I was working with Michael who is visually impaired.  Despite his visual impairment he is a talented artist with a flair for handling materials in a sensitive and uninhibited way.  He produces ‘naïve’ style, ‘outsider’ looking work, seemingly produced through an indifference to outcomes (or a fearless give-it-a-go approach) allowing his joy in both materials and process to have full sway. His sketch book is bursting with drawings including self portraits, animals, pints of beer and plates of grilled food. Those are the pictures I remember the most.

Working together over several weeks, we used his sketch book material to generate some 2D and 3D pieces.

I mixed some colours and he painted.  I occasionally guided his hand, where he couldn’t see the edges/borders of the paper for example.  In the painting below we cut up a tracing of one of his portrait sketches into jigsaw like pieces, jumbled up the shapes and re-arranged them on a fresh piece of paper to produce an abstracted image;  like a broken mirror version of the portrait. Then Michael drew round the shapes in black marker pen and built up the colour on the face and background:

He later entered his portrait into a competition with MCCH and won first prize: http://www.mcch.co.uk/News/general-news/stop-press-mcch-has-got-talent.aspx

The end of the project  was marked by an exhibition held at the Tourist Information Centre, Rochester.

After the project was over Wendy invited me to participate in another workshop with Kent Association for the Blind. As part of this project an exhibition of group members’ and volunteers’ work was held at Rochester Cathedral.

Michael also got involved with the ‘Eyes Wide Open’ project. Working with another helper this time, he drew this portrait in pastels for the exhibition:

In hindsight it seems that the experience of working with Michael inspired the piece that I made for this exhibition – it continues in the vein of cut out assembled shapes and the use of black lines for emphasis:

Different types of collaboration emerged amongst the artists and poets; one pair wrote to each other using the postal system and sent each other objects for investigation. Another pair played on the immediacy of first impressions by painting and writing back and forth in response to each others work in a painterly/poetic conversation. Another pair explored Diasporas and secret keeping in families. Another pair examined their experiences of different dwelling places through poetry and installation. One pair made poetic notes, doodles and drawings in the same sketch book, knitting streams of thought across the paper. Some pairs crossed into their partner’s territory; artists doing poetry and poets doing art. They said this approach opened up a whole new dimension to their practice.

I partnered with Sh’maya to produce a triptych in response to his Three Arias.

My collaboration with Sh’maya has been going on longer than this project itself. The Three Arias was an (as yet) unwritten concept he had in mind for a couple of years. It was after some time we spent together (see last post) that he began the writing process to birth the idea into written form and I subsequently responded to them visually.

My starting point was to take the idea of ‘Threeness’ expressed in the Arias by using three equilateral triangles for emphasis – three x three. At first I found it challenging to be moved by the poems. My first idea to overcome this block was to play the audio recordings and paint whilst I listened. That got me started, but I soon felt it was important to engage with them more rationally or consciously. After many readings I began to sense their rhythmical pace and the suggestiveness of the words offered visual ideas; I allowed the tempo and imagery of each poem to inform my handling of paint and bodily movement.

