Body and Soul

These could by described as photographic drawings; a collaboration between Croix Gagnon and Frank Schott. To create these images the image sequence of the Visual Human Project played on the screen of a laptop while being photographed. This is achieved by extending the exposure time of the photograph to give them time to move the laptop around the picture plain.

The image becomes stretched or condensed during the photograph through the movements of the artist. Here it captures a wispy free form of the body as it is fluidly and seems to softly reconstruct the body from head to toe.  I am guessing they saw or proposed the outcome and persisted with it, as it developed they then decided upon the backgrounds and how they wanted the images to be dictated; to this idea of making a soul/ghost- like cliche from the raw bodily data of the Visible Human Project as a good crossover of this long debated philosophical argument, between tangible and ephemeral, body and soul.

http://www.project1231.com/#1196390/Process

I saw your body in four halves

Absolutely beautiful illustrations of the cross section of the body by Christian Wilhelm Braune (1831 - 1897). These soft detailed drawings briefly distract me from the thought that it must have been quite a feat to saw this body flat down the Saggital plane of the body as they did. This was in order to study the centre(s) of gravity upon the human body; I also recall reading that prints would then be made of its basic contours to aid the drawing by placing the paper on the freshly cut plane.

Maximilian Toth painting or is it drawing?

These striking scenarios are produced by the young-ish American artist Maximilian Toth (not to mention a great ‘artist’ name, no?). He depicts his scenarios predominantly in white on black- producing the strong blackboard (or even inverted)-like images. The methods he uses seem to be a very natural crossing between drawing and painting- whereby smudging and smearing work into the contrasts of shadow and depth.. not to mention oils are used in some of them more obviously in some than others.

For myself, these dark spaces inhabited by the characters seem to exhibit an exercise of the memory -far more than some of the wispy paintings I see who’s main claim is commonly to be about ‘memory’. Memory isn’t necessarily dreamy, they can be extraordinarily vivid, yet nonlinear and distorted far more than we can usually ever find out.

Here is a link to an interview with the artist: http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/conversations/2010-01-22/maximilian-toth

Thom Puckey sculptures

Thom Puckey has been consistently sculpting since he graduated in the 70′s. Progressing with his practice steadily over the years. His website not only represents his works but also show the processes of sculpting his ambitious pieces.

Gary Hume is gorgeous

I like the integrity I have witnessed with Gary Hume. As well as the beautiful simply of his methods of painting, straight forward, relying on image making and blocks of colour. Usually painting in oil gloss on aluminium, with the association of ‘beauty’ (a dangerous word in contemporary art) always nearby.

 Water Painting (1998)

He made a name for himself while young, while the YBA’s (Young British Artists) were ‘it’. This name he made for himself was through his ‘door’ paintings. I recall seeing an interview him years ago saying how he came to a point he couldn’t paint another one or he’d go mad. So in his change over to what he is still doing now- he was swiftly dropped by his gallery, who seemed much happier for him to go mad, as long as it sold paintings. His view was that he’d been poor before- so he could do it again (that won me over). I guess he had faith on what he was working on, and what he felt he could do.

 Twins (2006)

Widow (1997)

Tree Conundrum drawing

The simple field inspired ‘conundrum’ belongs to the beauty in the altered perception of foreground versus background in what can be achieved in two-dimensional spaces. This isn’t set  to blow anyone’s mind with boggling perceptive distortions.. but this stands to me as a charming preliminary sketchbook sketch to a larger scale ink drawing in progress.

The painter Lara Viana

The painter Lara Viana is a new and exciting discovery for me. Instantly appealing painterly thin brush strokes she incorporates in each canvas seem to strangely melt into one another, while at the same time display a mysterious depth. She has clearly found an alchemy for herself which opens up a freedom to execute the painting of objects without a hint of realism. Viana seems to have the very enviable position of making small works which draw you in and look as if they are made loosely and quickly.. not unlike a masters oil sketch.

