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Excerpts From Written Work
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"In Figure 9 and Figure 10 we saw how disruptive marks aided in building a temporal framework to the material traces of the artists actions. Similarly, in Figure 21 variations in the painting technique aid the temporal dimensions. The bed and walls adhere to verisimilitude and hold the sinuous and distorted body still in a moment in time, though the body is still imbued with a sense of writhing energy through its distortion. This technique adheres to the qualities of a memory image. Our experiences of the same space, here a bedroom, become a simple generic memory that transcends temporal categorisation in our memory. Here the body can represent the push and pull of involuntary vicissitudes on memory-images that are not assimilated into a generic memory. In Figure 21 Bacon subverts the male gaze and the traditional ideas of women as classically object in art. The seductive red ground and sensuous curves seem initially to adhere to these outdated ideas. However, when they are conflated with the unsettling and grotesque possibility of the innards coming out of the body, further emphasised by the realism in the surroundings, we are presented instead with a much more nuanced and less objectifying perspective of this woman, one that corresponds more to actual remembered experience of the person, rather than an image of her appearance."
Excerpt from Chapter Two of The Manifestations of Memory Within Gestural Marks and a Contemporary Figurative Practice, 2021 by Izzie Trew
"Because Contemporary art flows through the same pathways as global capital (Meskimmon 2011) the discourse surrounding it suggests an active effort on behalf of the art world must be made, to engage with cultural diversity and the concept of home and the idea of belonging. Lippard confirms that this sense of place is key to a discussion of modern cosmopolitanism, she also writes that physicality and one’s senses are intrinsically linked to this conception of a sense of place. Arguing that a sense of place is made up of those who visit and those who are from there (Lippard, 1977), This shared physicality that is so key to cosmopolitanism, demonstrates why interactive computer art that Brown discusses is so relevant to the cosmopolitan imagination. Contemporary art, specifically interactive public computer art, by making strangers move and interact with one another within these spaces, it develops this sense of community, place and transnational relations, allows for the continuation of the core concepts of cosmopolitanism."
Excerpt from Part II of A Contextual analysis of ‘Computer Art and The Cosmopolitan Imagination’- Dr Kathryn Brown, 2020 by Izzie Trew
Memory, in current scientific discourse, is differentiated into declarative and non-declarative strands. Declarative modes of memory are those that are recalled at will; visual memory in the form of memory-images, both episodic and semantic memory in the form of general and personal facts. Works within the sphere of Abstract Expressionism are neither representative of real-world objects nor situations and the forms of mark-making employed ‘automatic’. Therefore, it is non-declarative systems of memory, those that operating unconsciously, which are the most crucial to understanding the way the marks operate. Procedural memory is the performance of learned action, forms of recall embedded in the motor skills that one learns throughout life. If memory is the expression of knowledge, then procedural memory in the artistic setting is the expression of embodied knowledge that underpins all gestural artistic creation. (Freedberg 2011) Procedural memory must be considered when examining the way that gestural marks operate because each mark is the evidence of its own expression; the artists knowledge of the required amount of force and use of the correct implement in order to express what was intended, is what makes up procedural memory, this embodied knowledge is bound up in every mark
Excerpt from Chapter One of The Manifestations of Memory Within Gestural Marks and a Contemporary Figurative Practice, 2021 by Izzie Trew
The setting of the marks themselves has a direct influence on the kind of response stimulated. Pollock’s marks, in Figure 1 and Figure 4, extend beyond the bounds of the canvas, evidence of a set of actions going beyond the ones we as a viewer are privy to. Since the marks themselves are grandiose, invoking a sense of awe, and their implied energy extends beyond the bounds of the canvas, a step-back response is enforced so the viewer takes in the whole piece in its totality.
In Bay of Naples 1961 (Figure 6) Twombly’s marks have the opposite effect. The automatic writing and other small-scale gestural marks, rather than communicating great physical prowess, imply activity of the intellectual mind rather than body. The smallness on this scale suggests to a viewer that there is further detail to be seen, thus encouraging a ‘look-forward’ response aided by a wide variety of colours. There is intimacy in this as it engages with the fundamental idea that drawing is a private affair, we as viewers may be privy to its secrets if we consider carefully the mark-making. The material traces of Pollock’s gesticulations on the other hand, offer up such a plethora of embodied information that the sense of intimacy is absent. Though the argument could be made for the privacy of drawing here too; there is part of the drawing event we cannot see, the artist retains a sense of mystery around that memory that only they can truly decipher.
Excerpt from Chapter One of The Manifestations of Memory Within Gestural Marks and a Contemporary Figurative Practice, 2021 by Izzie Trew
We see similarities between the formal elements of these two works, both artists utilise a central figure and pattern extending from draws the eye around the piece. In The mice at work: Threading the needle the pattern is significant. The embroidery of flowers across an article of clothing encapsulates both the idea of domesticity and nature within Potters work. Clothing is a significant metaphor in her work as whole. It is the focus of tension.
Excerpt from A Comparative Analysis of Work by Ellen Gallagher and Beatrix Potter, By Izzie Trew 2018
In The White Cube the gallery in Mason’s Yard, they’ve brought together nine different Chinese artists who explore modes of abstraction in recent Chinese painting in their pieces. All the works are completely different, ranging from layering shimmering lacquer on convex canvases to larger scale ink wash pieces, yet they all contribute to the ‘rich dialogue of abstraction’ in Chinese art. In contrast to western abstract art, abstraction was never alternative nor in opposition to traditional figurative practice and because of this has developed in different ways to the west. The art has been influenced by a diverse range of factors like Taoist Philosophy and traditional Calligraphic practice which is evident in this exhibition within Yu Youhan’s work which uses a lot of block lines and black ink.
Some of the pieces that really stood out to me were Jiang Zhi’s ‘System Errors’ pieces. Part of an extensive collection of similar work under the same title, the two displayed in the White Cube both use cool blue tones, and are reminiscent of natural forms such as waves, this completely contrasts with the subject which is a systematic glitch on a computer screen. They hover between representation and abstraction and are very impressive due to the complex patterns and forms, and considering they are painted free hand they ‘move seamlessly from screen to canvas’. I think these exhibitions in the West End are definitely worth a visit, the styles of these artists from the Far East are very different to the Western styles of abstraction due to a completely different history.