ART PRACTICE -A brief history

The origin of my Art dates back to my late teens, when I was studying two full time degrees (Fine Arts & a B.A), at two seperate Universities. In my lectures, instead of taking notes I would draw pictures that would function as my notes and as a record of my experience there. I drew hundreds of such things –crammed with words and ‘doodles’ and lots of little pictures. In the smaller tutorial groups it must have driven some of the tutors to distracted frustration. Soon after, I began doing these drawings during the course of daily life –drawing inspiration from around me wherever I could. They became in a sense, a personal diary.

            Figure 1.1; Philosphy Lecture( 2002). 1.2 &1.3; Untitled -Matter and Physics lectures (2003). 1.4; 'Paradise Mau' (2003). Ink on paper.

I continued with this line of enquiry in the following years as I saw out art school –the scrawls a visual diary of day to day existence. Hundreds of weird and unorthodox little ‘mind maps’. It was very easy to see a pattern of organized chaos in the work –an obsessive compulsive element. That an infinite and seemingly random selection of unusual scrawlings and words were being brought together in seemingly arbritary yet strangely ordered compositions. Everything in a piece, pulled out of its initial context or from the collective waters of creative possibility, to pose a question of reinterpretation. A new incarnation of itself as part of a unified whole with many other individual elements.

My work today shares many similiarities. The personal diary that formed the work of my early years has developed over time into its own aesthetic and highly personalised visual language. Great artists all develop such a language. They are able to embody their own sense of what life is, within their work, and you can see it everytime you look at one of their pieces. Keith Haring for example, you can tell just by looking at his work that he loved life passionately. His love of children, culture, disco, sex -everything, was embodied in every piece that he made.

Those familiar with Haring's work will note a shared love of white space in our comparative visual worlds. Even moreso than Haring, white space is an integral component of my language. I love white space, I've always associated it with infiniteness. When you say white, i think of the white light people always walk into when they die in all those cheesy movies. Its everything but its nothing -because its kind of like -beyond us. In an artwork it becomes a little paradigm or extension even, of pure, white gallery walls -of an empty gallery space. Its clean, and it seperates anything you place within it from life -so it can be appreciated purely for its absolute beauty-so when we look into it -we really look and we see and can appreciate everything.

When you start making intricate images that float in large areas of white space, you realise you can put ANYTHING in white space with ANYTHING else -and that you have an absolute free license to play around visually with whatever you want. Words for example, when removed from their usual confines of sentences and paragraphs -suddenly have this vast capacity for interpretation -a freedom to be read in multiple ways. Specific associations fall away and words are literally reduced to vague symbols of no difference from any other that could be made out of a few adjoining lines.

In Art, subjectivity is the only truth an artist has to offer. What I mean by this statement is that if an artist thinks to draw a car and so goes out and actually draws a car –the dent in the bonnet, the sheen of the hood, the exterior rust of the grill etc… then they have lied to us. Photrealism for example merely caters to the now-defunct illusionism that kicked off with the Renaissance. Realism shows us how we (in the collective sense) see cars. What I am interested in is how I personally or anyone else thinks  of cars –children in their intuitive mark-making are naturally in tune with this way of working. So sticking with the car example I would always think of my idea of what a car is and then draw it how I have thought of it. To remain truthful a drawing should not have any superfluous elements and the reality of the physical world should be used only as a point of reference.

This naturally takes the form of a simplistic and almost child-like aesthetic. It is reinforced by the use of loaded imagery that would be familiar to any child. For example, Snakes, Factories and Prison Cells; as well as Neck-Ties and Atomic structures, Lightbulbs and Crowns –these all appear with frequency. I have been using them since 2002. They continue to incarnate themselves in different ways.  Some other symbols are very personalized and specific by their very definition; for example those of women wearing black dresses with stars on them –often she will be near a moon or have one for a head. Fish, floating in the air next to humans wearing deep sea diving masks in an otherwise ‘above sea’ environment. Human forms are abundant; and many can often be picked out with contorted appendages.  There is a visual poetry to use of many of these symbols– they contribute to each piece much like musical notes do to a song –lyrically.

