Post 54 - The Walk 2

In the previous post I discussed how my daily walk supports image gathering,(fig.1 & 2) and I have furthered my exploration of other Women artists who are working in a similar way to me.

Fig 1

street

Fig 2

street

Further Women contemporary abstract artists

Phoebe Unwin

Exploring both the physical and psychological, Unwin relies on memory and observation rather than photographs, which she finds overly detailed. She aims to capture the essence of a subject, intrigued by how colours interact with form, scale, and material tension. She avoids scaling up from smaller images, preferring the unpredictability of how a painting will turn out. Memory acts as a filter, incorporating not just visual but emotional and sensory impressions, allowing her to paint the feeling of an experience rather than its appearance, (fig 3). 1

Unwin’s most important preoccupation or rather subject of her paintings is that of exploring the different “languages of time”.2 She expresses the need for them to be about time, not a particular place and time, but the “sensation of being in a situation that can be applied to many places”.3

Fig. 3. Phoebe Unwin, Aeroplane Meal, 2008. Spray paint and oil on linen, 97.5 x 107.5 cm.

Unwin works incessantly in A3 sketchbooks, (fig 4).

“When I work here, I use various coloured papers and respond intuitively to marks and colors. I don't work through the book sequentially; I develop it as a whole. If I’m not engaged with a page, I move on. My only rule is that anything can be included” 4

Phoebe Unwin sketchbook

Like Unwin, I approach my sketchbooks with intention, using them as a space to gradually develop ideas. These books serve as a mix of visual note-taking and image-building, exploring colour and materiality with various mediums like acrylics, ink, and charcoal on different grounds. This process helps translate ideas into paintings and acts as a form of exploration and notetaking.

Ground rules

Unwin’s work delves into the sensation of time rather than specific places, balancing abstraction with figuration. Her conceptual framework creates tension between materials, scale, and colour, which drives her creative process.2

Fig 2. Phoebe Unwin, Red to Pink, with Blue, 2023. Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm.

Like Unwin, I use different materials because each one affects colour uniquely. Cerulean blue, for instance, varies between acrylic, oil, and spray paint, each adding a distinct quality. To me, colour is more than abstract; it reflects objects, emotions, and places through its physical properties.

Fig. 3. Sally Barron, Place, oil, collage, and charcoal on canvas, 160 x 1800 mm.

Fig 3, Collage after Vuillard (detail)

2024

Jade Faojutimi

Jadé Fadojutimi, born in London in 1993, is a British artist of Nigerian heritage known for her large-scale abstract paintings, which she calls "emotional landscapes." Her work explores themes of identity and self-knowledge by utilizing grids, layers, and disparate marks to convey continual transformation and the interplay of colour , space, and emotion.

Though largely abstract, her paintings often suggest natural forms like plants, microbes, or marine landscapes, (fig 4).

Built with layers of oil paint and sometimes including lines of oil pastel, Fadojutimi's compositions reflect her fascination with how clothing and accessories help construct a sense of self, incorporating elements like fabric swatches and the shapes of stockings and bows to explore themes of displacement. 5

She draws inspiration from various locations, cultures, objects, and sounds, with Japanese anime being a major influence, prompting her to learn Japanese and visit Japan frequently. Her studio in South London is filled with plants, comforting childhood objects, and favourite music, creating an environment that stimulates her creativity and makes each painting session a unique orchestration. 6

This approach of surrounding oneself with inspiring elements is something I am beginning to adopt in my own practice. I find that clearing away studio detritus allows me to focus on simply being with my painting, where the act of looking becomes as important as the painting itself. This has led me to explore similar themes of nature and emotion, using en plein air sessions as starting points for larger works and utilizing sketchbooks and collages to develop imagery. However, I am now allowing the studio to be a place where paintings can exist in their own right, not necessarily tied to initial concepts.

Fig. 4 Jadé Fadojutimi, Myths of Pleasure, 2017. Oil on canvas, 140.5 x 140.5 cm (55 3/8 x 55 3/8 in.). Signed, titled, and dated 'Jadé Fadojutimi Nov '17 "Myths of Pleasure"' on the reverse.

Amy Silman

Silman is an American artist based in NYC best known for her various formal engagements with painting and iterative drawings and the excavation of form that lies between abstraction and figuration.

She describes ‘not knowing’ as an important part of abstraction because it is not an illustration or a representation, its an experience of understanding certain kinds of physical and formal relations: space, colour, time, weight, heaviness, lightness, ugliness and beauty.

“To mark, to stroke, to struggle, to contradict, to whittle, to abstract.” 7

Silman describes her work as improvisational in a way that she pits herself against the materials and the resistance they offer. She tries to figure out how to make something happen whereby she is both working with the materials and very much working against them and questioning them.

“I only use scrapers, paper towels, sort of sticks and occasionally foam brushes, some brushes but not many” 8

Removal is a big part of her work covering each layer with another for nearly a year each painting. The drawing are faster and numerous. On a big level and a little level, and all the levels inbetween, there is slippage between control and finesse and form, adjusting and trying to make it better. The tension is the tension of making the work.

This is something I very much relate to, and try to use in a conscious way to drive the work forward.

Playing with art history and experimenting with form, shape, colour, or process might align with the spirit of the gestural work of the abstract expressionists of the 1950s. However, now that their work has become commodified, the original spirit may have faded, leaving behind only a sense of heroics. Sillman aims to be anti-heroic, building what she describes as "scrappy and casual" art, which she calls "weird." 9

Amy Sillman, Albatross 1, 2024. Acrylic and oil on linen, 190.5 x 167.6 cm.

I would call it very much in the spirit of provisional painting, its never finished, or rather its as finished as she wants it to be.

Footnotes

1. Phoebe Unwin, Saatchi Gallery, accessed August 4, 2024, https://www.saatchigallery.com/artist/phoebe_unwin.

2. Phoebe Unwin, Artist Film, Contemporary Art Society, July 16, 2011, accessed August 4, 2024, https://vimeo.com/30010494.

3. Unwin, Artist Film.

4. Phoebe Unwin, "Talking to Alli Sharma at Her Hackney Studio," Articulated Artists, April 17, 2011, accessed August 4, 2024, http://articulatedartists.blogspot.com/2011/04/phoebe-unwin-talking-to-alli-sharma-at.html.

5. Jadé Fadojutimi, At Home: Artists in Conversation, Yale Center for British Art, accessed August 5, 2024, https://britishart.yale.edu/exhibitions-programs/home-artists-conversation-jade-fadojutimi

6. Jadé Fadojutimi, Bio, accessed August 4, 2024, https://jadefadojutimi.com/about/.

7. Amy Sillman and Charles Bernstein, "Shape Shifting: A Conversation on Art and Poetry," The Brooklyn Rail, April 5, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8sGAWzRmbQ, Accessed August 11, 2024.

8. Sillman and Bernstein, "Shape Shifting."

9. Sillman and Bernstein