Monday, March 24, 2008

Sculptural Influence

Today the opposite of tomato is the art of Alberto Giacometti


graphite & putty eraser/20x30cm
original source: 'The Times' 18/03/08

The process of this transcription - of a wonderful Cartier-Bresson photograph of Alberto Giacometti in the presence of one of his sculptures - was carried out whilst also having at hand some examples of the artist’s paintings & drawings as reference material, something else to look at & consider: I admire their unique style a great deal, they’re a constant source of fascination to study, the process of their making laid bare through the explicit statement of the network of cumulative lines & layers of which they are composed, the constant revision to which the becoming-images are subject, intensely thought, ‘worried’, into existence. Thus, both Giacometti’s graphic work & his sculptures seem to have had some small subconscious influence on the subsequent drawing & the process of its making, with it displaying a greater variety than has become usual in terms of mark making, & having been similarly worked back into in a more ‘sculptural’ manner, the fingers holding the putty eraser coming into much closer proximity to the surface of the paper. The subject’s wonderfully craggy features - putting one in mind of those of WH Auden & David Hockney’s drawn portrait of - might well have exercised some positive influence too.


Alberto Giacometti
'Portrait of Annette'
1954


Alberto Giacometti
'Apple on a Sideboard'
1937

Soundtrack:


Martha Wainwright
Belle & Sebastian 'Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant', 'The Boy With the Arab Strap', 'Push Barman to Open Old Wounds'

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