Surface Matters, Professor Paul Coldwell & Jo Love

Date: Wednesday 7th March 2012, 14:00-16:00

Venue: The Green Room, Chelsea College of Art and Design, Millbank

Present: Deniz Acka, Kirsten Baskett, Sam Burford, Maria Christoforatou, Paul Coldwell, Patricia Diaz, Catherine Eland, Angela Hodgson-Teall, Jo Love, Elizabeth Manchester, Milena Michalski, Elliot Robinson, Charlotte Webb, Rob Wilon, Jian Zhou.

Professor Paul Coldwell is an artist and researcher, and currently Professor at the CCW graduate school. His studio work focuses on themes of journey, absence and loss explored through sculptures, prints, artist's books and installations. The role of the computer has been a key element in his practice-based research, in particular exploring the fluid relationship between drawing and photography that the digital makes possible and the changing relationship towards surface that he believes the computer engenders. The resulting work includes output that is purely digital as well as revisiting such older technologies as intaglio, lithography and collotype.

http://www.paulcoldwell.org

Jo Love is in the fourth year of a part-time practice-based PhD at Chelsea College of Art. Her practice emerges from a current body of research which explores surface, materiality and time through the drawing of dust over digital photographic printed surfaces. Jo is interested in the way in which a photographic image might sit on the verge of recognition and provide an almost blank field of vision within which she can attempt to re-engage or re-construct perceptions of space within the picture plane. The drawing of dust attempts to provide a key aesthetic reference to physical matter, to touch and to human presence within an era saturated by digital imaging technologies. Jo is interested in the way in which the presence of dust over the digital photographic surface generates dualities of presence and absence, of both something and nothing, and fullness and emptiness. http://www.johannalove.co.uk

Jo's Presentation:

Jo is interested in images which can generate perceptual ambiguity – how far may we see? Is what we can see ever clear?

She began by showing early works made prior to her PhD. Her background was in printmaking and drawing, and through a fellowship at the Royal College, Jo was plunged into the digital world, and needed to find a way that digital processes could work for her.

She became interested in perceptions of space and how the body could explore the idea of physical space. She made photo etches by drawing around her body, and was looking at how the digital scanning process could allow an image to emerge, and how the photographic image could create a space.

She then started to look more closely at what was happening when she physically printed on top of a digital image – there seemed to be a disjunction between the two types of surface. Zooming in, pulling things up and observing pixellation revealed a perceptual shift in the pictorial plane.

To investigate how marks could be drawn onto a surface, Jo wanted to photograph ambiguous spaces which would provide a starting point for working directly onto the image. She asked how the different media related to each other and created an illusion on the surface. She described her images as seeming to breathe according to light reflections on their surfaces.

She started to become involved with FADE, a research group which helped her to gather questions to start off a bigger body of research about hand made physical marks and digital illusionistic work.

She shifted away from looking at the body to looking at illusionistic space, taking figure out of the work, but still wanting something to draw from which could be inserted into a bigger space. Found images and slides were used to create large backgrounds for drawings, to question how photographic images and the drawn sit together. She often took out the colour info on the photographic image so that that when she drew on top she could have a closer dialogue between the different marks.

The images became increasingly ambiguous, and the work returned to a questioning, not just of a particular photographic image, but of a field that could be entered visually. Fog scenes were used to try to generate more ambiguity in the photographic image – she wanted to find scenes that would be something to look 'into' rather than containing something to look ‘at'.

Jo started using a scanner and observed that normally scanning was a closed process that objects/materials couldn’t enter; She began to open up the scanner – creating a space between scanner and lens. Unexpectedly, a major turning point was that as she was generating a distance between the image and scanner bed, dust was falling on scanner bed. She couldn’t control this – this has changed her whole project! There was a profound effect on the images the scanner captured, as the illusionistic space of the photograph and the dust were captured at the same time. This was a case of things both being at the surface and alluding to perceptual depth

Following this, Jo started to use the dust to draw with. The drawing became about making a physical mark on the surface of the photo – she was interested in what kind of detailed clash this would make, and in putting drawing under the microscope. Notions of Duchamp's dust breeding came into play, as she was literally trying to draw the dust back into a drawing that has no dust. Drawing dust reasserts the surface of the photo as something which is seen ‘through’ not ‘at’.

Theoretical reference points include Heidegger and Merleau Ponty, in terms of how the photographic image becomes revealed through the technology and how much Jo is involved in capturing this. Jo has also looked at Sujimoto’s seascapes, which there is not much visual information, but enough.

Paul's presentation:

Paul started by saying that all his work is driven from his practice, which is seen as including writing, curatorial work and a range of other creative activities. Drawing has always been central to Paul's practice; He works in sketchbooks and on paper all the time and sees this as a liberating way to get ideas down. Drawing is also taken into his print and sculptural works.

Paul talked about an early period in which he wanted to strip down his practice. He went to Madrid for 3 months with a drawing box and nothing else – a purifying experience! Paul showed a drawing from this time which precluded his interest in trying to depict a life through drawing.

The interconnectivity of everything is a common theme for Paul, the figure is absent in most work, but it is the figure as present that he is trying to describe.

In his early printed work Paul used a computer to make stencils which were turned into photo etches – he was interested in weaving these different material elements together.

