime, is possibly an emotive
garnering of 'existential realities', moving towards a coherent
understanding about what it means to 'be' and what we as 'beings'
contribute to the understanding of ourselves, and the world, through the
Art we create, see, experience and love.
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