Principles of form
Movement, text and image are the three primary forms of practice that I chose for my exploration. To me they emerge as one transdisciplinary practice, each influencing the other in terms of evolution of technique, understanding diverse experiences, as well as creative expression. This kind of practice, emerging as a melded whole from many different forms to have an underlying set of common principles is a key framework of my practice. This integrated practice is in line with Kapila Vatsyayan's framework of Indian art, philosophy, and aesthetics. While there are several individual pieces of work that are each part of a broader inquiry into porosity, which are in one kind of form or another, the whole meaning of the inquiry emerges in the consolidated practice of movement, text, and image.
Movement brings the body into being; text and image allow for mental and intellectual play. It is when all three – movement, text and image come together that intense transitions and experiences become possible. Image and text are like two different languages, the nature of visualisations in both is different and so are their outcomes. They allow for different kinds of experiences. The idea of these explorations is not so much an attempt to build expertise in any one form. The purpose of inquiring through these forms is to better understand porosity as a principle and engage with porosity in the visible worlds that form permits. The diversity of form allows for deeper inquiries. Forms in relation to space, time, and energy can be studied carefully in their expression within the work in order to draw out new insights.
Aesthetic Devices
Aesthetic devices are techniques and methods that recreate my experiences in form. While there can be many kinds of aesthetic devices, below are some that currently inform my practice. Form can be the gross form that I develop for a painting, poem, or a movement piece, or it can be the subtle form of consciousness. Both the gross forms and the subtle forms have materiality and physicality. The devices help me to play with this materiality so that I might shift states of being and make these shifts visible. Forms may transmute from one into another, media might change and inks and acrylics may interact to create diverse weight shifts, a word may transition into another, a construction of paragraph or verse meter may change. All of these devices support the nature of being that emerges through porosity:
Continuous narration
Recursion
Seamlessness
Shape-shifting temporal and spatial play,
Fluidity
Permeability
Malleability
Transitions and transience,
Repetition
Interweaving
Transparency
Simultaneity
Rhythm
Myth and symbolism
Simultaneity
A journal sketch in planning for a series. The sketch uses folk-style form and imagery to capture the seamless flow of life and death, through a continuous narration sequence. It looks at the paradox of one form transmuting into another.
Artistic Directions
Artistic directions can take many different approaches. Each approach contains a certain worldview and tendency. As an artist, designer, and illustrator my work takes a range of directions to suit different contexts. Over time, I have valued this diversity of directions and approaches, as it opens different cognitive centres within me. In my quest to explore porosity, I find it meaningful to bring together a diversity of directions to inquire into the multidimensional nature of porosity. Some of the directions that I am pursuing include:
Aesthetic
Romantic
Scientific
Interpretative
Illustrative
Activist
Symbolic
Metaphysical
Educational
From a series of paintings of the mythical Hans, a swan/ goose that represents consciousness and breath.