Lara Viana was born in  Brazil. She studied at the Royal College of Art, London. She has taken part in numerous prestigious exhibitions and publications.

'Geyser'.

Continuing the medical influenced drawings. 

The series is accumulating with fictional texts to traverse through the sea of potential medical experimentations. 

The patient will outlive the doctor

In parts this experimentation has gone too far. In parts the patient can heckle his doctor. In parts and a multitude of places my beauty is whole: in the sun, in the sunny forest, in the sunny forest with love.

In parts on a table, realisations come with the full works: a pure radiant light and a voice to triumphantly announce from every angle a sincere message of death and life. The base concrete knowingness of death comes in pulses. But life cannot resume with this knowledge and routes are chosen.

The Meta-Medical Problem

Here is an extract from an artistic project in progress. In this case, I can add scope by entering text alongside the extra-ordinary illustrative situations. To etch out these thoughts as I would a drawing or sketch. Descriptive and fictive devices provide a freedom while still remaining a recognizable formal framework. Every drawing, sculpture, painting and so on enter to this, becoming relevant toward this momentum, no matter how minuscule the entry may at first seem. Beyond the sum of its (/my) parts.

(P) Doctor: “Patient Behaviour”.

Patients with terminal conditions display many different behavioural patterns. Not all are negative, many patients exhibit extraordinary new attempts at friendship, enticing new friends and reuniting old ties, freshening up on moist reconciliation. The doctor restrained himself from noting: so that more people show up at the funeral.

~

The patient seems to want to tell someone something

The patient naturally fights and revels in wanting to tell someone, yet this proves the hardest transition to make emotionally. Intellectually difficult emotions. The words are predictable, the order of them is not. The sympathetic ear hears these difficult words, the impossible words nonetheless, (p) unsatisfied with the words changes their order and repeats; 1. catastrophic emotion hinders any further access to the true thoughts, this will be the first time time is wasted. This is another version of the mini-death, a relief ultimately played out as a disappointment to have been excreted out this mouth at all.

Prescription to situation:

(P) holds onto tension,

Tension and the life force are connected,

Either consciously or unconsciously,

Must be taken four times a day?

Fatigue ensues.

Stop the Operation!

Stop That Bleeding! Whenever you encounter massive bleeding, the first thing to remember is its not your blood.' This is one of many unexpected phrases I found within a medical book on traumatic surgery. The book is geared towards teaching the surgeon to deal with intense and unpredictable situations.  They are encountering multiple wounds, a lot of blood, hidden ruptures.. all at once with little time to spare, while mobilizing the team and formulated decisions to be put into action. The surprises come with the  writing style in the medical journal here - I am imagining most of you, like me do not read surgical textbooks all that often..

'Bleeding control is not about mastering some cool moves'.

'Don't fiddle - be a rock.'

‘Opening Pandora’s Box: Think twice (and possibly three times) before deciding to mobilize the liver in a patient with thoraco-abdominal injury. You may be blowing the lid off Pandora’s box. (…) If indeed you are dealing with a contained retrohepatic caval injury, you will lose containment, converting the situation into uncontrolled venous hemorrhage. Very rapidly you will find yourself trying to squeeze the toothpaste back in the tube.’

‘Every bullet tells a story’: ‘You maybe surprised to learn that the trajectory of the bullet can help you make an early decisions to bail out.’

The medical illustrations alongside the botanical illustrations is the source material for these drawings.

Where is your source material? Whether it is in life or in death.

The initial start of an art work is often in the route of the work, of its subject. Such as here, in these anatomical textbooks concerning the area I think about with an anthropomorphic take on the natural world- namely, that of human and/or ‘its’ potential manipulations on the body.. These inspirations converted into action range from mere interests, to the undeniable ideas which simply have to attempted. It is funny that often it doesn’t matter what anyone says to you about an idea, if you really want it, or it really hits home within you- you are going to make it. These drawings are in a roundabout way very personal to me, though they continue the somewhat fantastical-medical related themes in my work, they touch upon my very current brush with a premature bought on the surgical table.