HEART

The time

I was drinking tea

In the garden

Watching the ivy bush

At the end of the lawn

It was there

Lay the final embers of the sun

Languished breath hovering

Lowing orange and echoless

Cross the flow of the ivy

The leaves hung swollen

Suffused in light

Fertile in foetal white

Igniting the chlorophyll phosphorescent

Incandesced

Through slats of the garden lattice

Their shapes were smattered and splashed

By shadows of bush twigs

Slashed swooning over lunar chimeras

Fingers of cirrus reaching silhouettes

Past breadths of shimmering moons

The wind brushed through them in such a way

As to tremble their frames

In the radiance thus contained

Sonar flames

Straining through depths

Of waning coronas

Shuddered hushed and reverent

As emerald flares luminescent

In the roaring blush of a dying day

Between the ivy bush and I

Writhed a swarm of horseflies

Spinning frenetic ecstatic

In the pool-parched air

Each one drenched full in sunset

Starched wet in naked rays

Of aching dusk strayed across

Their flailing movements

A chaos of sun drops and TV static

Feral seething manic

Sporadic flight paths

Weaving poly rhythms

Twining patterns

Wings chiming over through and round

Globes of schismed sound

Splashing mirage shimmers and breezes

As raindrops sneezing on djembe-skins

The dance of the swarm

Poured wistful warm

Adorned the awning of the ivy

In crystalline storms

Fistfuls of lightshaft

Clasped enblissed

‘pon carnivals of fire

Marvels of flight-shine

Enlivened in light

That parts the edge of day

And the timeless charting

Of fledgling stars

GOHST

The time I was praying cross-legged

In my room

An incense stick burning

On the wicker stool

By the mattress

As I was praying

I opened my eyes

To a single wisp of smoke

Floating fathomless before me

Its slender figure sliding and writhing tender

‘neath the butter flesh breaths

Of my lips

I realised my prayers

Were flickering

Through the incense

Dappling its timbre

Sloping its stems

Curves fleshed from my essence

As petals unfurling through

Camomile limbs

It struck me

The groans of my spirit

Taking physical states

As the smoulder billowed

On the moans of its marrow

Barren blushes

Furrowing the rush

Bones drawn in hush

Gowned warm in the taste

Swathed in sounds of my want

Wrapped round as swaddling cloth

Lacing nascent clouds

I became aware of every movement

Every patter of desire

Pleating the syllables of smoke

Floating as scrawled notes

Wrapped indelible

Through the rote of my spirit

Pirouetting flight

Of wisps light-borne

Reached willow and saffron

Past the sills of my eyes

Tides torn through winds

The metre of wings

Beating drafts through the ether

Drapes of the dawn

Bursting gasps

On the shores of my skin

The room doused heavy with fragrance

Flora auras sating the chorus

The need the heart-cry

Mire of earth soil of my womb

Crooning for seeds of Heaven’s fire

Where toil bleeds bloom of myrrh

Purrs the anguish to pearls

Felled fertile ‘pon fallow worlds

Depths hallowed through shallows bereft

Kisses left nesting in clefts of shadows

I sat draped in the grain

A motionless rain shower

Strained through the shape

Of source and matter

So my entire room was scattered

In patterns enticed

When light smatters passage

Between earth and paradise

S(WET)

The time I was walking

Through the forest

Surrounding the monastery

I was staying in

I came to a fork in my path

One way bringing stillness

The other a boundless roar

Pounding the very hush of my heart

I followed the sound to a wooden bridge

That overlooked a stretching lake

Between them

Poured a waterfall

Panting breathless

I stood there stalled

Pulled by the water

Enthralling my senses

To rest mesmerised

In its screaming gait

Watching

I made my eyes drop

At the same rate of the fall

Drinking for split seconds

The forms beckoned out from the foam

Mystical bodies

Inexpressible things

As though water

Travelling such speed

Ceases to reflect that of earth

But sculpts the faces and moulds

Of transcendental realms

Thus it swelled

Cascading and crashing

White clashing foam crushing close

Gushing cool-cold kisses

Kissed capricious crisp

Encroached through bliss and glint and gold

Crests of feathers

Cloud-clasped delicious

The rush of crowds

Clustered in hisses

Chrysanthemum petals

Creased in flusters

Where platinum wrestles

Fleeces of milk

Wings of snow angels coalesced

Flesh collapsed in glacial jewels

Crashed colossal

Chrome caressed

Splashed palatial

Constella wombs

Wombing stems of

Breath and essence

Increasing Elysium

In effervescence

Coliseum blending to spires capsized

As stalactites chimed

Through glockenspiel sighs

Swan flocks scything

Kaleidoscop-crops

Diving kamikaze

As spinning-tops

Skimming skin of

dropletrainbotic

Pocketing spray

The rain rejoices

Plunged and risen as glistened noises

Voices christened

In stories hoisted from hosts most moistened

By wet most whet

Set in chorus of castanets

Clapped cataclysmic

Splash-swept dash of cosmic districts

Flashed and flecked ecstatic fresh

Blessed and blithe

In high choir cries

Caressing trestles of classical heights

Brushing scalps of decibel mountains

Mounting fount crescendos flushed

Cumuli rush and crystal-cleansed

Creatia gasps caress the gusts

Blush the glass of Heaven’s lens

Mending the crevice

tween hearth and soul

Wetting the coals

Shoaling the lonely

Sweating the path

Clothing the lowly

Holy upon holy upon holy upon holy

As I looked up from the waterfall

A single white gull

Circled skywards

Climbing silent

The pining void

Of the lake

Copyright @ 2010 Sh’maya

In the final brush marks I surprised myself to find that the image of the white gull flying away at the end of the Third Aria, S(WET) had emerged accidentally in my painting at the top of the waterfall.  Since the pieces were all about the thin line between the spiritual and natural dimensions, this seemed a fitting end to the painting process.

