Artits that are extremly memorable from this time would be artist like Carravagio Michelangelo etc, personally another master of painting. Carravagio along with other members of the Baroque era still used religious themes in their work, but instead of imagery that would have been notoriously dream like and unreal that would have precceded the Baroque art it instead suggested religion through the everyday, the real, and things that anyone who viewed a painting at that time in that style, could recognise as everyday and real.

The dynamic poses in many works of the Baroque style I feel are highly influential to my work. The compositions of bodies that use ancient formulas to depict some of the most amazing versions of life. I would recomend Kenneth Clarke’s book on The Nude as a read to anyone reading this post If use the body in your art. This does not neccisarily mean that the intrest must be in the naked body either! The book explores many formal aspects of the body as a built up mechanism that can transport flesh, sensation and movement. It gives immense varitaions on works of art and explains how such vital things such as energy are distilled in static imagery such as paintings and sculptures, trust me read it and you wont forget it anytime soon its genius.

One area of Baroque painting that has influenced my practice is the theatricality of the imagery , the use of light to give its dramatic effect and you only have to look at so many of Caravagio‘s work to se such contrast between the bright and the dark or the high feelings of anticipation that one gets when they look at whats happening in the imagery. Sometimes you want to do something in the image. Sometimes you wanna move an arm to see behind it when the artist has deliberatly set it up to block the view of the viewer but never on a to literal level. It brought painting to a new level of interaction on a phsycological level too with these kind of tricks. There are moments almost caught between other moments almost, there is an image that Carravagio painted in which a big horse is towering over a man who lies beneth the belly of teh horse. His hands outstretched looking to protect himself as the steeds back leg that is risen is just about to fall on top of the man beneath with a thud. This kind of anticipation, I think its a wonderfull thing in painting and in imagery in general. 

 They spoke about two architechts too, Bernini and Bellini. One thign that i noticed from the art of th period is the fantastic gaps in that seem to be crossed between actual process of work and the final outcome. The works in some of the cathedrals in Rome in particualr are bloody amazing, I have never seen such brutal and dogged finished pieces in my life. They are perfected down to the most final pieces. Painting combined with sculpture combined with architecture. However there is a certain feeling of transendance that come through some of the buildings and rooms that were constructed. They were avid believers in christ, and catholsicm was huge. But the church’s became like an art gallery woith amazing imagery painted all over its ceilings and walls, then there were beautifull windows that would pour light in past the vaults in the churchs and flood them with an almost golden light. I remember thinking to myself, that isnt this as much an experiece in itself? and/or was this intended by the artist?

I think this is intresting for one or two seperate reasons. For example painting was used here as a tribute, to idolise a certain set of rules and beliefs. It was there for everyone to see, to gaze at in awe, once you went to the church that is. There was no taking these masterpieces home. They became owned by a culture rather than a person, the church owns the building yes but there is an atmosphere here created by the painted image combined with sculpture and place that is owned by a city, something very patriotic here too, but it is combined to create something that is very otherworldly an almost unexplainable experience. Its another nice area for examining where painting fits again in society today. It became this second thing for these guys in the 17th cent not something that you stuck on your walls at home. Was it some kind of christian propaganda? It wouldnt be the first time thats it been used like that either.

I think painting in these churches were painting as a celebration of an idea to idolise.

I think that it was, these artist were creating an out of world experience through their constructions, feeding on the viewers knowledge of heaven and hell, and the believe in the trancendance of the spirit after death. They were as much of an instillation as any instillation artist of today. Examining Bellini’s church’s seem to prove to myself anyway, that the experience one has with a space is equally important in feeding the viewer, by taking them away from their ordinary lives and accessing a place that seems almost real. but never rel enough to experience it anywhere else other then where it is. To me these types of church’s and areas for the church’s are where instillations began.

When I paint an image, the experience of looking, thinking, and feeling is extremly important. I feel today it may be shunned by an art generation that is hell bent on works of art like Martin Creeds crunched up piece of paper. I feel that experience is a key factor in painting as it is in most if not all areas of art.  This opens questions again of the experience one may also encounter when viewing or being confronted by Martin Creed’s piece. I think its experience tries to allow the viewer access to a place that may at first have no way of explaining itself instead it relies on feeling or sensation. How the viewer will feel, how they see themselves in relation to a piece of art is crucial i think. It may sound that I am trying firstly to defend my own work because i see it as something that relies on interpretaion of the viewer, rather than actual intention of myself as the artist. However this is not true, I am still examining this through Bernini’s  Sant’Andrea al Quirinale.

I feel that there is an aura. Now please please please dont get me wrong at the same time i mention the word aura about a work I feel myself kicking myself because it categorises my explination of aura as something other worldly. Or loose to interpretaion. What im saying is that Bernini’s concise decision for example to place yellow glass in the dome window seems to cast a magnifisant golden glow into the chamber. But also adds to the effect of an other worldy experience, inside something that is not real, but at the same time is. Earlier when I spoke about the ideas of experience sensation and I think that these are crucial links also between different mediums, how they interact and have use the human being and the human pshyche as part of their process of breaking down and accessing ceratin pieces of art. Even if we look at artist like Francis Bacon his figures again painted with senstaion, sensation coming only through experience.

I feel that Baroque art and art of the last three to four centuries is still possibly overlooked for some of its relevece to art today. To be continued

My name is Stephen Morris and im a young man begining to embark on career in contemporary art. My educational training in art has taken place over the last four years. In 2005 I finished my school years and began my first year in Gorey School of Art (GSA). The short lived history of GSA will be another setion of the blog that those who are intrested in can look at also. Anyway……. back to the point. I studied for a three year period in Gorey in Wexford with some great tutors and artists including Eamonn Carter, Paul Doran, and Brian Hand, and then applied for direct entry in to the Institute of Art Design and Technology Dun Laoghaire (IADT) on a portfolio of painting for my fourth  and final year to which i was succesfull.