He showed a project ‘With the melting of the snows’ which comprised a bookwork and a sculptural installation. Paul noted that as an artist you have to find a way of delineating the necessary time, space and energy to create your work – calling something a project helps him to do this! The project came out of listening to a radio programme narrated by Martin Bell. Paul wrote to the BBC for a transcript, as he wanted to work from it. He made an artists book for an Imperial War Museum show about war correspondence. He wanted to create a narrative through this, but was aware of ‘not having been there’ – he noted that we can only make statements where the imagination allows for empathy.

Ch 1: Images taken in Ljubljana were manipulated with a computer. A the opening of the biennale it was harrowing to realise he was so near a war zone.

Ch 2: Included reconstructions of what he imagined would be found in an abandoned landscape. Objects were made in wax that may have been included in such a landscape.

Chap 3: Images of suits were taken in Moss Bros; They seemed like the equivalent of mausoleums and the dead.

In the final installation, bronze objects were shown with the book in foreground, which created an object landscape in background. Objects were seen as 3d drawings.

Paul talked about a curatorial project, 'Morandi’s Legacy: Influences on British Art'. Paul fell in love with Morandi at college; 30 years later he wanted to work out why this person’s work has had such an impact. The Estorick collection let him curate a show in which he set key works by Morandi against British artists who explored similar ideas. Morandi collected objects, then painted them. Michael Craig Martin had a virtual library of drawings which would be reconfigured – the juxtaposition of Morandi's and Craig Martin's works showed a technological distance but a methodological similarity. Paul wanted to see for one moment if he could hang on the same wall as Morandi and not fall off!

Another project was 'I called while you were out' at Kettle’s Yard. The house at Kettle's Yard contains objects which are placed with incredible care and are fixed to create new meanings – The house is an aesthetic experience – stripped of domestic workings, and is about merging art and life. On a residency there, Paul collected data by drawing, observing, talking to the owners etc. He made objects in response to the space, and wanted to respect the spirit of the house. He referred to this as an ethical question – he wanted to work with the established aesthetic.

Showing some recent images Paul talked about how our lives are made up of all the tiny bits – he is interested in the way it all fits together. His recent prints demand some effort from the observer to disregard the background to see the foreground and vice versa. You have to conceptually construct the image…

The group discussed Paul Jo's work, and several questions were posed:

Sam noted that Paul and Jo's practices both have a measure of erasure or absence. He asked whether Paul's work has autobiographical element, which was missing from his talk? Paul responded that his generation was brought up under the shadow of war, and that there was uncertainty in the 1950s about war events repeating themselves. Elizabeth noted there is a theory that we become obsessed with work made in the era when we were born. This is to do with a fascination of the time before we existed. Jo noted that all her titles are in German - her Grandma is German so she grew up with this language – one of the things Jo finds easily sways you is your history – it affects her work as a visual artist.

Sam noted that there is an emotional sub layer in us that perhaps shows up in our overall bodies of work…

There was discussion about the artists' 'right' to deal with certain subjects, one participant (name unknown) spoke about her own background, with German, Serbian & Bosnian heritage. She also questions whether she has a ‘right’ to deal with some subjects – how far can you abstract things without people feeling offended? She suggested that maybe it’s easier if you’re NOT personally involved…

Paul doesn’t see himself as a ‘witness’, but noted that the artist's imagination is one of the most valuable commodities we bring to communities – that you can think out of your personal position by trying to make equivalents to something.

It was suggested Jo look at the 1970s structuralist film – ‘Film with Dust Particles, Sprocket Holes etc’ (name uncertain)

Elizabeth referenced Helen Chadwick's viral landscapes as an important precedent, and asked whether Jo has ever tried working with negatives or moving images. She has, but the work is focused for now on the still image and how the still can evoke more – an absence of visual information sparks imagination.

Paul noted that he and Jo are both interested in messing up the digital bit. It’s not about the language of the digital – they are working from the photographic end, and are interested in looking back and getting some of the mess in – making it physical. Messing with it and therefore possessing it.

Paul finds it hard to commit to digital images because there are so many of them; prints need to be committed to in a different way. They will not keep.

Sam asked where the digital leaves us as image makers? He’s afraid of his images being like a grain of sand in a desert, and notes that we may be at risk of forgetting how to look at things.

Angela asked about the idea of hovering with reference to Paul's sculpture of a hot water bottle in the Kettle's Yard project – Is it to do with the object standing for the self? Robert Vishna?

Paul is interested in making things about absence through a creative presence – he is interested in the spaces in between things. Morandi’s contribution was the metaphysical proposition that the space around something is as important as the thing itself. For Paul, nothingness is a place for enlightenment – the numinous… for him Jo's images meditate on what it is to be alive.

Elizabeth noted that in the later work, the portraits of people who aren’t there, there is a sense of depersonalisation – she asked how this works for Paul? Paul has become more interested in getting away from being expressionistic – he feels ludicrous if he tries to be Pollock, but rather wants to create objects so he can deign then, join them together. He’s interested in the kinds of things you share your life with – your razor, your comb, which accrue meaning because they help you through life.

Paul noted that as artists we propose a very different value system to the capitalist world – we ascribe value to things that function for us. We demonstrate a relationship with everyday things which we transform to create meaning. Objects are triggers to meaning for him.