Doing Art with Silk
Painting on silk with brush brought back childhood memories of the learning calligraphy and making ink painting on rice paper. "Art" was a tangible and complete picture for me as a child. As I gained more textbook knowledge of "art", art become more intangible and abstract.
Working with silk seems to bridge the gaps between that "abstract" and the "concrete" of art as I've understood as a child.
Silk dye is something I needed to understand well. I needed to understand physical and chemical property of the dye, what it does when it hits the surface of the silk.
When I draw a circle on surface of silk, mark will not stay a circle. Ink will bleed and find its way into microscopic gaps in fiber of the silk, and shape of circle will change.
Silk is pro-active medium in itself. It is not a neutral ground which passively receive painter's gestures. I accept this character. And for this reason, I do not say silk distorts my gesture. Silk transforms my gesture, as I am about to change silk's chemical character. Once mark is made, silk is steamed or fixed making the chemical transition where dye bonds itself permanently to the fiber.
Dye disappears and only color remains, becoming one with silk.
Fixation process is also a medium in itself, as during this process, the edges of blots of ink will soften and colors will shift slightly.
Application of dye onto the silk takes only a moment. The images or gestures only takes a few minutes to create. The completion of the work as a whole can take days. Fixation process in which colors become one with silk making the painted silk a sculptural work of art. Fixation process gives substance to a color. A color is no longer in form of liquid or powder dye, but it transforms itself to a piece of silk.
The materiality of the surface is crucial. I am not merely building on top of blank ground. I work to transform the chemical nature of the ground. On a completed work, the visual exactitude of my brush strokes is only incidental. And the materiality of the surface transforms my gesture. For this reason I am drawn to working on silk.
Once I made a mark on silk, there is no going back. I've changed its nature irreversably. That visible mark will stay on in some shape or form. At this point there still are many step ahead to complete the process. In order for a mark to unite with the surface, entire surface need to be fixed, or steamed. The completed work will (visually) inform viewer if the every process suited the materiality of the surface. If any process has been altered, finished product will reflect that alteration.
When painting on silk, one cannot second guess oneself. Just like a fragment cannot be a sentence, brush stroke has to be complete in order to be a "brush stroke".
As an artist, I am interested in process as a whole, from start to finish and the consequences of the object I've created My meditation is not on becoming a expressive catalysis for a single brush stroke I am about to make. I do not subscribe to an idea of "channeling the abstract forces which enable an artist to distill "creative" energy into every single mark".
I merely (pre)meditate to learn to live with the unforseen consequences of single moment in my action. For better or for worse, that propels me forward.
Working with silk seems to bridge the gaps between that "abstract" and the "concrete" of art as I've understood as a child.
Silk dye is something I needed to understand well. I needed to understand physical and chemical property of the dye, what it does when it hits the surface of the silk.
When I draw a circle on surface of silk, mark will not stay a circle. Ink will bleed and find its way into microscopic gaps in fiber of the silk, and shape of circle will change.
Silk is pro-active medium in itself. It is not a neutral ground which passively receive painter's gestures. I accept this character. And for this reason, I do not say silk distorts my gesture. Silk transforms my gesture, as I am about to change silk's chemical character. Once mark is made, silk is steamed or fixed making the chemical transition where dye bonds itself permanently to the fiber.
Dye disappears and only color remains, becoming one with silk.
Fixation process is also a medium in itself, as during this process, the edges of blots of ink will soften and colors will shift slightly.
Application of dye onto the silk takes only a moment. The images or gestures only takes a few minutes to create. The completion of the work as a whole can take days. Fixation process in which colors become one with silk making the painted silk a sculptural work of art. Fixation process gives substance to a color. A color is no longer in form of liquid or powder dye, but it transforms itself to a piece of silk.
The materiality of the surface is crucial. I am not merely building on top of blank ground. I work to transform the chemical nature of the ground. On a completed work, the visual exactitude of my brush strokes is only incidental. And the materiality of the surface transforms my gesture. For this reason I am drawn to working on silk.
Once I made a mark on silk, there is no going back. I've changed its nature irreversably. That visible mark will stay on in some shape or form. At this point there still are many step ahead to complete the process. In order for a mark to unite with the surface, entire surface need to be fixed, or steamed. The completed work will (visually) inform viewer if the every process suited the materiality of the surface. If any process has been altered, finished product will reflect that alteration.
When painting on silk, one cannot second guess oneself. Just like a fragment cannot be a sentence, brush stroke has to be complete in order to be a "brush stroke".
As an artist, I am interested in process as a whole, from start to finish and the consequences of the object I've created My meditation is not on becoming a expressive catalysis for a single brush stroke I am about to make. I do not subscribe to an idea of "channeling the abstract forces which enable an artist to distill "creative" energy into every single mark".
I merely (pre)meditate to learn to live with the unforseen consequences of single moment in my action. For better or for worse, that propels me forward.
Comments
Post a Comment