The Self-Isolation Residency 5th may 2020: Day 37

'Everything but the kitchen sink – the kitchen sink too.'

Kitchen Study, graphite on paper, Antony Clarkson.

'Desiderata' is now complete and will become part of Air Gallery's Portrait exhibition on Thursday evening. This doesn't of course mean that either the Self-Isolation Residency or even the self portrait project are complet. The residency certainly won't be complete until the self-isolation guidelines are lifted enabling us all to return to whatever version of normality we find in the wake of Corvid-19. As far the self portrait project goes, well that could of course finish when I feel that it has reached it's ultimate outcome or, and this is more likely, it could evolve into something else.

As you've probably guessed from my blog, that's if you didn't already know it, my practice involves a great deal of refection, both into my work and into the world around me, really the two things are one and the same. With having reached the point where I have been reflecting upon the completion of 'Desiderata' I have of course began to reflect once again on the project and my self-isolation status. I still feel that I have a lot to say about the 'situation' that we all find ourselves in and I do feel that some (other?) form of self portrait might still be the appropriate direction to continue in as least for the present. Perhaps the most satisfying  element of 'Desiderata' was the idea that I could express so much about myself in the portrait through the objects that I choose to surround myself with, even though I did not actually feature in the painting in person.  I feel that this concept this has more possibilities to be explored.

Essentially we are of course talking about how still life painting evolved from portraiture; to some extent it was used by artists as an exercise, a way in which to hone their skills, but eventually it became much more than that until in was a genre all of its own. Once this had happened we tend to find still life painting following to different and distinct directions; the first is obviously the 'narrative form that we have already begun to explore. The objects tell a story, either the story of a person, as in our portrait, or perhaps they tell the story of a time or of an event/ Whichever it is, the basic notion remains the same.

Still Life 1946, Giorgio Morandi.

The second direction that still life went into is almost sculptural, the artist tends to use not only the objects but also their arrangement as a study in form and light. It paintings of this type it is not going too far suggest that the objects can almost be considered as replacements for the human form, not in the personal way that we would consider a portrait, but in the rather less 'personal' way that we might consider a life drawing. Perhaps the best example that I can give of this type of work would be Giorgio Morandi, (above) who spent most of his career painting and drawing a series of the same pots and vases; not particularity because they told a story, but because of their form, arrangements and how the light falls on them. I love the paintings of Morandi, and I would like to explore them further in future, but for not I feel I can only give them a passing mention as the narrative form of still life feels the relevant to my residency.

And so I move onto another artist and another style of still life. Once again I will explore this subject more over the coming days as my new work progresses; but for now I will do little more than give you an introduction to the work of John  Bratby and the 'Kitchen Sink Painters'. This name for the group is one that was actually 'given' to them by the critic David Sylvester, the correct name for the group being Beaux Arts Quartet. When writing about the work of the group Sylvester said that their work gives us:

‘An inventory which includes every kind of food and drink, every utensil and implement, the usual plain furniture and even the babies’ nappies on the line. Everything but the kitchen sink – the kitchen sink too.’

Hence my title for this post!

But what Sylvester is really saying her is that the paintings are once again a form of portrait told through objects, the main difference here being that the objects aren't 'posed', they are painted just as they are found. This makes the work a form of 'social realism', it tells a story about peoples lives at a particular point in time; sound familiar? So this will now become my new evolution of the project, to try to say something about life under lockdown through a catalogue of my surroundings, warts and all. I have, as you have probably guessed just started in a small way with the sketch at the head of the post of the condiments  and oils in my kitchen.

Still Life with Chip Frier, 1954, John Bratby