tom johnson : artwork

the last week of this semester and the last stitch of the studio. studio

so the exhibition has been and gone, although thanks to illness i found the whole experience rather strenuous, it was thoroughly productive and generally positive and at least partially clarifying endeavor. wednesdays tutorial raised some rather crucial areas into which i shall be reading over the next month or so and fridays discussion group gave me a much needed outside perspective on my motives, presentation and theory etc. i will go into these aspects in more detail but for now i think some documentation of the end result will suffice..

By the end of the week, the idea is to have some kind of display of the various tangible products of my recent thought processes and time?.. I have found the whole concept of finished outcomes somewhat of a struggle for some time. the notion and conotations of my 'productivity' particularly of late, have troubled me, but i decided to book a space for exhibition for almost exclusively this reason. the need to explore the breadth of human ability is unquestionable but understanding why is also becoming a necessity lest this all culminate in some kind of perpetual time wasting exercise. so i am trying to produce a visual experise which which may in some way translate something of my understanding (or lack of) but more importantly, allows me the opportunity to explore a space and to contemplate my position as a maker. the space is shared with a fellow student -Matthew Hayes- and is ours for 5 days, with a viewing on thursday evening and a discussion friday. so this is progress afte

well there goes almost the entire first semester, with the exclusion of the final week in which i will be moving my work into the exhibition space and trying to gauge some sort of understanding of it all.. this will be massively aided by a private view on thursday and a discussion group the next day. although ive been working on various bits and pieces, my attentions will be focus on my post christmas work.. in particular, my plans for a group show i am participating in at the end of february. although trying new processes and methods, i dont feel i have been exposed to much in the way of the genuinely challenging so i have decided to create a piece i have been contemplating facets of for several years now. i will attempt to produce a mechanised cityscape, this week i i spent a little time working out initial designs and constructed a maquette. another w.i.p. of the painting that has become known as 'whats that underneath though' another photo of the studio

i finally got round to capturing some progress on the geometric panel, it is living up to my hopes/intentions of this to be a vehicle of understanding, a space in which to loose myself and allow the process to become second nature.. at least to some extent. i am however looking forward to some messy painting very soon however, this will be a task for a later time though. ive also been contemplating and beginning to design a sort of caged city contraption for a group show at the end of february, it will be a complex undertaking, moving parts, lights and so forth but if it could be possible to directly inform the focal works of a solo show towards the end of the academic year. so there went another week... studio

this will unfortunately be a somewhat minimal description of this weeks production. i spent a large portion of my time this week working into the oil paintings, adding details and generally enjoying the whole process. im becoming far more comfortable with my vocabulary in this context, which will leave in a good position to attempt some more ambitious paint works in the coming months. woodworking also featured with some prominence this week.. i squared and sanded what are now two more laminated panels as well as constructing a cage to try out a three dimentional version of the knot picture which i have since started work on. i found part of a door in the street last week and spent my saturday evening working on to some extent what i would like to be a moderately thoughtless painting, although of course this is impossible.. the intention was to produce a painting in which to loose myself in the pleasure of producing various colours. a little self indulgent i know but ill explain my mot

on monday i had a group critique with, as u may suspect, John Wood. This is intended as a catalyst between students, this leading to various trains of thought and opening up your thought processes for discussion. Unfortunately, in affirmation of the 'Lazy Artist' cliche, most of my peers deemed us unworthy of their time but in spite of this i feel the whole experience was highly constructive (for all 4 of us). a little sellfish i know but i'll brush over the work of others, as if i were to start discussing this too then there would be no end to the rambling and would slightly defeat the object of a record of my production. this by no means should imply i gained any less from the discussion of the work of my peers. the session raised a number of points i have rarely considered in the past, or at least in this particular manner.. i think most importantly what happens after uni, the presentation and more importantly perhaps, its reception and also the sale of work and the poss

the string knotting piece worked quite well i think, it gives a loose impression of landscape or a field of vision, perhaps some tighter working to give suggest constructions.. anyway i will be trying out some gloopy translucent substances on it this week. the other piece is at least in part the result of wanting to do something with the tacky old gold frame from the stitch canvas stretcher.. . i decided to have a go at translating an image into wire, i have worked alot at producing three dimensional forms so i wanted to see how a flat production would work.

studio another week, another photostitch of the studio

so this week i spent a fair portion of my time painting, im steadily becoming more comfortable with using oils.. i had never before got round to playing with linseed oil which is a little step closer to the vague visions of some kind of organic stained glass quality i would like to achieve. so heres some shots of progress and also, some ideas for the presentation of the work... i want to use various fabrics and materials to first and foremost break up the infuriatingly dull and done white backdrop but more importanting to me at least give the images a sort of cultural reference point or some depth subtle depth of narrative. the week was briefly interjected with woodworking when time and location allowed. i want to try making some slightly less orthodox stretchers as a working tool for the angles and also as frames to try out a few ideas with strings and this organic stained glass thing. as well as these, i decided to make a more substantial laminated panel seeing as i found it interest

just a few photos of the wilhelm sasner piece up and running.