Opinion

THE CULT OF THE NEW AND THE OBSESSION WITH NOVELTY

Much has been written about the idea of originality in art but in the end just what does ‘originality’ mean? Before the 20th century it wasn’t a term much considered. Artist studios were places where apprentices went to learn from the master and with the advent of Art Schools, nothing much changed. The cult of originality is a 20th century obsession and yet it ignores or neglects that much great art was produced within the western tradition using traditional techniques.

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The Proustian Process

The Proustian Process

The equivalent of Proust’s cahiers are my note and sketchbooks. I record, interpret and examine continually both as a painter and a writer.

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IS IT MY MEMORY OR ONE THAT I APPROPRIATED?

Memory is defined in the dictionary as ‘the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, or of recalling or recognising previous experiences’. How that process works is still a mystery as is why some impressions are registered and retained and others are not. Recollection is another matter. Having something ‘on the tip of your tongue’ is a common phenomenon. What eventually brings it to mind? Synaptic association?

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ART, THE MEASURE OF CIVILISATION

The 80s is forever condemned to being defined by the gaudy concoctions of Jeff Koons and the 90s by a shark in formaldehyde and the soulless reconstructed planes of Keiffer. Even now some two decades later, it seems as though art and artists were raking over the corpse of civilisation rather than defining it.

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