ARTIST STATEMENT
Facing Waves
In response to Ian North’s painting The Wave I have created a work titled Facing Waves, it is a performance based video. I
involved myself in The Wave entirely
and in doing so found myself acting out being submerged by a wave. In shaping
and resolving the ideas for this work I have drawn upon several aspects of The
Wave and transformed these elements by adding my own perspective.
Upon first gaze of The Wave I was captured by the scene that
played out on the canvas. The canvas is a panorama dimension, in which an
enormous wave occupies a space stretching between the left to the right, its
presence is pervasive. What was noticed secondly was a ship, appearing
insignificant in the presence of the wave. The combination of these two images
could be read as the futility of man in the presence of nature. However, I
began to question more thoroughly as I realised that the ship was facing
towards the wave, it changed the feel of the painting completely. Suddenly I
was struck by this scenario in which this small ship is facing the enormous
wave, this calm encouraging sense spread through me as I realised that this
ship is going head on into what is out of its control. This idea filled me with
courage.
I began to think about the waves in my own life. The biggest
wave I am challenged with comes from a personal place, I have a tendency to
create anxieties about the future. I realised that whilst looking at The Wave I
was imagining myself as the ship and facing a wave of my own. This sparked the
idea of a work that involved myself emulating this situation. I explored ways
of which I might be able to simulate this and I resolved upon a performance
based work.
The use of a mirror allowed me to record facing myself, with
the camera positioned behind me I am viewed in the first instance from behind
and in the second instance in the reflection of the mirror – emulating the
position of the ship and the wave. I intended to reference the dimension of the
canvas by using the same dimensions for the video. In making a video I
transform the The Wave from its two dimensional sense into a performance work
by enacting out the situation.
In acting out this scenario I suggest that I have been
engulfed by the wave, to do this I cover my body in paint - I tried to match
the colour of the body paint to the colour palette of the painting. In the
video I avoid showing the whole process of covering my body as it is time
consuming, so I show a small fraction of this. The next part of the video
involves me taking a step back away from the mirror, this felt quite bizarre
for me as I fell into staring at my own reflection. The longer I stood staring,
the deeper I found myself in contemplation of my anxieties and where they come
from, why I have them and what their impact is, the disadvantages of them and
the advantages of them. I just stood there thinking and the performance began
to really take a path of its own. I did not come to any conclusion about the
future or life but it felt really good just to stop and think and be comforted
in the idea of facing something head on.
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