Works on VIDEO
At Hand is a video that celebrates the practice of painting. The video uses photographed
moments, or stages, of a canvas, to reflect the many decisions the artist makes as they work.
The camera is locked down before the canvas and single photographs are taken after various changes have been made. These changes reflect the myriad of passing thoughts, ideas, and emotions of the artist as they live with and work the piece. The photographs document this painting practice of a week’s time.
It’s a time-based, time compressing piece. Thoughts, events,
feelings, meals and conversations affected the decisions of each painting session. Some
images were intended, prompted by an idea or image in my head, but other images were “found” - like seeing a face in the clouds (pareidolia) and then making marks to bring these
images out. Other images came from sudden strokes that changed the seeming trajectory,
along with the randomness of paint drippings or marks made with eyes closed. Art is not only
about the intended image, as non-artists often think - they are the results of this kind of play and working with “happy accidents.”
The video was constructed to work as video art to be displayed in public as viewers pass
through a space or viewed with sound in a video screening situation. The video can be played
with the sound or without it. The sound design was based on capturing a sense of the
environments we find ourselves in, whether social, industrial, or natural.
I say that At Hand is a celebration of painting practice, not necessarily process. Although it
reflects on process, process implies a finished product. Here, there is no one intended image or idea. There is the movement of changing images and ideas. A sort of meditation where
thoughts and feelings come and go. It is a reflection on how art comes from not only the human experience but from the human living in space and in time.