Response Interview
Filmed
Interview as part of Response Event at Gas Gallery 20th to 22nd September
2013.
Landscape
of Mid Wales Paintings by Aislinn Knight - Interviewed by
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Q. Describe your work to me
and also your creative process?
A. This
body of work is testament to a creative journey I undertook after being
told that I had cancer and would have to undergo life threatening
surgery to remove the tumour. I had six weeks to prepare myself both
mentally and physically. I escaped my fear and pain by walking and
exploring the local landscape making sketches and taking photographs while
immersed and connected emotionally to what I saw and felt. This process
enabled a response through the medium of paint to create an image that captures
and interprets the visual references and feelings I experienced. I had
found a portal through creativity into a wonderful pain and worry free world
in my studio for those first few weeks.
But then….As time went by and my day of
surgery loomed ever closer I began to feel a more spiritual relationship to
the paths I was walking. I came across my interpretation of
“Annwn” - “Otherworld” when seeking a way to describe how I felt
during the process of painting a very strange clump of tangled rooted trees by
the side of a lake, tucked under a shadowy hillside away from the path
and shrouded in low cloud, the mist muffled sounds of life beyond this space
- it was eerie beyond my senses. I'd stumbled upon something very
magical here which heightened my senses, and I found myself questioning
my understanding of the precariousness of mankind’s fragile existence
on this earth. I found myself yearning for something tangible, to touch and
feel. I looked for answers by imagining how it might have been long
ago, back to pre Christianity even… to a time when the blood and guts
of life were tempered by finding a "place to be" where dreams and
visions could lift the spirit to imagine a better existence here on earth and
after death in the afterlife. This is timeless isn't
it? Finding paradise? Our own Garden of Eden to dwell in during
our time here on earth and our imagined eternal paradise after life
expires.
At this point just days before my
hospital debut I find I have reached some sort of conclusion and I cannot
paint the landscape anymore; it doesn’t make any sense to me, this precarious
future is where my concerns as an artist lie. The last four images in
the exhibition evolved through process experiments with media such
as photocopying, printmaking and collage which I then scanned into the
computer and manipulated using the programme Photoshop. During the
editing process I had to decide layer by layer how much further I needed to
edit these to resolve and finalize each one to form a single image.
As I started layering the images together random forms and marks started
appearing distorting my original concept to form new images. It was
almost as if another programme was at work behind the process and so
developed its own digital interpretation of my ideas. I found this way
of working very absorbing and interesting in that it allowed me to let go of
certain aspects of the working process and so freed the handling of it to
become quite random and unpredictable in its outcome.
And so at this point I had come full
circle back to my MA work “The Seven Seals” – John’s vision in Revelation
witnessing the opening of the seven seals as prophecy is now expected and
inevitable; in the format of a film, a contemporary hermeneutic artwork
describing the end of world.
I tried to write a statement for
exhibition mid landscape to afterlife but could only describe this transition
through my poem Annwn. This is the point where the work changes
dramatically from a contemporary take on Abstract Impressionism to Automatism
as rooted in Surrealism. The way the Surrealist’s used Automatism,
letting the outcome of the image be decided by auto exterior influences.
To sum up the narrative running through
the paintings in sequence; it is a journey presented as a modern take on a
book of hours, all the works fall into a pattern of either four seasons or
six days, the Sabbath is excluded as a day of rest. The style and
rhythm is painterly at first changing to the sublime a m with a more intense
and studied rendering in use of paint and how it is placed carefully and
deliberately to explain an experience that is frightening – it is an inevitable
journey to a precipice where I am now standing, afraid to jump into, aware
that I have become a prophet of doom.
Q. How did the exhibition at
the Gas Gallery come about?
A. I was a
volunteer right at the beginning and helped getting the place cleaned up and
ready for the opening in June. There was talk of exhibitions to come so I
submitted a proposal and to my delight it was accepted – and here I am.
Q. You talk about how
you’ve worked doing office work and trying to do your art as a hobby and then
as a more serious pursuit until now you have found the balance shifting to
art. A lot of artists and creatives find themselves in a similar juggling
game. What advice would you give to someone who is trying to balance the two
demands of work and pursuit of art?
