Psyche & Imagination - Online Abstract
The Art
Sam Shiels
The core interests in my art practice lie in the retrieval and
exploration of emotional memory and identity. Incorporating material
from the unconscious is essential to my art practice. This includes
reference and inspiration from dreams and fantasy as well as a direct
intuitive approach to working. Jungs work was an early inspiration
for me that developed my interest in art and psychoanalysis and
later; contemporary feminist cultural theories and philosophies.
My interests revolve around relationships and identity. In particular,
the relationship to language and the symbolic system and how we
might retrieve memory through bodily roots of the thinking process.
In this sense I am concerned with the question of the feminine in
philosophy in relation to the role of creation/creativity in theoretical
though. Through my art and academic interests the analysis of work
is imperative to the understanding of psychological experience and
process.
Painting has always been an imperative aspect of my art practice.
It is difficult to describe abstract paintings and these are not
conceptual paintings, but attempts to translate process and emotional
memory/experience onto canvas. The process of painting is often
like the lifting of layers within my consciousness to seek aspects
and experience the unconscious. Colour is of great concern and my
work begins with fluid use of paint which I then layer and build
upon to achieve the vibrancy and/or transparency I am looking for.
This layering, breaking down and rebuilding of paint gives me a
sense of seeking the image that is latent. This is a process of
constant oscillation between the conscious and the subconscious.
My drawings are usually figurative and I would describe them more
than any other aspect of my practice as automatic. I say this
with a sense that drawing is such a direct practice that one can
find a freedom within a complexity which is not so easy with painting
or other mediums. The figures in my drawing are often hybrid, mythological
creatures of the imagination. Though personal, the figures are archetypal
of the unconscious and provide access and reflection of a multiplicity
of experience.
The installation titled Relational Alchemy combines aspects of
my drawing and painting with photographic imagery. Each layered
image stands both alone and in narrative as they fade in and out
of each other. They are created through the suggestion of metaphor
for experiences of the psyche and imaginative space. By combining
aspects of media I was able to draw up reflections of deeper emotional
and psychological states and gain recognisable imagery to processes
of my psyche. These perhaps signify struggles of the ego in processes
of retrieval and ancestral memory; as well as evoking a sense of
calm and nostalgia in this process.
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