meta-art.space

I suddenly realized that what I always took for granted seems to be the exception rather than the rule: I do not paint for collectors, buyers, curators, gallery owners, art reviewers and critics and others in the art industry who lives OFF art. No, I paint for the handful of other serious artists, especially those who are yet to be born, and who live FOR art. In other words, I assist in the making , maintenance and development of art (or more specifically the painting discourse and intersubjectivity) history .

From ART STUFF - why art? (for artists, students, collectors/viewers -

I have long been an advocate for Art Students (and Artists for that matter) doing lots of work and focusing more on quantity than quality (to a degree and depending on what medium they are working in etc.) so they can work fast through issues and not get bogged down in the ‘is it ok’ scenario.
What do you want from art?
As a Student, or Artist, whichever position you are in, stop and have a think for a bit. What do you want from Visual Art.. and perhaps why do you want it.

Lets explore a little. Oh and feel free to give me feedback via the comments as I think this is a hot topic to think about.

Student

Learn about various materials and processes
Develop an understanding/appreciation of creative processes
Develop a body of work
Learn about the theory and history of Visual Art
Explore the cultural and or other implications of Visual Art
To explore and or respond to your subject matter
To develop concepts, issues and notions about your art in a contemporary context (self - wider community - global)
Other?
Artist

To explore and or respond to your subject matter
To develop concepts, issues and notions about your art in a contemporary context (self - wider community - global)
To perhaps make $$ from the sale of your works
To experience the responses your audience has about your works
As a device to build your status…
Other?
Note at the Artist’s level the wants can be different to the student’s but there is a solid overlap.

Would working on these points assist or hinder the people involved? or would it provide a springboard for further discussion, development etc…

Art seems to be more about a person making objects as part of an ongoing process than it is about creating things of beauty,

Don’t expect Art to soothe your soul, it may in fact disrupt your soul, interrupt your rational thinking and aggravate you to no end.

Perhaps “Art” is therefore more about moving or adjusting people intellectually and or emotionally more than it is about notions of Aesthetic sensibility…

Matrix concept
Coming to terms with the wide array of works and styles in the art world is a challenge at times, this “matrix” MAY provide some useful starting points for us to explore with. Where do you “fit” as an Artist? Using the comments facility at the end of the post, feel free to add information I can use to improve this.

Note it is intended to provide a guide to appreciating various “categories” of art in the market place rather than a device to indicate if a style “better than another”. Perhaps it’s “best” use may be for a beginning investor or collector wanting to appreciate what they are looking at and if it may have a possibility of increasing in value due to critical and or peer review.

This “matrix” has been through several versions starting at No: 7 (the previous 6 were for my eyes only and took a while to gain a format which I felt worked for a wider public audience.) this one is currently version 9.1.

12/2/10

Analytical Frameworks

I have just been introduced to the Visual Art Analytical Frameworks which is a device utilised to analyse artworks for students studying Visual Art at VCE (Australia) levels. This framework device looks at four areas to analyse works buy and it can offer readers of the matrix another way of exploring artworks, I would like to think the two could be utilised together to enable a faster understanding and greater depth of analysis could happen.

1. The Formal Framework - Visual analysis - Technique - Style - Symbolism and metaphor.

2. The Personal Framework - Reflects the artists life - Links to other aspects which may relate to the artists life.

3. The Cultural Framework - The influences of time and place - Connections to contexts and cultural purposes.

4. The Contemporary Framework - Exploring contemporary issues.

If you were to follow these frameworks for analysing artworks I guess it would be possible to negate various aspects of hobby and simple decorative work and find yourself wanting more from an art piece when you realise there is more to be had than just the formal framework. A viewer could do well to use these four points in discussing works with artists and soon be able to asses the merit or otherwise of the artist and their works.

What do you want from art?
As a Student, or Artist, whichever position you are in, stop and have a think for a bit. What do you want from Visual Art.. and perhaps why do you want it.

Lets explore a little. Oh and feel free to give me feedback via the comments as I think this is a hot topic to think about.

Student

Learn about various materials and processes
Develop an understanding/appreciation of creative processes
Develop a body of work
Learn about the theory and history of Visual Art
Explore the cultural and or other implications of Visual Art
To explore and or respond to your subject matter
To develop concepts, issues and notions about your art in a contemporary context (self - wider community - global)
Other?
Artist

To explore and or respond to your subject matter
To develop concepts, issues and notions about your art in a contemporary context (self - wider community - global)
To perhaps make $$ from the sale of your works
To experience the responses your audience has about your works
As a device to build your status…
Other?
Note at the Artist’s level the wants can be different to the student’s but there is a solid overlap.

Would working on these points assist or hinder the people involved? or would it provide a springboard for further discussion, development etc…

All work shown here are from 2010 onwards (so far more than 500),

as all work prior to that are either lost (because of my residence in a number of countries), or en masse in some private collections. See the link at South African Artists, for work from 2010.

The price of my work on other sites can be seen to be up to $3,000,000 etc, but this site seems to allow as maximum price only $30,000.

Well, I hope that some aspects of my aesthet(ical)? I never know which of the 2 are the appropriate adjective? As aesthetic/al are always confused by most people) vision and ideals (truths that are eternal, lasting, universal and permanent - and are expressed in insights in all cultural practices, be they sciences, music, humanities, arts, spirituality, etc) do come across to the 'viewer' of, or rather participants and co-creators, of my work -

and develop the potential of every individual to be:

fully in the present her and now -
as the one universal Real Self (of Vedanta),

or the enlightened cosmic Buddha mind,

or the Love of the Beloved of the Sufis,

or the Holy Spirit of "Hashem', etc etc...

And that you yourself realize the inner peace and balance that I was granted.
Thanks for using your time, when you could have done many other things, but, perhaps my work enable you to interact with 'the eternal', or the ground and source of all, as it is, hopefully, allowed to be manifested and channeled in some of my work.

...it goes you well, as you live creatively at every arising moment and be the pure, unrestricted awareness and One consciousness or the One, Universal Real Self, that all creatures, each in its own way, have the potential to be.....

The words on his tombstone, Klee's credo, placed there by his son Felix, say, "I cannot be grasped in the here and now, For my dwelling place is as much among the dead, As the yet unborn, Slightly closer to the heart of creation than usual, But still not close enough."

“ Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible. ”

—Paul Klee.
Someone asked me Why I paint? To me it is necessary like breathing, blood flowing through my veins, my heart pumping, eating and sleeping -

a quote why I paint - Gerhard Richter is considered to be the 'best' artist at present - money wise sells 67 million pounds a year - said in one of his books:

“One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is idiocy.” (From Richter, 'Notes 1973', in The Daily Practice of Painting, p. 78.)

I agree with the - one must believe in what one is doing - an inward commitment-
and I have this commitment a 100% as it replaces the 2 other ways of BE-ing that are essential to me - why and now I live and am-

one is obsessed with it - not the right word, but shows the intensity of the commitment -

the passionate commitment
otherwise painting is ridiculous, nonsense, irrelevant and cannot fee one starving child (although a couple of now million dollar sellers in the 1920's in Paris exchanged their paintings for a loaf of bread -

Richter talks about painting - the dying out or long dead genre - thus a few of us keep it going

rather than doing installations and other fashionable genres

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