Reflective again

The practitioner’s eclecticism and other thoughts

1 – Introduction

1.1 - Before Coventry

Plasticina, clay, watercolour, gouache, concrete, balsa wood, small sculptural models, furniture, architecture, great masters, museums, travelling (in Spain, Paris, London, Moscow, St. Petersburg), the fear of the artistic block, bad teachers, the destruction of my work, science, creative writing, order and chaos, philosophy, drawing, Portuguese literature, the Viana clan, the philosophy lessons, the genetics lab work, med school, psychoanalysis and psychology, biological engineering, maths, alternative cinema, waking life, inter-rails and David, presentations, physics, painting, and my first exhibition, the BS application mistakes and achievements.

1.2 - First and second year

Sculpture, the umbrella, England, Mandy and other tutors, Mike, Ian Hays, art theory and my ignorance, London exhibitions (weather project, state of play, Robert Frank, Turner Prize, El Greco, Saatchi…), etching, the found object, Post modernism and the English American painter, photography, Photoshop, drawing and the life model, Thom, Craig cooper, Mathew Dalgleish, Basquiat, Duchamp, Maeda, voID exhibition, curating, advertising, the private views, the non-productive media, Germany and Holland car trip, Britain car trip, New York (thoughts about Gleize, Marineti and the futurist in general), the return to painting every summer…

1.3 – Painted murals

The impulse, the scale, the subject matter, the personal experience in science, the wish to share visual pleasure (ideas, experience and pay a tribute to some very old friends), the unorthodox studio, the sacrifice, the night, the music, the collage of science and geography magazines, the organic and the technological. The planning of the second one, the studios, the envy, projection process, the potential of screen-print, the business involved, the found imagery, the fulfilled and unfulfilled promises and the money an artist should charge (my situation and Cressida’s), the tutorial(s) with Jim Noble.

1.4 – Third Year

One month earlier, the collaborative work, “what does it do?”, giving other students a challenge, tutorials on pleasure, individuality, Craig’s crisis, the method for reflecting about my practice, the tutorials with Simon, Graham and the group tutorials, visiting tutors, exhibitions and their goals, the blog, the creative chaos in my bedroom, studio and mind, emotional stability, craziness and girlfriends, confidence, the epiphany, the vision of each exhibition, the feeling of each project, the true contents of the work developed, the influences, indiferance-indi ference- indifferences repeated, meeting Paula Rego (?), Cremaster at last, the body-food-physical exercise and the denial of Mallow’s pyramid... all the contents, influences and references of my work and it’s analysis by myself.

1.5 - MA

the MA application and the open days, goldsmith, Saint Martins, Royal college, Chelsea, Slade, the exhibition Bonus, funding, community, teaching, dreams, if it goes well, if it goes wrong, the power of distance, the professional opportunities, the other students level, the need to continue researching and sharing my experience with a community of students, scholars and foreign culture.

1.6 - My reflections in the present day (26/11/2005)

Eclecticism the power of the intellect and language (a triptych)

In the studio work I’ve been developing I have been dealing with a wide spread field of issues and questions.

In my conceptual, computer, 2D work the set of worries are completely different.

In order to synthesise all these searches I’ve engaged with I had to find the topics that would generally inform both physical and mental practice(s?)

1.6.1 – Eclecticism

Deep vs. vast
Renaicence (?) an organic primordial soup?
Mental Synthesis and emotional enzymes

Language

Semantics, semiotics, hermeneutics, New History, the book, the illustration

Interpretation

The cliché, the installation, the sculpture and power of the collective, talking, essays, mystery, how finished should a work be? (pristine vs. rough, to able the observer to finish it, to be able to adapt to a gallery or venue)…

Collaborative vs. Cooperative