Dancer and Unicorn

*

Dancer and Unicorn

Tableau: it might be nice to suggest simple narratives using these toys.

*

Three characters in search of a tableau

These are threee drawings of characters who will one day become made into cutouts, and set up as a tableau.

What I really need is a jigsaw and some light hardboard. Then I can cut out profiles to paint with the characters: doing such cutting work in this apartment just isn't feasable. But perhaps it will be some day: what I can do now is store up ideas for that day.

Another option is to use these characters in a painting: though what I like about the idea of having them as cutout two dimensinal "dolls" is the toy-like aspect that they'd have (I am extremely fond of children's toys, and there used to be produced pressed tin soldiers called "flats"; I'm also a big fan of the toy theatre).

I have had these ideas for many years, but often felt deterred not just by lack of a workspace but by my lack of a narrative within which to place my figures. I have decided not to care too much: the narrative can look after itself.

Moth: tableau and materials

The mask has been worked on slightly to include further modelling of eyes and lips.

Some of the Moths have had slight additions, though they are waiting to fully dry before they recieve the main trasformative element- the addition of antennae, which will be made from the materials seen below:



This tableau ia about 60 cm across: I shall gradually work on additional elements so the final tableau is about 1.5 metres in length.

Moth, revisited

Moth as Christ, Christ as Moth

Though I shall work a little more on these pieces, I shall probably not paint them instead leaving them in a less defined state.

"Moth" is a recurring theme for me: I attempted to tackle the theme in monotype two years ago but was not satisfied with the results, then more recently visited it with paper cutouts. The results with the cutouts were nice, but they did not convey the utter horror that these creatures bring me, they were much too cartoonish. This time I intend to combine the moths with other items to make a grand, gothic tableau.

I have picked up from somewhere the idea that moths are Christ symbols: but there seems little evidence to support this as a traditional iconography. I found this, however: http://truthmarche.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/blinded-by-the-light-the-parable-of-the-moth/

I quote:

"Are we, like the huge Cecropia moth, blundering on in the darkness, oblivious to the universe which is all around us? Are we ignorant to the realities that present themselves in our everyday lives, simply because we aren’t really paying attention to what is going on around us? "

There is also, of course, Thomas Harris's magnificent "The Silence of the Lambs" (one of the cases where the film is greater than the book) where the moth is seen as a symbol of transformation through life, and between sexual conditions. These notions have a pagan ring to me, bringing to mind the Green Man, so beautifully represented in Rosslyn Chapel, Penicuik, near Edinburgh.

Where do we go from here?

I enjoy making the cutouts, and I believe they can be a striking expressive tool but the question is, what to do with them? They seem too insubstantial to function as art.

I shall play with 1. "Tableau"- essentially mini installations of cutouts and 2. Mobiles.

In addition, I am trying to deal with the difficulties of producing more work which will, most likely, simply go into storage, and is unlikely to sell. I haven't space to store more work.

The solution is to work digitally. To treat the artwork as simply the means towards producing photographic digital images, then discard it once its finished with.And by putting the work on the Internet, it is accessible to the public.

I gain a great deal from the support of people, usually strangers, on Flickr, Facebook and Deviantart. They only know my work through its dematerialised pixellated presence on a screen. Does that matter?

Cutouts

I spent today working on these cutouts, and then photographing them.

My original idea was to work on a mobile, and I may still do this. However, I might also try to make miniature stage sets with them. For that to make sense, I'd need some sort of narrative structure, though I could possible just make them as "Tableau" illustrating, say "The Four Seasons", or "States of Mind".

Perhaps they are sufficient in themselves- something tells me, however, that they are not.