Spoiler alert – I’m not very patient when photographing my artwork up close. But I’m really interested in seeing what the camera reveals so am doing it over a period of time, allowing a breathing space for reflection. Once again I see that one of the best advantages of working in my new look studio is that it’s totally clear of clutter now and is a real pleasure to work in.
So, picking up where I left off in my previous post and because some time has passed, I’m less inclined to see this latest work as ‘sinister’ now. ‘Ambiguity’ I can live with very comfortably though, as it’s here that multiple ways of seeing and understanding the work become possible. By experimenting with the studio lighting and some of the camera settings, the intriguing contrast between line and texture becomes the focus, rather than the overall representation of the work itself.
As part of re-seeing this new work, I’ve placed it where it all began – alongside some of the work I created in the early 2000s. The sense of continuity becomes reassuringly apparent. Although the process of making is fundamentally the same, how I approach it has evolved in ways I hadn’t anticipated; the work feels less cautious now in that I’m more inclined to take risks. However I’m still pondering why I want to continue with this long thread of creative curiosity, using a process of manipulating silk into small suspended or free-standing forms.
During the Covid lockdown here in the UK, I had intuitively felt compelled to amass a large body of work as a sort of ‘proof of existence and resilience’ during fearful times, especially as I’m now in my 70s and was being continuously designated as ‘vulnerable’. I had also become aware that after a while this message had in itself become my own way of being and that in order to survive psychologically, I needed to fight back. And then something unexpected took place; I found that I no longer had any desire or need to exhibit my work. After a lifetime of following the prescriptive pathway of an artist, my inclination is now to diverge from this and forge my own path. I’ve no idea where I’ll end up, all I can do is to follow my intuition. This feels both exciting and unsettling as there are now no visible goalposts and there’s not even a map. I’m working with the unknown.
