AMBIENT MUSIC FOR THE EYES

iN the previous work statement blog, I was on about my lurve of music. Brian Eno, famous legendary musician(former member of ROXYmUsIC), producer(Bowie, u2, Talking Heads), thinker and holder of a fine art painting degree had a show called 77millionpaintings. Video & sound; it can be bought and installed on your computer. The program claims to generate roughly 77 million paintings as a series of images slide and develop, dissolve and transform. obviously alot of them woulkd be completely indistinguishable, but no milisecond of imagery remains th same. Eno said: "I think of these things as visual music. The screen is not being used to tell a story - which is what screens normally do - but to show a painting that changes all the time... People now have larger screens, but these big objects sitting in their rooms are dormant for a lot of the time. If you’re not actually watching television, what you have is a big black hole in the wall. 77 Million Paintings is intended to occupy that downtime so that, instead of having a dead hole in the wall, you have a living picture."

"Brevity is the essence of wit"-Brian Eno

PREMATURE FRIDAY FUN ('cos its still Thursday)

got an email of these.

that is all.

Oct 2008, Hume, Laibach, Doig

this is a summary of what the first 6 weeks in college has been Work Statement
Progress Review Oct. ’08

Initially this year I was intrigued to discover if music had an influence on my studio-based work. As it plays a large part in my life; I play it and I listen to it whilst working, I thought it interesting as a starting point to investigate whether it influenced me, directly or indirectly.
I began working with the idea of memory and/or nostalgia with ideas related to exploring music or soundtracks from different periods of time which imply memory or experience. My work last year dealt with mapping; taking notions of travel and distance; grid-like uniformity expressed in sterile and flat-tone grids and systems in my work. These were displayed against a backdrop of contrasting vivid-colouring gestural-expressive brushstrokes.
This ‘mapping’ can be applied to my ideas of memory and nostalgia. When I think of a particular time, it is in terms of what general mood permeates the memory, and in terms of what music I was listening to, or what complimented the period. The notion of tracking-down imagery within song relates to this also
I began taking two different approaches to the idea; I wanted to create dense and detailed atmospheric pieces based on old images I had taken. I was interested in the titles referencing song titles. Nostalgia, being ‘hardwired’ into the brain, I wanted to alter these images into fitting dreamlike scenarios. This painting below was derived from a photograph of a street party on a dark night. I wanted an illustrious rich night sky, full of movement. Jetstreams, stars, night-birds and cold steel armor (derived from a Joy Division lyric) were words which sprang to mind when thinking about creating a painted version of this image. The process entailed, scraping away the paint, aswell as dripping onto the layers. I looked to the work of Peter Doig and Ana Laibach during this process.

I have also been working on a second lot of work where I tried to apply a more edited and minimal approach to the work. I became interested in making small-scale paintings in a series which contained singular minimal forms. These were undertaken without the aid of a brush, instead gloss and emulsion-based paints were poured onto a surface. Loosely based on the form of postcards, these images are simplified flat-tone images from memory of beaches, sunny skies, fried eggs, streetlights, wine stains etc.
Gary Humes’ work influenced this work with his bold simple iconography/imagery and use of household gloss paints, which provide a clean, clinical and plain sterile surface.
I’m interested in the possibility of collage as an option for continuation; a selection of objects used separately or in conjunction with the paintings, thus creating a scrap-book feel, or that of a curio.
To progress from my starting point I would like to first of all focus on the process and find a realisation of the two styles. A progression of the use of the basic, singular minimal forms in a marriage and contrast with the more dense painterly, gestural plains. I would like to continue working from photograph, memory and music.

testing testing testing(up to speed)

this is my first blog. this painting on the left is called '3' and it was involved in a group show we put together amongst 13 of us in third year Fine Art.
the show/group was/is called----------------- 'WAY OUT'---------

In a nutshell, we all got on the blower over the summer whilst dispersed all over this wee island and thought 'lets put on a show'. the whole excursion was really borne out of interest in actually going head-first and organising a public exhibition in Limerick City; whilst we were all still in college; for experience; our way out, exit here please ladies and gentlemen etc., etc.,. also, a lot of work that gets done in college doesnt see the light of day apart from the particular crit or seminar its involved in, so it was good to give it a wider platform of actually exhibiting the stuff....sorry,,,work. lots of people came to the opening, particularly happy with the presence of a strong 1st year contingent, fair play to the tutors who came and took the time out for us, and thank you to the staggering 58 bottles of wine consumed. YOU ARE ALL FISHES. (mental note: for the next show stick to the crackers and brie)all in all a very successful event which means there will be more


this is my friend Eoin, he has recently departed to Munich for his erasmus exchange

badly missed already