Jo McGonigal came in to do a lecture for us this Wednesday and truthfully, I have not been in uni a lot recently at all due to personal problems and with Christmas coming up I have been getting rather down about them. Jo is an artist living in Manchester at the minute, currently finishing her PHD, she did a degree in Bristol where she focused on sculpting. McGonigal has put on many exhibitions around the world including: Paris, New York and Ireland.
Focusing on composition, colour and different details, Jo examines what painting 'does' not what painting 'means'. Jo showed us one piece she did called "Left Handed Brushmarks" which was essentially just grid paper with the white squares painted in with white paint, to be honest, I really did not enjoy this piece at all- I just could not get my head around it. She was told to re-do it over and over again for her MA and I could not think of anything worse at all. I guess it is a good test of patience? I did however find one piece interesting which was of a square of kitchen roll with blue water colour on, I loved the way that the paint bled into the paper and revealed the texture and imagery. However this was literally the only piece I enjoyed and the only part of the lecture I could truly concentrate on.
I found this lecture rather frustrating due to the way that McGonigal always goes on about her 'paintings' and being a 'painter' when in reality I found her to be more of a photographer- at most I feel she did installations, but certainly not paintings. You definitely cannot class a yellow chair in a room as a painting can you? At least I don't think so.
I joined the Q/A session after the lecture to try and get more of an insight to her work and see if I could change my mind about the whole thing...
During the session Jo goes on about the limitations of spaces when she does exhibitions and how she needs to take more control and take more risks in her work so that she can achieve what she truly wants in her exhibits (such as blocking the smoke alarm to allow her to fully do what she wants'.
Her work is basically testing the boundaries on how people perceive 'painting' and trying to stretch that boundary. I mean I do understand where she is coming from in her work I just really dont like it, it just doesnt appeal to me. I think that painting is something that makes you feel something, something with imagery, which is maybe me being a little bit too traditional.
Jo mentioned that she wanted to experiment with abandoned buildings, perhaps using film and photography to show her work- instead of people going to view it, which is a shame because I think to understand her work you probably have to be there- not just looking at it.
We asked Jo "What is it about spacial work that attracts you so much?" to which she replied; "getting excited about things", "the discussion I am trying to have about painting" and "being pushed forwards out of the plain". I would love to expand on this but in all honesty she just really confused me...
She did make a good point towards the end of the Q/A session when mentioning "at what point did we decide that painting should be flat" which made her work sink in a little bit with me because I guess if you take away the actual canvas, what is painting? If you got rid of all the imagery it would just be a selection of colours ect.. which made sense to me (still however fully old fashioned and stuck in my ways)
To conclude:
I really dont think I need to write much here as I have almost complained this entire post (oops), However, I am glad I went to the Q/A because it did open my eyes a little bit into her practice but i cannot say I enjoyed this Wednesday lecture at all.
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