“alright for someone who can hang the absurd on their wall”.
By one of life’s examples of serendipity, whilst working on the previous drawing of the pixellated, ‘gridded’ faces & being reminded, naturally, of Chuck Close’s portraiture, habitually employing such a device however much his style might have developed over his career through both intention & force of circumstance, there occurred in the print media a feature on photographic portraits, illustrated with, amongst other examples, one of Close’s daguerreotype images of Philip Glass.
This, obviously, with its direct reference to an artist who might be regarded as one of the masters of both photorealism & the practice of painting from photographic sources, proved an image too compelling not to feature as the immediate continuation of The Project, as this current body of work has now become, into its second month as it is.
The source photograph is a thing of great beauty, the daguerreotype having a wonderful appearance of antique, burnished metal - understandable given its base of a copper plate. The shallow depth of field is fascinating too, with near detail described with such intense clarity of focus yet, merely a few inches further back, the image blurs into hazy almost-abstraction, devoid of descriptive marks. A cursory glance in the mirror reveals this to be akin to the manner in which vision actually functions: studying one’s own face, little is observed in focus, much of the reflection is peripheral.
Thus the challenge was to transcribe by a process of discrete mark-making the daguerreotype as observed, as a wholly abstract process that, eventually, coalesces into all-over tonal resolution as a surface image, with a constant shift between vague formlessness & a degree of partial clarity.
graphite/21x30cm
original source: ‘The Guardian’ G2, 07/02/08
Also presented is an example of Chuck Close’s self portraiture in graphite, from a photographic original, employing a similar tension between sharpness & blur, relating closely to his early monochrome paintings.
Chuck Close ‘Self-Portrait’ 1968 pencil on paper, 23x29”
Working intensely on the drawing for 2 days, it’s interesting to consider the soundtrack to which it was produced, how the work involved in this particular instance can be measured out in terms of music.
Saturday was a day of Scott Walker, following the previous evening’s televised documentary, & a compilation of his first 4 solo albums from the late 60s & also his much-loved interpretation of the songs of Jacques Brel, camp as a row of pink tents & kitsch & over-the-top they might be but still they’re a fabulous, life-affirming experience.
The documentary itself featured quite surreal footage of a performance of ‘Jackie’ on, of all things, ‘The Frankie Howerd Show' - would that such televisual 'happenings’ were possible now…we live in such culturally-diminished times.
The first 2 Goldfrapp albums, the glorious cinematic atmospherics of ‘Felt Mountain’ & the sensual electro-pop throb of ‘Black Cherry’ along with assorted remixed tracks, stylistically & sonically different but similarly of an enduringly enjoyable quality were also given an airing on a whim after too long a hiatus, great to make an aural reacquaintance with such fine music.
On Sunday, & considering the coming week during which Valentine’s day occurs, it seemed appropriate to excavate The Magnetic Fields’ collection of ‘69 Love Songs’: a unclassifiable album in terms of description, covering every songwriting style it’s possible to imagine with, even amongst the pastiches, such an array of fine songs, irresistible tunes, witty & erudite lyrics, addressing the whole gamut of experience from infatuation & devotion to the contempt-turning-to-murder of ‘Yeah Oh Yeah'. It seemed quite an endeavour to attempt to listen to the 3 Cds all through in the one day but it proved such a pleasant experience to be reminded too of its enduring quality & to be excellent accompaniment to the drawing process.
Finally, the contemporary folk - very much of yet transcending the genre - of Rachel Unthank & the Winterset’s ‘The Bairns’, an accomplished achievement & a profoundly affecting experience, traditional & original songs, timeless, magnificently performed, the sister’s voices & the harmonies between are things of beauty indeed, one having the smoky, slightly parched undernote of Cat Power, as too are the instrumental interplay of piano, violin & cello: an album in which to immerse oneself, to surrender to the sonic & emotional depths of, completely. Paul Morley's description of the music as being both 'desolate & intimate' is spot-on, as is his reference both to the Gothic quality - the prevailing mood is often darkly, starkly romantic & evocative of mist-shrouded, lonely shores & bereft souls - &, perhaps surprisingly, the Cocteau Twins, whose presence I was reminded of particularly during the complex vocal harmonies of the closing piece, 'Newcastle Lullaby', which is quite astonishing, the snippets of which scattered throughout the course of the album give no clue as to this form of resolution, where space & time shift in a manner impossible to locate, infinite. Indeed, another of the music's qualities is the sense of space it conveys, both physically, compositionally, between the actual notes played & sung, & imaginatively, which brings to mind, comparably, the music & aesthetic of Low with their tendency towards a spacious minimalism of long, drawn out pieces - simple yet complex - slowly unfurling, & pure, beautiful close vocal harmonies, even though Low's employ a female-male dynamic. The leavening of the whole with the occasional briefer, lighter tune is another factor common to Low & 'The Bairns'. Whatever, it's music most conducive to accompanying & inspiring the meditative process of drawing, whether or not it's possible to communicate this through the work itself: ah, that old chestnut - can visual art aspire to the condition of music?
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