To talk of the work as being like music or poetry suggests that the process is very intuitive and it is. This is not to say however each image is created without conscious awareness. Art has its own language –and to not be aware of the context in which things operate means death to any artist who wishes to be taken seriously –and this is rightly so. You cannot exhibit something without being aware of the associations you are making in your work. The problem for me here is that my work is overloaded with association –and the question becomes where do you start? I like this question –because it suggests that one is being given a lot to see.

I like to play with spatial relationships. In  fact, whether it is through the use of multiple perspective, choice of image, the use of black and white space, -the contrasting of empty and busy areas- or even through the repititious use of symbols that carry phallic and vulvic qualities; I am predominantly interested in unifying aesthetic and compositional elements within a work which could otherwise be considered in opposition.

A conflict of man and nature is one such example of this. A large amount of my imagery can easily be placed into either of these two camps. On nature's side; Flowers and Plants; Suns, Moons and Clouds; Rain and Snow; Trees and Tree Logs, Water and Mountains, Animals, Fish and Birds. Their use abounds.

I love nature. I come from a family of nature lovers and certainly in New Zealand, I grew up in the right country for it. Summer as a child was spent fishing and exploring vast terrains of rivers, lakes, beaches and forests. Our holidays were spent on or near landscapes relatively untouched by man's influence. It was very easy to form a natural respect for and connection with Nature.

Nature alone achieves perfection. Art in all its glorious forms is man's quest to compete with the perfection that nature achieves effortlessly. Humans are alone of all creatures that life flows through, that have separated from nature and live out of harmony with it. We've fucked it up. We think we are gods, the conquerors and creators of nature. We shit all over nature, we are arrogant enough to think that we are superior. Its like we've forgotten we are part of it. We have reached the end of our evolutional chain that is in accordance with nature and we haven’t been for a while. We are now evolving beyond nature’s interest –through computers, technology, science and genetics. Will there be a time when we exist only to service the machine -where our lives will revolve around their function? Is this time is already upon us?

Powerpoles, Signs and Signposts; Numbers, Factories and Chimneys puffing smoke. Production lines, Various towers and phallic constructions; Water carrying vessels; Power chords, Pipes and Cables. Cars and Roads. Man-made elements are juxtaposed against their more natural counterparts. Despite their contradictory relationship they are unified. They exist within each work in a unity that goes beyond all seperateness. From which nothing is spared. Its easy to do. Through a uniformed use of line; through a use of subtle repetition in the images and shapes of the work; in the compositional organisation chosen; and in the placement of each part in some sort of interconnected relationship with other parts. Nothing is isolated.

My work is idealistic. While its critical of society on many levels... when you throw it all together like that- its almost as if I am harmonising it all. Taking all the messy screwed up bits which make life what it is and giving them some semblence of order -a sense of an underlying pattern or fabric which holds everything together. Where everything exists in synchronized harmony with everything else. I LOVE making these things for this reason -as a cohesive statement the work says "its crazy this life and yes maybe we are screwing things up -but look at the big picture because its all going to work out in the end."

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ON COLOUR

I absolutely love Colour, it fascinates me and I use the medium of painting primarily to bring it into the work. A colour is often chosen for the brightness of its hue –with a preference for bright colours (Fluros have always appealed for this reason). Colour is initially applied straight from the tube so it remains strong and pure. However, much like each little form that constitutes part of a work –colour is also subjugated to a unification process –where no part of any piece is granted precedence over any other –where the individual is subjugated to the collective whole. This is affected in the case of colour through the use of white overpainting –which unifies each colour into pastel like hues –softening them into each other somewhat –while they still retain their respective properties and responses.  

Sometimes this overpainting is tremendous and overt and the colours become washed out. At other times and places it is more subtle. In Painting, the expressive process of creating a work is embraced –with the full ouevre of techniques from watery splashes to painting in thick cloggy clumps, utilized. This certainly adds an extra dimension to the work. If called on in regards to line however, colour itself always remains secondary. Line gives form –whereas colour merely gives form depth. Perhaps this is partly due to the drawing roots of pen and ink on which my work is founded.

-MH.