What am I looking at?

An interrogation of Helen Donnelly’s New Work by Simon Farid

What am I looking at? Is it about space? About eyes; about seeing. Looking. Essentially, I’m looking at a flat plane. On the canvas, definitely yes. In the room in Queen St, maybe less so. But is it flat? My eyes say no. It moves; shapes fall in. I duck out of the way as a cube falls onto my foot. Would I call this illusion? The paintings are still. It’s my eyes that move them. In fact, it’s my eyes that are moving. Darting around the plane, different shapes emerge and recede. I’m engaged in the painting process itself, that of adding and subtracting, moving shapes and colours around the canvas, finding my own conclusion.

What am I looking at? Is it about the space? The approach to Queen St must be different. Now we have an actual three-dimensional space to negotiate. I no longer have a single viewpoint. I didn’t before; my eyes were in constant motion. But now, my body is complicit too. All around the room, different elements emerge. Similar shapes link to each other, there is a rhythm a composition. My body moves with the rhythm. I am aware of myself, my body and the work. The room reveals itself to me too, through the work. Elements of the room are picked out and articulated. I am not looking at the work as such; I am in negotiation with it. Is that what relational aesthetics means? Is there an optimum place? I don’t see it. Sometimes its here. But then that line works better when I’m over there. Like on the canvas, where my eye rests for a time, I find my body pausing, and then moving on.

Is it about place? I don’t mean where I place myself, although that is obviously a concern. But rather, is this about Scarborough? About the street, about what the eye takes in every day. We are consumers, yes; consumption is the order of the time. But De Certeau taught me that it’s how you use this that matters. Hijack things; take what you need, be a tactician. Is this Helen’s process? I see the colours of the Boyes sign, the blues of the sea, shapes of rooftops from the old town. Is she using them for her own ends? I wouldn’t call this representation; she isn’t re-presenting Scarborough for me to see. But the colours do contextualise it; no work is an island. There is something of the same visual economy here. Maybe this is what the work is about, the reason things are working is because I have seen them before. The reason that triangle falls in, is because my eyes have seen countless rooftops. The work doesn’t finish at the entrance to the gallery, rather it extends out, all over Scarborough, mapping the spaces. The work is a part of Scarborough after all, the same as everything else. But there are rooftops everywhere. It is about a place, this place, yes, but further, it’s about every place. About seeing, about building. Rather than trying to reduce it, maybe I should go with it?

Is it about colour then? Not just in terms of what I’m used to, but how colour itself works. Maybe it’s a flaw in me, that my eyes read shadows in certain ways. My mind knows that cube in the corner is painted on the wall, but the colours trick me. I could have sworn that cube was floating just then, but soon it is gone again, I see it for what it really is. What is it really? But it’s not just about shadows, as I look around the room all I see is dictated by colour. I see a muddy grey, is that right? Should it be there? I wouldn’t have thought so, but it feels justified by that pink next to it. The colours aren’t pleasing in themselves, but what does that mean? Rather I am struck by contradictions, I expect a solid green and get a pastel green. It plays with the solid colours of the tape. The colours are positive decisions, never a stock grey, but one made, mixed by the artist to reveal many colours with it. Each colour shows a considered positive commitment. They question one another, and again I am left with questions.

But maybe it’s about time? Seeing the work, I find myself looking at visual records. There is a strong element of performance in them; such is the state that painting is in now. I cannot look at the wall without seeing Helen there, on a ladder taping the wall. The layering reveals this to us, that we are looking at a passage of time, a record of labour, intellect, invention and play. The room reveals elements that have been deleted, though their trace remains; Helen isn’t in the business of deceiving us. Deleted is the right word, as one sees a digital influence in them. The hard lines and angles not only invoke types of building, but also a relatively new type of seeing, indeed a new type of form, that introduced in the digital age. Blocks are what the world is made of now, the literal cellular age that Baudrillard predicted, and this is present in the process witnessed on the canvas and the wall.

At times I feel I’m looking at a screen. This is how these elements have been put together. The mapping function on Photoshop, indeed the use of photography in general, and photocopies. All are used, and the time taken with this repetition, this collage, both in planning on paper and execution on the canvas and wall, are all visible. Helen may produce illusion, but she does not hide her process; there is no need. A veil isn’t pulled over our eyes; rather we are present throughout, from the work’s beginning till now. I don’t say end, as this work, with its play and improvisation, may not have an end point. There is no reason why they should finish now. Maybe they should be looked at as evolving objects (and in the case of the Queen St room, situations), with which we are able to spend some time with, be a part of, rather than paintings for consumption in the traditional sense. These works are of their time, and about time.

Maybe the work is about size? In seeing the difference between the works on canvas and the work in Queen St I am struck by scale. On the canvas, I am looking into something, something bound and delimited by the edge of the plane. Again I am reminded of a computer screen; indeed we see influence working the other way here, the computer screen designed by the painter. But this limit is immediately brought into sight once I step into Queen St and see the painting released, the elements no longer restricted as such, rather they are free to interrogate the whole room. They fly not only sideways, but out too; we are no longer in the realm of two dimensions; they emerge out onto the ceilings and the floor; they interact with the already present architecture. They can grow in size; a block that would have dominated a canvas is but a small element in Queen St. We see the limits of a canvas. This is an investigation of painting, rather than a critique. The elements achieve what they wish on the canvas. When released, they seem freer, but retain the same motives and intentions.

And so is this about art? Ways of looking keep being raised, and so, logically, I must follow this through to that most instructive way of looking; that of the gallery. In the white box of Crescent Arts, I see paintings on canvases, each separate, separated by space around them, that white space I am taught to regard as neutral. They are like single figure skaters, surrounded by white ice. I’m looking at the skaters, not the ice, this follows, yes? Again in Queen St, we are released from such modes. The white of the walls, which I assume is an undercoating, present before Helen, is as much a part of the work as that paint and tape applied to it. The colours work with the white, they cannot we viewed as if the white isn’t there. The white is no void here. Where does this leave our neutral white box?

 

Or is the work about risk? I see it within the work; the gamble on taking on too much, on being too expansive. Of moving away from landscape to geometric abstraction. Of leaving the canvas and the gallery. Of working in new materials, of work being in flux, changing and rarely finished. For me, I see this as a part of the process, as to have such a fluid, playful process necessitates such risk. And with risk may come failure. There may be weaker elements, areas that don’t sit well or just don’t feel right. This is part of the viewers’ role in looking. It may be just for me to isolate elements that please me, as Helen would do whilst constructing the work. In the end I am struck by the braveness and ambition in this work. Does it try to do too much? Is this a flaw?

So, what am I looking at? I’m looking at painting, at process, at time, at risk, at scale, at art, at colour, line and composition. But most of all, I’m looking at questions.

Simon Farid 2010

Simon Farid is a resident artist at Crescent Arts and a recent graduate from Central St.Martins School of Art, London.

 

Exhibition at Crescent Artspace & Crescent Artstudios
Saturday 8th May 2010 – Satuday 12th June 2010
More details