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.
Nude (woodcut print)