I was looking at Renaissance paintings for inspiration in this triptych and the kinds of colours used in religious painting informed my palette.

The preview combined an art exhibition with poetry performances.

http://www.accidentandemergence.phanfare.com/

I was fascinated by these old and redundant sets in two sizes, and wanted to incorporate their use into my painting like Glenn Ligon who pokes paint through stencils with oil sticks.  Text has often crept into my work and there seemed a lot of scope here.  I dug further and also found a plastic school stencil set.  About half an hour later I received a message from a friend:

‘I have an idea which could be a proposal…….I sometimes come up with little poems which plant themselves in my head. They don’t feel right to be performance pieces and I get a little bored with standard read poetry -I was thinking that a really interesting way of releasing them would be joined with art – they are short enough to fit on canvas and I guess are quite invoking of visual response….’

This timely email formed the basis of a collaboration with poet, Sh’maya.

During the process certain challenges presented themselves, such as accidentally dropping the letter ‘S’ between the floorboards.

I discovered that ‘S’ was irretrievable because the floorboards are ‘tongue in groove’ and therefore it was impossible for me to prize them up individually.

I made a surrogate ‘S’ and discovered/decided that ’S' stood for ’sacrifice’.

I also found a hot rod drawing tool which offered an alternative method of working with the text.  This was particularly absorbing in its repetitiveness, and enabled other distracting thoughts to be shelved on that particular day.

Last October, Sh’maya came over for a few days and wrote some poetry in my working space as I continued to paint. He was particularly inspired by the old books piled up on the wall and made a list of the titles that grabbed his attention.  I tried to memorise the titles and remove the ones I could remember from the pile, whilst listening to something he was creating on his loop station.

We created an installation by categorising the books by title and incorporating them with other objects that seemed resonate with the categories.

The End.

This collaboration is continuing in the context of an Accident and Emergence project:

http://www.pistolsandpollinators.blogspot.com/

www.accidentandemergence.phanfare.com

This year they brought a number of Kent based artists into the mix to give it more of a local flavour. The aim of the event is to create a culture that values the space and time where artists can share openly and make new connections.

Within the show there were a variety of themes and common threads between the visual artists; broadly speaking an interest in different aspects of spirituality (or identity) which seemed to act as a gelling agent between everyone involved –  including the musicians, poets and visitors during the preview evening.  

As we discussed our work during the organised critiques, I noticed recurring themes emerged as driving concerns behind our work, such as personal narrative, memory (collective and personal) memorial and honour, loss and renewal. I found this to be enriching; especially to learn from artists working in different mediums from myself, where there was a confluence of ideas as well as a diversity of approaches. I think the success was in the combination of sensitive selection by the organisers and the already existing friendships which were being nurtured.

What impacted me the most in terms of the progression of my own work was the idea of honour which was apparent in a couple of the artists work, for example:

Kent based artist Niki Campbell built an installation consisting of plaster cast mangos adorned with photographs of her mother who lived in India before coming to settle in the UK in the 60s. The mangos were placed under an apple tree which took on dual functionality; a surrogate for the mango tree in her Mother’s Indian garden and a memorial to her Mother’s dream of the rural-Idyll lifestyle envisaged for the future before her arrival in England. London life turned out differently.

FHF III pictures are here:

www.accidentandemergence.phanfare.com

Artists’ websites:

www.niki-campbell.co.uk

http://www.lc-art.co.uk/

http://www.re-title.com/artists/reem-shaheen.asp

http://www.sophiaplease.co.uk/

http://elliehowitt.com/

Copyright © 2009 Jonathan Bentall

Question Connect Imagine Reflect

I view my creative approach as an enquiry of the five senses. There is the Question of looking which when translated to the issue of re-presentation brings up questions such as: What can be included or excluded? What is essential or peripheral? The answers to these questions will involve questions pertaining to the other senses. For example, touch; how does the paint feel in my hands or between my toes? Another question might be: What would happen if I limited one of the senses? Lately I have been painting through limited visual stimuli. This has resulted in bringing other senses to the fore, like hearing, in the creation of a work. Instead of looking at nature, I can hear it through the window and this feeds into the creative process.

