My own little aesthetic revolution

I've been thinking about the difference between art and design, which might be function and decoration? I've also been struggling with justifying my choices in what materials, medium and styles that make up my visual style. But i've realised why I make those choices now - it's about appealing to an audience; of my own geographical and cultural locality and my own interest cultures. But it's also about not presenting a complex, art theory-based argument in my work, which could alienate the people that I want to have dialogue with: which is actually not art theorists. 

Although I find it all very interesting, I am not in a position to, nor do I have a compulsion to start adding to those theoretical discussions. I want to use the theory I learn to help me make decisions about how my work can appeal to and communicate with the wider public around me - people who don't have art education. 

I also want to invite response from those people, by using a visual language they can recognise. And actually, one of the best people to go to see exhibitions with is my mum (Mama). She has no art training, so it's her pure intuition that is guiding her response and interpretation of art. And she sees the humour and everyday situations in an artwork and it's context, whereas my peers who have studied art, do not often see this. As art graduates I feel like we might take our position a bit too seriously to be able to communicate properly. 

With Mama however, I can see how art can truly communicate an important message that is seperate from art theory and more based in real life. I wanna communicate to people like my mum; their response is more valuable to me than that of the art elite. I want my work to create an open feedback platform with a spectrum of people doing their thing and leading their different lives outside of an art education context. I can't deny that I do feel some sort of desire to impress the art world. But I think i'd get greater satisfaction from identifying other artists with similar intentions to me and starting a dialogue with them, rather than trying to fight my way into places and spaces that are respected/lauded in the art world, simply because they are respected. I would prefer to pick my own spaces and places (conceptual and physical) to show my work, that suit my message.

I wanna respond to the features in my local cultures that make beautiful things for them. I wanna find the objective in their subjective. Then it’s valid. I wanna see what makes the beauty in their beholding eye, and then trace that back to a possible common culture of ideology in lots of connected eyes. It want to appeal to commonality in peoples' subjective leanings and unite them over that: this is where my Fan Clubs project comes in. 

I wonder if the old mode of ‘the art of a skill’ such as dyeing, or painting, or carving, or colour is present in localised versions of beauty? I expect so, particularly when the skill is centred on a local material, and thus makes up a strong part of a cultures or locality’s visual language. When a practitioner gets to know a material, or a process surrounding a localised material or medium very well, then surely that must become an artistry in that material or medium?

Perhaps the culture or ‘locality’ isn’t always geographically or place based; perhaps it’s based in an ideology… for example, the culture of carbon neutrality in product or object design. This, one could argue, moves more towards a functional more than a decorative aspect of artistry, but then again, the aesthetics of this function are the decoration of that functional message. So that would make my dyes that are made from kitchen by-products a decoration : of the communication of the importance of ecologically-aware art works and design works? I am decorating my message to make it clearer and more acceptable to more people, by using the vernacular of ecological production practices.

So here is an example of my work in this manner: It's a test for some bigger pieces.

reclaimed fabric dyed with onion skins. mono printed. 

-Colours and style are influenced by the handmade batik textiles, and colours of Peckham Rye Lane.

-the method is influenced by the environmental movement.

-the image is my projection of my fantasy land that has grown out of those two situations: metropolitan city living and the desire to be close to nature.