A. Never
give up! It can be exhausting at times to pursue both. I found it
too difficult to switch from office worker to artist on a daily basis, but at
weekends or during holidays I always found myself doing something creative
even if it was just re-decorating the house or gardening. Art just
persists, it permeates – you can’t just stop being an artist, because it is
who you are!
Q. And do you wish that
you’d found that pathway to your art sooner or do you think you’re stronger
as an artist for having done it the way you did?
A. I
think I would have been too sensitive in my teens to cope. I mean by
that: you have to be so open and receptive as an artist which makes you
incredibly vulnerable. I use to think about and wonder how my life
would have been if I had been making art for the last 40 years or so, but
have resolved it now and don’t think about what might have been as it
just isn’t useful in any way. In fact, I think that from 1996 to 2007
was a very interesting time to be studying fine art, and I’m sure the
experience has made me stronger as an artist for having done it the way I
did. The time is now, not yesterday or tomorrow, “look back – you
fall downstairs” one of my favourite quotes from Rudolf Nureyev, and
another one I live by; “and life is what happens to you when you’re busy
making other plans” John Lennon.
Q. You did several courses
including an MA in Fine Art? Would you recommend doing a Masters to other
artists and what difference did your MA make to you as an artist.
A. It
allowed me to resolve and so finish a project I started during BA. At the
school of art Aberystwyth the MA neatly describes the experience as thus
"To develop and sustain a self-initiated programme of work that
demonstrates a creative interpretation of the subject, along with technical
expertise and a thorough knowledge of appropriate conceptual, theoretical and
historical frameworks". Yep, that's just how it was for me.
Q. Do you have any advice
for artists trying to get their work exhibited?
A. This is my
first solo exhibition so I don’t think I could offer anyone any more advice
than to just put a proposal together and send it off. I think it
is important that you believe in yourself and the strength of the work to
exhibit. I have exhibition space organised through January at
Morlan Centre and then later next year in a gallery in my birthplace
Hednesford – just in the middle of sorting that one so haven’t any dates
yet!
Q. The Gas Gallery is
the flagship project of Celf Ceredigion Art. Could you tell me about Celf
Ceredigion Art and what you think of the importance of projects like this?
A. The
Gas Gallery - Oriel Nwy is entirely self funded by local artists and is
run on a volunteer basis. I help out invigilating a couple of days a week and
have found it to be a hub of activity. There is such a positive
atmosphere there, it really is an exciting time to be involved. I am sure
that as it becomes more well-known and established the Gas Gallery will be a
centre of excellence for all that is contemporary and exciting on the
Ceredigion arts scene and beyond. They have planned a full programme of
exhibitions for the next 12 months to include happenings, performances,
installations, monthly story telling events, poetry and even a little music.
I think it is the most important project now running in Aberystwyth, it
reminds me of the volunteer and general public inspired activities that used
to go on in Barn Centre, which since it’s closure 20 or so years ago seemed
to cast a shadow over Aberystwyth town and sent it adrift into a cultural
desert.
Q. What are you working on
at the moment?
A. Now
one year on, still recovering from successful surgery, so free of cancer
today - but changed forever by this experience. I am revisiting my MA
work to continue by making new digital collage images. Finding
Annwn/Otherworld, or Utopia through Dystopia by the method of
Autonomism. In looking at the Surrealist’s way of working I would also
like to expand on and incorporate into this method of making my own images
incorporating Andre Breton’s idea of juxtapositions as written in his 1924
manifesto, taking it from a 1918 essay by the poet Pierre Reverdy, which
said:
"A
juxtaposition of two more or less distant realities. The more the
relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the
stronger the image will be - the greater its emotional power and poetic
reality."
(Breton Andre
(1924) Manifesto of Surrealism. Pierre Reverdy's comment was
published in his journal Nord-Sud, March 1918).
Q. The Response Time project will be creating a
performed response to your work. How do you feel about this?
A. Excited but
terrified! I wonder if this in depth explanation of my exhibition will change
how people interact and produce a response? That is if you allow them to see
and know this!
The exhibition statement I have displayed
so far describes only the method of making the work; It was a deliberate and
considered decision to enable any viewer to make their own assumptions of the
whys, wherefores and whatevers, and I hoped they would engage in the work and
enjoy it for it’s painterly rhythms and in context with Abstract
Impressionism to interpret it for themselves. The response will be a
fascinating outcome I’m sure.
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