As research for my current MA project I visited the Dexter Dalwood exhibition @ Tate St Ives, before today I had never heard of Dexter Dalwood and only decided to go and see the exhibition randomly while wondering around St Ives.
The first thing I noticed about the paintings when i first saw them was the colour, very bright and almost unrealistic colours, they had a very photographic quality about them which I liked. I was drawn in my the collage effect that the paintings had and was interested in the way that Dexter had created rooms purely from a description he had had read in a article in the paper or write up on an artist, he used a selection of imagery from magazines, interior design books anything really to construct a "portrait" of a celebrity or famous setting IE.famous murder scene. I love the small collages displayed in the Tate which show how he put his ideas onto paper before he painted, the collages were small but packed with detail.
This exhibition got me thinking about "place" and "memories", My initial project proposal for the MA was to create textile prints that represented my feelings and experiences of New York, New York is in my mind and all of my experiences and feelings and memorable places are in my mind...In order to get these experiences onto paper i need to construct "my" New York from what i have in my head.......
Dexter Dalwood: In conversation withMartin Clark
"I became very interested in how to make a "photo-type"painting, I became obsessed with making paintings of odd bits of rooms, bits of ceilings-the kind of thing you look at when your lying on a bed, feeling slightly depressed....around this time I went to Bergerac and I visited
Micheal De Montaignes house, the tower where he worked. The extrodianary thing about it is that whilst it is a beautiful place, the room in some ways is dissapointing. the place where he wrote is very ordianary of course, a simple room, but it becomes special because of the fact that he is working there- so your imagianation becomes more important than the reality. I became interseted in that tension, that slippage, in creating a space for both myself, and the viewer"
I like the idea of a place is created by our imagination, it makes me think about the quotes that i found that people had wrote regarding there experiences of new york, otheres will read the quotes and have a picture of new york painted in their heads by others.
When most people think of New York certain iconic images pop into their heads...these are the images that we see on adverts, films and postcards. what are the iconic images that form my New York??
Can i use this idea within my design process.........?
07/02/10
