Monday, 11 January 2016

Artists who look at sight and vision

I just typed 'artists who deal with vision' and 'contemporary art about sight' into google, and then realised how silly this is - pretty much all artists deal with vision...in order to make their work, and all work is to do with sight because that is how the majority of all humans experience the world and contribute back into it. But how does this help me contextualise my practice?

I need to find artists who convey an awareness of the fragility of our sight, and therefore I suppose our connection to the world. I have realised recently that my work is a 'memento mori' but of sight and seeing - a 'you might not be able to see forever', a 'this is really precious', a 'consider how lucky we are right now'. Of course this is fueled by my own poor vision and dependence on lenses. I wonder if there are many artists who use their bad sight to make work, or whose art is directly affected by their lack of sight.

The first artist who has made me think about seeing is James Turrell, especially in the work I encountered at Tremenhere Sculpture Gardens last year. Aqua Obscura (2013) - below, made in an old Victorian water tank is a large camera obscura that projects an image of the leaf canopy above onto one wall of the very very dark space. We did not know what we would see when we entered so it was a real exploration of vision... you're never sure if it is your eyes or your mind that is making you see things. Being aware of  your eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness was quite a magical thing - taking that time to reflect on darkness I think had significant effect on my thoughts leading me to investigate vision more this year.



No comments:

Post a Comment