Conundrums

 

I've been sitting with the dirt, on the dirt, in the dirt. Trying to dissolve into the land, much like the detritus of human industry. I've been noticing more and more how our discarded lands and trash slowly become absorbed, colonised and recycled in the relentless machine of life. Everything decays and returns to the dust it was made from, no matter what the matter, even if it is slow to degrade, degrade it eventually will into constituents that reform and recreate long long after we are gone.

I've always felt contained within the label of 'working class'. I have worked in adequately paid work all my life until recent retirement and illness. During those working years I continued to make drawings and writings mainly in my diaries, from which I extracted bits and pieces every now and then to turn into artworks.

But why does a human make stuff ? What is the point of picking up stones, twigs, shells, leaves, bats, bees etc and incorporating them into collages ? What is this weird mystery of a process ? And does the awkwardness of the work made preclude the title 'artist' ?

I'm asking myself these questions because I've found it very difficult to break into the 'art world'.

I've applied for all sorts of things from residencies to gallery representation with very little success. I did my MA as a route back into the rare atmosphere of exploration, and it was wonderful, but two years on and I'm back beavering away in my studio making stuff. I'm too old and tired for all the chasing that seems to be required. It takes all the energy away from making and seeing.

I make things, and watch things and live the wind and rain, coal tips and quarries. I make things from discarded things, old frames, old materials that I've had for years and mix them up with plaster drawings/paintings all done usually while listening to music. Perhaps they are too problematic, too fragile?

I'm trying to ask questions of the land we have lost connection with. I'm trying to hug her/they/them.

Tareni tip as a representation of under and over and all life in between

My process is slow, contemplative and perhaps a bit strange. I'm trying to draw you in to what's beneath the surface of everything, I'm trying to get closer and closer with each thing I make, and, and it will all fragment easily and return to its constituent parts, just like me!

Post Script : I've had some work accepted in two exhibitions next month, which has lifted me out of that horrible loop of self doubt and imposter syndrome that so many of us feel. Thank you to the selectors at Mission Gallery Swansea and Y Gaer Brecon. This is a lesson for all of us artists, it is true that just because your work isn't selected doesn't mean you are no good ! Keep going !

Paul