thoughts right before the easter break

Before talking to my tutor, I was thinking of displaying the rabbit painting in the centre of the frame, perhaps on the ground, like roadkill. I think this composition would give some meaning in which it is being viewed. I look down upon it, towering over the past me, the past traumas, the past emotions, while the anthropomorphic version of that child me is stuck down on the ground, trapped within the frame, which doesn’t exactly ‘frame’ it exactly either since it is significantly larger than the painting itself. There is some freedom within that frame, conveying some space I could move in, that I wasn’t completely trapped in my trauma. 

However, my tutor suggested for the painting to be on the wall, for the rabbit to be stuck in the corner of the frame, and to also add the block in there as well. He also said to add more blocks, and to play around with the position of these objects. I see the appeal of these compositions, but I feel that would be too chaotic in terms of the meanings mixed together. The block itself is a single object representing my mindset of the past, and I feel like I solidified that, especially after I coated it with resin. If I made more blocks they would give different meanings of the lack of. I still wish to display it on its own, since it is its own personality and object. I also do not wish to display the painting stuck to the side of the frame, since the leftover space is uneven and it agitates me. I appreciate his ideas though, so I am thinking more about how I will display these in the end. 

my tutor's suggestions

my original plan of presentation

Even though I did not take the lino printing further into my paintings, I feel that if I did, at least in this project, it wouldn’t feel right. I wanted my figures to have a very fluid form, almost floating in the dead water. The lino cut design I did was very geometric, I felt quite limited in terms of the shapes I could create. Perhaps this was due to the lack of practice and skill, but I don’t feel like I explored just ‘painting’ enough yet, which was why I continued on painting with ink, water color, acrylics, and spray paint. I also feel that I made the right decision using resin to coat my paintings since it doesn’t just give a glossy finish (and enhances the pigments underneath, especially the ink blots) but also traps the figure, form, colors, emotions, in time. 

I still have a big piece of primed wood left, and in these last two weeks I am thinking of painting something on it. Since it is of a larger scale, I’m definitely thinking of taking more risks, maybe using more spray paint, and more layers, since the last rabbit painting on had two layers of ink in the background. I can definitely build up the layers slowly. I am still undecided on what figure to paint, perhaps even incorporating landscape in there as well… however I feel that if I do have a landscape in there it would need to reference to my childhood. Unfortunately, I have no photos of my childhood environment. I guess I can always paint from memory, as that is what Phoebe Unwin did in a lot of her paintings, but I am not confident in recreating a landscape visually in my head. I might collect some imagery together and do some drawings before attempting to fill the last wooden board.