Seeing... Not looking Claire Manicom 201205064 University of Johannesburg Faculty of Visual Art
Table of Contents Artist’s statement 1 Trawlers 3 Peripheral Vision 7 Forest For The Trees 13 Chaos, Clutter, Junk, Mess 19 Busy Spaces 25 Mislabeled Inspiration 31 Undefined Script 37 Gaurdians of residue 41 Acknowledgments 47 Artist’s Resume 49
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StAartteimste’snt I sometimes struggle to say what I mean. To transfer the thoughts to a page. My art is an extension of a stream of consciousness that runs through my mind. A ribbon of moments and observations that come from thousands places at once, cluttered and tangled, but clear and concise at the same time. My art is about showing people what I see. What others only look at. The wonderful waylaid moments set a drift for my trawler to catch, as my lens focuses beyond the its peripheral blinkers that block out so much potential. To explore instances in the forests of lost moments and remember the untold stories of creative spaces. To indulge the chaos and capture a moment in the wonderful stream of consciousness that always flows through my head. To put it down into some form of language no one will understand, while they’re watched over by the sacred guardians of “unknowledge”, the hadedas of this City of Gold who watch of the potential trapped in the periphery. 1
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Trawlers Through The Looking Glass, Under The Rainbow. I think of my creative process as being like a trawler – a fishing boat that extends its large net into the ocean and indiscriminately catches everything from schools of sardines to unfortunate sea turtles. We also trawl through libraries, the Internet, and our own experiences as we compose our work, always in search of a specific quarry and discarding the rest. While I trawl through the visual landscape I try not to discriminate different concepts and find some kind of value in everything I catch. I am sometimes shunned for my broad approach, but when I focus my lens on the periphery I am transported through the looking glass to my own world where I can find the beauty under the rainbow. 3
Trawlers , Through The Looking Glass Charcoal, spraypaint, & masking tape 2018 180X200cm 4
Trawlers , Under The Rainbow Charcoal, spraypaint, & masking tape2018 2018 180X200cm 5
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OPenreip&hTerwaol Vision This work is an extension of The Trawler that is meant to remind the viewer that there is a wider world beyond the focus of a lens. Because so many objects caught in the trawlers’ nets are not necessarily items of interest – like a boring chapter in a book, or a misunderstood meme – we only focus on getting the specific things we want. These ignored items are pushed to the peripheries of our minds, forever trapped at the edge of our vision, discarded like the sides of the body cut out from a head shot. I identify with these waylaid moments and objects, and I often attempt to use my work to expand on them; to get people to notice the unnoticed. 7
Peripheral Vision, One Characoal, spraypaint, and masking tape 2018 700cm X 250cm 8
Peripheral Vision, Two Characoal, spraypaint, and masking tape 2018 700cm X 250cm 9
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Forest For The Trees Stone, Steel, & Sea Trees In this world overwhelmed by visual imagery, this forest of chaos, we lose the beauty of the individual trees within the whole. These works capture specific moments in time, three trees in unconventional places. The Sea Tree, Stone Tree, and Steel Tree are specific moments I chose to illustrate arbitrarily. There importance comes from the fact that I have chosen them from the many other possible moments available to me. Our personal choice is important when shifting through and selecting the instants we have gathered throughout time and my choice links these images, showing how even separate ideas can be linked by an individuals imagination. 13
(Left) Forest For The Trees, Stone Tree Soft Pastels 2018 50X200cm (Close Right) Forest For The Trees, Sea Tree Soft Pastels 2018 50X200cm (Far right) Forest For The Trees, Steel Soft Pastel 2018 50X200cm 14
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MCheasoss, Clutter, Junk, One & Two The prints are made from the discarded residue of all the precious projects I undertook while at UJ. They have gathered here like dust on a shelf in a studio. I want the viewer to enter my space of chaos and clutter and open their minds to this realm of infinite possibility. This realm is guarded hadeda, the cousins of the sacred ibis (the Egyptian god of knowledge and bringer of the inundation of the Nile, the rains which brought life to the desert). The hadeda is thus the god of “unknowledge”, of the waylaid mess we have discarded and think if as worthless. But I see the potential of their realm and want to bring its beauty from the periphery into clear sight. 19
Chaos, Clutter, Junk, Mess one Print making residue and mono-types 2018 50X200cm 20
Chaos, Clutter, Junk, Mess Two Print making residue and mono-types 2018 50X200cm 21
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Busy Spaces Moments of inspiration, and the act and space of making, are often lost to the process. The residue of the knowledge sinking into our art but forgotten in the end product. This series of prints, inspired by Ayanda’s story, illuminates the chaos within a creative space and how that space informs the artist. The metaphor of this space is unfocused, lost in the words of an untold story. Abandoned as a useless moment in the blinkered vision of others, it is the focus of my lens. In my eyes the residue of this scene binds my art, our art, together through the symbols of our shared studio, the realm of discarded beauty where we observe the world from. 25
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(left) Busy spaces , Individual Print Lino print 2018 100cm X 250cm (Above) Busy Spaces , Falling Label Installation Lino print with printing residue labels 2018 700cm X 250cm 27
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IMnissplairbaetlieodn In my mind there is a flowing ribbon of images and moments moving through time. A continuous line of arbitrary instances made up of the waylaid potential of past and abandoned projects. Defined on labels and destined to be filed randomly in the infinite recesses of lost recesses of my imagination, I have decided to suspend the process and allow these moments to flow through and above my works. Forever moving upward, yet suspended in time, these labels represent the waylaid moments of the past transforming into the art of the future. 31
(above and left) Mislabeled Inspiration Printing residue 2018 100cm X 250cm 32
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Undefined Script The stream of consciousness that flows through my mind is made up of a structure of words that I struggle to express clearly. It shapes itself into a language that comes out as a cluttered mess and is often unapprecieated. This piece represents the frustration I fell when I try to express the beauty and potential I see by just using words. These shapes and labels are the jumbled hieroglyphics on the temple of the guardians of the sacred refuse. 37
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(left and bottom) Undefined Script Printing residue 2018 100cm X 250cm 39
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Gaurdians of residue The statues of hadedas that guard over my work are the cousins of the sacred ibis. Instead of lauding over knowledge, they protect the discarded “unknowledge” of our waylaid thoughts. They are part of the left over waste from the trawlers’ process. They are creatures that have been shaped from the biome they come from: the dirty water holes of the City of Johannesburg, the suburban gardens where they are seen as a nuisance and the places where their innate beauty is ignored. They are trash made beautiful, neglect turned to art, the protectors of the residue which has so much potential and which I hope I have elevated to their rightful place. 41
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(left) Busy spaces , Individual Print studio waste, clay and paperpulp 2018 100cm X 250cm (Above) Busy spaces , falling lable instalation Lino print with Printing Residue lables 2018 700cm X 250cm 43
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