Generally my practice builds on smaller questions which are thrown up along the path as I begin a particular work or project.

The need to Connect and re-connect is an ongoing issue. My current work is about issues of spirituality in art and I experience this as a form of connectedness; a passionate engagement with the creative process which I relate to the concept of ‘flow’.

The flow is temporal, so I am concerned about finding ways to re-establish the lost connection. I am also concerned about connecting to the viewer of my art since the receiving of the work is pivotal in consolidating its meaning and value. My creative process is therefore a shared experience. I look for ways to connect with other artists, or creatives in other disciplines, share ideas and allow this connectedness to inform my processes. Out of this comes a rootedness to life in relationship; this locates my work in a collective sense.

I recognise that to Imagine is to draw upon memory and therefore remembrance. This relates to my personal narrative which evolves through the guidance of my imagination.

I am specific and intentional about the role of my imagination as a vehicle to positive outcomes; the freedom to imagine creatively locates the past with the future and reconciles the two with hope. This is the sustainable basis of my practice. I see an enlivened imagination as the evidence of a heart at rest with itself, when permission has been given to be oneself. I always hold before me the thought that the fruit of my imagination is born from my attitude. In this way my best ideas stem from my attitude which then steers my imagination to a productive place of idea formation. These ideas are the result of working through questions like: How could my learning environment have been adapted to my learning needs as a child?

I Reflect after a creative session as a means to evaluate outcomes and the process that lead to them. The reflective process is a significant part of the creative cycle and I spend a lot of time there.

I will try to piece together the particular nature of what was done in order to see the context more clearly and place the work produced within a mental framework. This may not always lead to definitive awareness, but usually the act of reflection positions the experience and artwork within the framework of a discernable statement and results in the right title for the work. When that happens I will always believe in the authenticity of the title as a reflection of the creative process. The reflective stage usually helps me to clarify further goals to move forward.

2. What currently inspires you to create?

I work with mixed media (acrylic, oil, pastel, charcoal, ink and pencil) on hardboard, canvas and paper to encourage a varied and dynamic material process.

I am currently inspired by the idea of the invisible, inner core of a painting sought in the tradition of the mystics leaning toward the lyrical or poetic.  Signposts along the way are usually marked by a combination of formal integrity and suggested narrative. The latter might be a spiritual idea, a personal history, a remembered poem, story, rhyme or an imagined place which then consolidates the work as meaningful:

Execution =Work = Concept

Instead of:

Concept = Execution =Work.  (I might try this way at some point.)

Copyright © 2009 Jonathan Bentall

or in the quiet place of contemplation.

I’ve been looking for it (art) in the in between spaces of living.

Something about the meticulous organisation of my parents fascinates me: My Mother got a book by Trinny and Susannah and we spent an hour or so doing the exercise to establish my colour range; everything incompatible with my skin tones subsequently went to charity, and a few items were tidily arranged on the kitchen floor as a working model.

I noticed my Dad’s careful arrangement of logs separating his garden from the golfers. There’s something about cutting up logs and arranging them in the right order; attention to detail and preparation for winter.

After photographing the logs I caught my own shadow by accident.

I enjoyed the spectacle of the Kathakali dancers before the play began; the preparatory process of dressing up and carefully applying all the makeup was integral to the whole experience of those watching.

I was out with my friends in their boat the other day. The sea rests my soul for some reason. The sun, sky and sails spoke to me so I snapped it with my mobile.

When the evening came everything was still.

I said ‘we’d be hard pressed to find somewhere else so remote and so close to home.’

