Reboot

 

Gosh it’s good to be making work again! Since finishing at GSA two years ago, my studio practice had been pushed under by the need to find a job and moving home.

Being here now on this residency is great fun,  I get to pick up my practice again, unpacking my ‘studio essentials’ box, opening notebooks again, remembering that dance music station that would set the mood for making work. Stretching the art making muscle in my brain again. Remembering that I was taught by Micky Donnelly to think visually, that words and theory are secondary to the art object, that everything is in the doing.

First thing I did this week in St Augustine’s was open up the windows here, and let the room breathe, let the outside in. My work until now grew from my interest in Botany and the protocols used by science to name and order. I would make work that aimed to upset my botanical training in taxonomy. Was I trying to undermine my previous academic persona?  Often, in my art there was little connection between what I thought I was doing, and the work that actually appeared.  A dissonance between the research and the output. When the work came out, an interest in colour often overrode any profound thinkings I thought I was having. I was happiest with the work made when my subconscious and intuition were queen.

So, here I restart, and I am very thankful for this opportunity to get back into my practice.