Category Archives: art

Drawing is a bit like riding a bicycle

Peter Bright - Artist

In preparation for an exhibition in June I have begun to draw again. My previous methodology relied on me subcontracting my creativity to either ‘chance’, allowing the medium to take partial control over the finished image or by letting the computer system deal with my creativity in its prescriptive manner – the program has ways of dealing with commands in a very limit way, hacking the software is the only way of producing images that are different from our everyday visual blitzkrieg of imagery…we are subjected to via the Internet, the printed page and video.

Going back to the basic skills of drawing is an interesting excursion – a journey I’m not sure I will complete. Drawing a life model for the first times in decades was a bit daunting but old tricks and shortcuts were soon remembered and in many respects drawing is a bit like riding a bicycle.

Peter Bright - Artist

Woodcut = drawing

Drawing for print:

Is it acceptable to splatter words on a page and call it ART?

The Changing Language of Prediction and Explanation

There are artworks, which as art could be mistaken as science/technology. Such works rely on networking, robotics and systems. (You could include Internet works in this category.)  When viewing/understanding Artworks that are based on networking, systems, and communities how do you subconsciously and verbally criticize the aesthetic or concept? The true aesthetics of a system is not the peripheral. The aesthetics of the system is in the understanding of its detail. The true aesthetics of the system incorporates the aesthetics of failure, a system that is reliant on external forces or structure will always have an element of built in probable failure. (This is a prediction.) The only way to achieve total reliability is to have a closed system, this however discourages growth and system expansion and thus becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Basic Prediction

Horoscopes in newspapers are based on star signs and birth dates; these predict the day’s events. These predictions are based on the laws of probability and chance. You could read your daily horoscope and make the prediction into a self-fulfilling prophecy, you could go out and find that ‘Tall dark handsome man’ or go on ‘A long journey’. Alternatively you could read your horoscope late in the evening and interpret the day’s events and adapt them to the mystical words. “Yes I did meet someone important today”. The interesting thing about prediction is that you could meet a tall dark handsome man, go on a long journey and meet someone important and never read your horoscope. Does this mean the day’s events were not predicted? Similarly these rules can apply to system-based art and painting.

Explanation =

An explanation is a set of statements constructed to describe a set of facts which clarifies the causes, context, and consequences of those facts. This description may establish rules or laws, and may clarify the existing ones in relation to any objects, or phenomena examined. The components of an explanation can be implicit, and be interwoven with one another. An explanation is often underpinned by an understanding that is represented by different media such as music, text, and graphics. Thus, an explanation is subjected to interpretation, and discussion.
In scientific research, explanation is one of the purposes of research, e.g., exploration and description. Explanation is a way to uncover new knowledge, and to report relationships among different aspects of studied phenomena.

Marketing = Art

“I have begun to think about printing again. The image above is of the first two colors of a woodcut I have started to do. I have decided to walk away from the computer, with its prescriptive software and universal tools, I’m going to move back to the hands on skills I was taught over 30 years ago.”
Peter Bright
An object or thing never has the same functionality as its name or image…. I think Magritte said something like this 80 or so years ago.
A bit of an odd statement but if you think about it it is very true. An inert object (or landscape) can’t tell you what it is, we rely on our experiences through out our lives to explain what we see. If we see a checkered hillside we know that the boundaries (if they are green) are most likely to be hedges and the whiteish blobs are probably sheep contained within the fields. We can estimate the feel of the landscape: warm, cold, steep, flat etc.
Which is why, when building websites it is important to explain what you are selling in language that people can understand and more importantly, can relate to.
Conceptual Art tried to destroy the art object but failed – thought and the idea is the object. The primary aims of Conceptual Art in the 1960?s was to carry out a theoretical examination of ‘art’ and through understanding propose ‘concepts as art’. Two and three-dimensional art was in the doldrums, the essence of creating was the new Holy Grail. This was considered to be a bold step, proposing an idea as a work of art left the Artist with very little to exhibit or sell, the written word was usually all that was physically evident….The written word is a powerful tool.

Art and Language – New prints?

I have begun to think about printing again. The image above is of the first two colours of a woodcut I have started to do. I have decided to walk away from the computer, with its prescriptive software and universal tools, I’m going to move back to the hands on skills I was taught over 30 years ago.

An object or thing never has the same functionality as its name or image…. I think Magritte said something like this 80 or so years ago.

A bit of an odd statement but if you think about it it is very true. An inert object (or landscape) can’t tell you what it is, we rely on our experiences through out our lives to explain what we see. If we see a chequered hillside we know that the boundaries (if they are green) are most likely to be hedges and the whiteish blobs are probably sheep contained within the fields. We can estimate the feel of the landscape: warm, cold, steep, flat etc.
Which is why, when building websites it is important to explain what you are selling in language that people can understand and more importantly, can relate to.
Conceptual Art tried to destroy the art object but failed – thought and the idea is the object. The primary aims of Conceptual Art in the 1960?s was to carry out a theoretical examination of ‘art’ and through understanding propose ‘concepts as art’. Two and three-dimensional art was in the doldrums, the essence of creating was the new Holy Grail. This was considered to be a bold step, proposing an idea as a work of art left the Artist with very little to exhibit or sell, the written word was usually all that was physically evident….The written word is a powerful tool.

Art and Language

An object or thing never has the same functionality as its name or image…. I think Magritte said something like this 80 or so years ago.

A bit of an odd statement but if you think about it it is very true. An inert object (or landscape) can’t tell you what it is, we rely on our experiences through out our lives to explain what we see. If we see a chequered hillside we know that the boundaries (if they are green) are most likely to be hedges and the whiteish blobs are probably sheep contained within the fields. We can estimate the feel of the landscape: warm, cold, steep, flat etc.
Which is why, when building websites it is important to explain what you are selling in language that people can understand and more importantly, can relate to.

Conceptual Art tried to destroy the art object but failed – thought and the idea is the object. The primary aims of Conceptual Art in the 1960?s was to carry out a theoretical examination of ‘art’ and through understanding propose ‘concepts as art’. Two and three-dimensional art was in the doldrums, the essence of creating was the new Holy Grail. This was considered to be a bold step, proposing an idea as a work of art left the Artist with very little to exhibit or sell, the written word was usually all that was physically evident….The written word is a powerful tool.



Language