Later the water to the side of the boat was sparkling (not moonlight) but alive with bioluminescent organisms (although it was a mystery to us at the time.) Any agitation of the water resulted in shimmering ripples of extraordinary beauty. We took a bucketful and the magic glitter slopped up the sides every time the bucket was stirred. Shame it didn’t come out on camera.

http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/

Recently I was asked to take part in an arts evening with The Furnace www.thefurnaceuk.com at The George in Balham, London organised by a group of people exploring collaborative enterprise between different art forms. I was asked to do a live painting performance as a spontaneous response to the music of the Lee Mitchell band. http://www.myspace.com/whoisleemitchell They were the main act for the evening. The invitation came on a Saturday morning for the event that Wednesday night.

Over the last year I’ve built up a body of work in silence and meditative solitude, overworking and re-working, abandoning and embracing over an extended time scale. Although daunting to change the pace and environment so drastically, I realised this was a great opportunity to unleash some of that creative build up at a specific moment in time surrounded by a specific community of people. It had to be about that moment in time, irreducible and unrepeatable; a conversation between a painter, an audience, some musicians and a canvas (2 metres high x 6.5 metres long.)

Not having ever painted anything that big before I was concerned just to cover the thing, hoping that the acrylic paint would flow freely across it. The staff at Bird and Davis were extremely helpful in advising what materials I’d need and how much. Once all the technical issues were sorted out my nerves evaporated into peaceful calm, and on the actual day I was able to really enjoy all the other acts before me. The only thing that kept bugging me was what I would paint. Every time I came up with an idea I had to let it go, sensing that it would impose itself on the unplanned moment and wreck the phenomenology of it all.

Someone said ‘just make sure you paint from your head to your feet.’ I thought ‘once the music starts I’ll let my body do the talking’ and that’s how it happened. The musicians started out in mellow tones and I started with broad sweeps of blue and then green. Gradually the pace of the music picked up and I began to introduce warm oranges, pinks and yellows.

Later it culminated in red, black and white.

I became quite ecstatic at points during those 25 minutes, especially when I started splashing pink onto the green hills and swiping black figures into the surface in the final few minutes. I was really intrigued by peoples’ comments afterwards, especially those where their experience paralleled mine at those points of heightened intensity; a truly shared dynamic.

I’m interested in the dance expressed in paint. I painted a small picture called ‘Dance’ (gallery 1 on my website) which depicts a joyful ecstasy of bodily movement. Other paintings also approach human interaction through ritual/ceremony/dance. I want to re-visit that subject, but have wondered how it might be achieved figuratively.

During the event as I drew from the music and the audience and allowed my body to respond to the immediacy of the moment, I sensed that I was actually becoming in reality, the subject I had wanted to depict in paint; quite a liberating feeling. The next day I ached.

What emerged was a kind of landscape with figures dotted across it and in the middle a huge all Seeing Eye.

Above is a drawing I did (or my sister did) when we were small – these tickets enable the bearer to go anywhere and do anything. Fortunately they have come to light again.

Here I’ll be recording the artistic activities and projects that I’ll be involved in, as well as any insights and thoughts I might have along the way. By jotting it all down I aim to keep myself ‘falling forwards’.

I studied at Newcastle University, UK graduating in 1997 with a Fine Art degree. My work at that time was created by observing theatrical performers. I sketched all the students rehearsing at the other University (which had/has a strong drama department.) Later I would develop these impressions into compositions which explored elements of the human condition represented by ‘types’ caught in the interplay between spiritual and material realities.

I’ve been working in different fields outside of artistic practice since then, so it’s an exciting leap to return on a second wind. I have just read an inspiring book called Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland, 1993 which talks about creativity in the face of different kinds of obstacles, reconciling oneself to them and continuing to create.

Recently I have been working on the theme of solitude as a needed counterpart to community; a way to re-familiarise myself with the personal and material process of making art. By solitude I mean its role as a discipline and its rejuvenating effects in slowing down time.

My experience of solitude as a spiritual discipline involves moments of still contemplation prior to and during painting. This is centring myself. There is a play between meditative deliberation and decision making. During the painting process itself I have used no pre-gathered visual source material. Instead I have been interested in the role of the imagination in its relation to visual memory and spontaneity; similar to my own experience of musical creativity. It’s a process that embraces personal permission giving toward play and abstract experimentation. This latest work on my website is arranged in chronological order to show the progression of style over the course of last year.

I’m looking to join a London based group of artists for further development. Please get in touch if you have any suggestions.

www.jonathanbentall.com