Paint Diaries

An experiment from foundation course that I tried again to begin final year of my undergrad degree.

Originally in 2020: two large plain pieces of paper pinned to the studio wall. I visited the paper pieces every day for a week to write a diary entry on each, one in pencil and one in brown wall paint with a brush. I had originally planned to revisit these every day for months and make it a long-term project where the paper gradually gets covered over time, but then covid hit! Womp womp.

Later in 2023: At the beginning of the final year of my degree (having already tried to do 4th year in 2022 and ending up taking a years interruption of study) I was pretty bewildered and had no idea where to start making, knowing that everything would lead to the all-important degree show that would ultimately decide my fate as an artist forever-more (it didn't). SO I remembered this project and decided to revisit it; as both a first foray back into visual art that year, and secondly for the cathartic process of paint-splurge diary writing. This time I chose to use alternating layers of pink and white wall paint over a scrap piece of flowery yellow wallpaper, applying the paint with a small brush, and later directly with my fingers and whole hand. The squelching paint mixed to a fleshy pale pink after each messier iteration of writing, the content of the diary and method of applying it becoming angrier and sloppier in unison. This piece was made at an emotionally turbulent time, where in other areas of life I was being forced to confront past experiences of sexual violence, and the long-lasting physical repercussions of such experiences on my mind and body. Later, when it came time to move out of the studios in advance of the degree show, I found I had to throw it away as I couldn't bear to look at this object imbued with all my pain, anger and frustrations. It'd been folded away on a shelf for months at this point, and the paint had cracked where I'd been careless with its storage. I don't believe in regrets, I clearly didn't feel that I could keep it around at the time, and there was a lot going on, it wasn't high on my list of priorities to properly think about whether I wanted to keep this thing or not. BUT, in retrospect I do think that however simple or cliche this thing was - to create a piece that held so much raw actual emotion is rare for me. Maybe I could've done something with it. Maybe I'll re-stage it in future. It's a useful personal tool - but would it be weird to exhibit? Uncomfortable, yes. Not all pieces of art have to end their life cycle in a public exhibition, that's true.

Maybe I'm also attached to this piece because it's one of the only times I've actually enjoyed painting - that exalted medium loved by all my artist friends that I've never really liked or been able to contend with - suddenly the paint takes on new forms and seems to me to be the exact right guy for the job, a squishy colour plane that mixes and sometimes coagulates in ridges of letters, perfect for this. I liked the wallpaper in this version too, something about materials/aesthetics of domesticity with the subject matter of gendered sexual violence, it fits, along with its sickly sweet yellow and white flower pattern. I think I will make this again, we'll see.

Paint Diaries

October 2023

January 2020