Monday 25th January
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Tuesday 26th January
I was feeling very overwhelmed working from home, as all "work" is within the confines of my room, and sometimes it's hard for me to separate them. Making art is one of many options for things to do, and there are times where I struggle to prioritise it. When I would go to the kitchen to cook/bake, it seemed like I was engaging in an activity completely separate to my art, though it didn't feel that way. I felt like I was making art when I was cooking and baking, but didn't know how to incorporate it into my work. One afternoon, I left my room with paints and paper in hands and went to the kitchen. Then, using the limited materials I had, I tried to make art.
I'd recently learned how to make jollof rice properly, and drew a lot of inspiration from it. I didn't have any brushes, so I painted by dragging the paint tube, facing down, on the page. I'm pleased with the spontaneity of the works produces on this day, the experimental nature and the resourcefulness. All of these works were new to me, but the change in location and limited tools acted as very useful constraints in the generation of work.
Wednesday 27th January
I really enjoyed continuing with the "my vicinity" series and jollof rice paintings. I feel like they're very honest and void of the need to impress - I'm just making work. I so greatly desire a successful art career, and sometimes this causes me to over-assess my work before presenting it to others: is it impressive enough; is it original; is it presented perfectly...etc. Here, it's just my art. In addition, it's an honest depiction and documentation of my environment, unfiltered. There are lots of things around me, and I conveyed them without really thinking about it. This was completely for me; to satisfy my present self in the present moment. Normally I try to satisfy my present self and hopefully my future self by creating work that I think will kick-off my career.
Here, on this day, I was too tired, too busy, too overwhelmed with work to think about that. I just wanted to make work, because I enjoyed it. I enjoy it so much that I'd like to do it full-time as a career, but I really need to take the pressure off myself and stop making work to impress others, because I'm pleased with the work I make for myself. And it's this work that I need to share with others. I give from myself to others; I don't/shouldn't give to others, then to myself.
Thursday 28th January
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Friday 29th January
These paintings were again made in the kitchen, after breakfast and during a Critical Studies lecture. I reached for the scissors and just worked without thinking, That's how the scribble drawings came about. This was me being playful again. I drew around them (like I was draw around my hand when I was younger) then did it two more times. After that, I shaded alternate segments, connecting the playful actions to the scribble drawings.
Playing isn't something that requires second thought, and I'm fortunate that my form of play results in art being created. It's only when I'm reflecting that I become aware of this though, and I feel like it is an idea that I should lean into more.
The two pink paintings are imprints of the juice of the berries I ate on my plate. Along with my cutlery. I felt like by pressing a sheet of paper on my plate, I could make a painting. A sticky painting, but still work. I feel like in this lockdown, working-from-home period, my subconscious aim is to produce at least one piece of work. My primary means is through acrylic on canvas, but there are times where the motivation isn't there. At times, I find it hard to bring myself to set up my space, lay out my paints and work, hence I don't. I'm finding that I'm learning and discovering new ways to accomplish the bare-minimum; that's not to say the methods are inferior or insignificant, they're just new. They're more basic; methods like this require the taking of smaller and fewer steps to get to my goal. Prior to the creation of these new works using these methods, the means to creating works required larger, steeper steps.
In these unprecedented times, I'm seeing that it takes a lot of motivation to take these large, steep steps and it's not that I don't want to make art, it's that I don't have as much energy to exert to make art -- in the way that I'm used to. And that's okay. Thankfully, I'm finding new, easier ways to make art that are just as stimulating; there's also the added benefit of the works being completely unexpected and unplanned.
The remaining paintings are portraits of what I was seeing in my washing machine. The washing machine was to my left, so I was painting while the clothes were spinning, trying to convey a sense of motion. The third is my favourite, and I would like to try this again on a larger scale, making use of the gloss medium I used when creating it. The last two didn't look pleasant, so I scraped over them horizontally and vertically using the end of a tube of paint. To me they were failures, and in the spirit of not wanting to rest in that state, I felt like I had to do something about it, otherwise it would remain that way.
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