As an artist I practice within different mediums and dont really feel this as a major problem however painting always finds its way of creeping back into my practic through the many issues it has in contemprary art and its possibilites.   At the moment Painting is my major and is what im working with towards my Degree Show. I am now currently in the process of working on body of work in college for our 4th year degree show which takes placein June 2009, Further information on the exhibition will be posted closer to the date, and anyone looking for more information on the show or my own work and practice can feel free to keep an eye on the blog or contact me in the meantime.

I have opinions on all types of art be that painting, peformance, text, lierature, poetry, instillation and sound, and although I am not an absolute scholar on all mediums I am still a young artst who is keen to know as much of the history and creative backrounds to all these arts as i believe they each have attributes that can aid one another into sometimes beautiful, sometimes poetic, sometimes creatrive and sometimes mind boggling finished work. I have many intrests. Painting, writing, acting, theatre, cinema, nutrition, keeping fit, socialising, and loads of types of music, some which has huge influences on my work. Although i dont play an instrument as such I still can appreciate all types of music for many different aspects, the same way in which I can apreciate many aspects of visual arts too. Im currently living in Dublin and working in town and I  have huge desires to experience different cultures in the world, from western to eastern ones and I hope to spend my life fining out more about the worlds cultures.

 Anyway, welcome to my Blog look about and feel free to leave a comment on any post i have made!

” Why paint an image”? Was the question proposed to me by a tutor of mine in Iadt during a tutorial in the first week of January.  I had spoke to him about looking in to the areas of gender identity. Drag queens were what i had aimed at approaching through painting, the reasons being that i was intrested in some subject that i could mess with the ideas of gendered space within painting. The question he propsed to me had me confused,  and the answer could not come to my mouth. I was a fourth year art student studying fine art and i couldnt answer it!! I stayed for the rest of the tutorial and when i left our talk i knew that i knew the answer as to why we should still paint an image rather than just photograph it, but i couldnt bring it fourth staright away on the spot. The manipulationof the image is what i first said about it to myself  how they could become a sensual. 

Soon after I came across a text on saatchi online then in which kinds cemented my point.It is rooted in memory ( a touchy subject in contemporary art, and a though subject to undertake while chasing some form of notification on the contemporary art ) . The reasons that anyone would paint an image through the history of art was, in most cases, for recording. Photography seemed the more appropriate way of dipicting the image with its arival in 1836. The crisp and quick moment seemed time saving and appropriate, As Paul Deleroche declared ” that from today painting is dead”.

What can painting do that photography can not. Both are/were used to declare a memory or moment, but it is paintings senseuality, that has the possibility to prove photography’s weekness.   Memory is often triggered by the banal, by otherwise vacant or impressionistic details that prompt the senses through association. Painted images – precisely because they lack the pictorial authority and truth-telling capacity of photography – can more easily trigger a free play of association or become a catalyst for a web of connections that relate to the viewer’s own memory bank.                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                         Gingeras, Alison M. Saatchi Online

So what is it, they seem to be able to effect an image with different ways. Human touch, smell, sensitivity, process reminds the viewer of the work that has gone ino the creation of the piece. Reminiscent of memory and the process of re counting time to a certain point. Assocoiation of textures through application and through process can remind the viewer of time also. With painting you can manipulate it, inform the sensual nature of the moment express it through process and link it to one of the most impotant things in painting, that being the handmade, something that seems to be slowly disolving in the contemporary art scene.  

High Society

The above image is one of Britich Artist Cecily Brown. Brown to me, is a painter that proves painting is an entitiy that has the ability to capture the senses better than no other medium. The fluidity of the paint rushes around the canvas in a flurry of movement. As a painter/artist myself, there is a certain issue that I feel is essential in imagery that desire to produce sensuality in paint. Rythem. Brown’s work and all its sexual masterly application and marrying of forms.

I spoke to a tutor of mine the other day, a good and respected artist. And he pointed out some of the areas of my imagery that need to be examine dfurther. Ive tried for quite sometime to look into my imagery and marry the concept with the aesthetic. Here are where my major issues seem to have arisen. An image for me is where im try to talk visually. I used to be under the influence that an image has the possibility to never live as a single thing associated and concerned with itself, and how it works between the four corners of its canvas, whatever type of canvas that may be.

I believe though that there is much knowledge and effort put to an image that is concerned with how or whatever is going on in the image, moves, feeds and works off different attributes, whether that be colours themes or motifs. How the coherance of each of these suggested things work togethter as some kind of singular unit, that unite beng the painting itself.

So I have entered a state where the actual aesthetics of paint itself is as much important to me than the actual concept of gender for example. I believe that the concerns with the aesthetics of paint how they work and feed of one another, or how you can create a rythem throughout a work by laceing certain lines beside against or over textures and marks with paint.

However……… lol there is alwya s a however. What do i paint.?? I am still facinated by the human body. Personally i dont know exactly where it comes from but i think I have a couple of suggestions as to where this intrest has come from.  I see the body as a form. Think of the body, when it is examined from one singular view point ( for example an artist examining his sitter, or a photograph) if it moves or interacts with another human form  together, the actual shapes and areas that are created can be wonderfull and offer so many connetions of spaces and interlocking of lines. It is important to note that although i sometimes examine partisllay naked bodies, the nude, as sexual object through the history of art is by no means the main area of my concern.