Trapped in my painting
Colliding the visual narrative - embedding a video in my painting
How quickly 2 weeks has come around since my last post, and I’m at my writing desk again. The end of June is always a busy time, the start of summer, the intense heat sets in, beach babes throng in thongs, and the air-con proves its worth.
It’s also a deadline for Italian residents to get their tax returns filed for the previous year and first payment made by June 30th. Italian accountants are working overtime attempting to interpret reams and reams of updated tax laws, and everything is left to the last minute. So, this last couple of weeks has seen me deep diving into last year’s financial records, which distracts me too much from my art and, instead of creative painting, I excel in creative accounting. And, while reflecting on why my spreadsheet is malfunctioning yet again, my thoughts stray back 8 years, when I’d sit for hours with my accountant in his dingy office, sweltering at 35°C, with a small fan attempting to shift a static block of air, attempting to communicate in my very very bad Italian, and him in his very very bad English, by way of some very dodgy broken French on both our parts. We spent hours poring over figures. I had a sense of humour failure too many times than I’d like to recall. Over time it’s become a lot easier, and for this year it’s all done and dusted - phew 😊.
My painting practice continues on a couple of fronts. My current series is progressing well. The image below is a painting from the series which is showing some promise. It’s still in-progress, but I’m letting it rest awhile - it’s a chance for it to breath and to tell me how it wants to develop.
A crazy idea I’ve been developing these past weeks is to explore ideas of changing the perception of space within a painting by using a video embedded into the painting surface. This is pure experimental work at the moment, but I like the possibilities of creating a dialogue between the physical painting (with its layers of physical texture) and that of moving image. The video below (38 seconds) shows my first experiment work called Trapped in my Painting.
Yes, there’s a humorous element to this work, but you can get an idea where this might be leading: to have an element of a painting which moves. It could be an instantaneous quick movement, or something moving imperceptibly slowly over an extended time. It may be an element which proclaims a message, or a very passive elemental change. It could recur with regularity, or at a random frequency. There are many questions to be answered in developing this idea, and I’ll be sure to keep you updated.
About me
My name is David Bell and I’m an artist living in Sanremo, Italy. I write this blog for my band of supporters, giving an insight to my art and life generally living on the beautiful Riviera of Flowers.
Ciao4now … alla prossima.
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this is enchanting!
and...
has for me an element
of
collective (un)conscious
.
.
.
This is very unsettling(but cool too).....and I find there is an element of compulsion to watch it over to see if you do anything different even though you know you won't. This idea is growing I think!