Postcard/philosophy piece

I had an extremely busy and productive weekend whilst visiting my parents. I completed this piece, which I am so excited about, and was kindly assisted by my mother, who cut out all the pictures.
The premise is a 2000 word original philosophical text, presented in a visual way to be shown alongside my other exhibition pieces. I wrote about the nature of distance and separation, and it's effect upon relationships, as this is very relevant to my life and work. Originally I wanted to write the text onto postcards from Finland. However, the tourist postcards I found in Turku at Christmas cost €3 each, and as I used 30 postcards for this that would have amounted to €90 in total, plus I didn't particularly like any of the available options. Instead, I used blank postcards and printed some of my own images that I took during my time in Finland. Another advantage of this approach is that the imagery is much more personal to me, and will allow the viewer a better understanding of my personal experience. There is a huge variety of different images in this piece, including a photo of my old house in Turku, images of public artworks that were part of the Capital of Culture programme, and pictures of places that I particularly loved.
Finally, I stitched the cards together to form a very long concertina. The cards can be flipped over to read the text or look at the picture. The finished work, when completely laid out, was the same length as my parent's living room! I'm still considering how to present this work in an exhibition space, but I'm keen on the idea of laying it out as it is in the above picture, probably on a table.
I really love this piece, and feel it successfully shows more of my experience in Finland. This week I'll be working on an embroidered map I started last week of the subjects in the portraits, and the connections we have amongst ourselves.

Lots of experiments

Due to moving house and having no internet I've been unable to update this blog. However, I have been working away with preparatory work, and I now feel quite ready to start working on the final painting of Emmi. I've laid down some blocks of colour on the finalo canvas, and today I plan to start the portrait.
In a discussion yesterday it was suggested to me that the poetry and painting are at odds with each other - the poetry is deliberately mixed up and random, whereas the painting is intended to be clearer and direct. I'm trying to hit a balance between the work being immediately readable, and therefore not very interesting, and being complicated and challenging. I want to viewer to have to consider the work a bit, not just look at it once, understand it, and move on.
In order to create more harmony I'm thinking of adding a rough, continuous line drawing, layered on top of the portrait. In my view this will add an element of confusion, without making the image indecipherable. I hope that the loose threads will also add a degree of disarray.

The other thing I'm currently working on is a philosophical text to be shown alongside these paintings, examining the nature of distance and separation. The individual works are more concerned with particular people, whereas this will reflect on distance and long-distance relationships more generally. I began writing notes on this last week, and don't want to publish too much right now.
I'm also considering how to present this text so that it fits with the other work. This is still in the early stages, so nothing is certain yet.

Embroidery experiments

I have continued preparatory work by experimenting with embroidery, and the idea of physically connecting the portrait to the poem. I think it's worked well. The embroidery works to add higlights to the image and provide extra definition. I like the contrast between the tight, controlled stitching and the loose, fluid strings connecting the two pieces. I think the strings, running across the subject's face, could be interpreted as a block between the viewer and the subject, however fragile it may be, which reinforces the idea of separation.
The loose strings are tangled here, which I'm not sure about. I would prefer them to simply overlap and hang freely. However, the idea just popped into my head to weave strings together
where they hang loosely. I'd need to ensure the web obscured the image, but didn't block it completely.
I also think that, considering the final piece will be on a larger scale, it might be interesting to combine cotton thread and wool as they hang between the pieces.

The gist of it

Readers of Frozen in Finland will already know that I am primarily a portrait artist, and I have recently returned to England in order to finish my education (BA Fine Art and Critical Theory). When this is completed next summer I intend to move back to Finland permanently, and paint and write for the rest of my life.

The year I spent in Finland had a profound effect upon my life, and changed it in many ways. I met some wonderful people who are now very important to me. My work has always involved people who I personally know, and who have a significance to me - painting generic figures has always felt cold to me. I have decided to begin making work about the friends I met in Finland.

Whilst I lived in Finland I read work by William Burroughs, and became inspired by his cut-up poetry. This involves cutting up a paragraph of text and randomly rearranging the words and phrases to create surreal poetry. Poetry and writing has always been of interest to me, and I will write a cut-up poem to be shown alongside each portrait. I will begin with a simple text about each subject and our relationship and rearrange it. Through the vague poetry, I hope to reinforce the feelings of distance, communication difficulties, and fading memories.

Recently I have also renewed my interest in embroidery. My work is often in mixed media, and embroidery was once used heavily within my work. Over time my interest waned, but I am now keen to use it again as a method of adding highlights and texture to each painting. I also want to include it in the presentation of the poetry as a way to connect the portrait and the poem. I am considering using embroidery and thread to physically connect the two parts, but currently my ideas on this are not completely solid.

My intention with this work is to demonstrate the value of these people and this experience, and to show my affection for the people I paint. I hope that the poetry will help viewers to understand the fragility of these connections, caused by being in different countries.

I have started by writing the poem to accompany the portrait of my first subject/victim - my friend Emmi, who became my best friend in Finland. My process, research, and work will be documented here as it goes on.