Axis update: public stand

Axis's new policy has resulted in a number of artists voicing their grievances after being refused membership renewal. As I said earlier, I have been with them since 1999. My complaints to the Charity Commission and a Trustee led to another letter from the Chief Executive at Axis, which said exactly what I expected, and of course justified their review of artists. What unsettled me was the implication that I was one of a few artists to be turned away, but in an article in the Guardian today it is clear that one third of artists were rejected, which is no small number.

I doubt that there will be any changes to the review. One of my grievances is that the criteria changed in 2005, yet it is only now that they decided to do a cull. I believe that art cannot be judged in this way, it can not be labelled and defined as a handful of this or that, like a box of pick and mix sweets.

The article should be in today's Guardian. It is can also be read at the Guardian online, at www.theguardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/20/axis-art-database-culls-members?

(painting: 'Entrance.' Oil and acrylic on wood, 61cm x 41cm, 2012)

Axis artists database

If you Google Axis, you will find this description: 'Axis is at the forefront of presenting artists' practice on the web and connects with other organisations to run events, exhibitions and initiatives that benefit artists...'

I joined Axis in 1999. At the time it was neutral and the criteria were that you needed a formal art qualification and a CV showing exhibition history. I have been a member all these years. My subscription was due to expire on 31st January so I went to my account pages to renew it, and to my disbelief there was a message saying that I had been declined as a member as I had failed the new review process.

After clicking on the link to their revised list of criteria, I realised I had failed on the last of five - namely that I fitted the term 'modern' but not the term 'contemporary.' They made it clear that they had decided to review all artists who joined before 2005 (when certain extra criteria were introduced). Their new remit implied that they would still accept certain traditional or figurative based works. So where, in the end, was the dividing line? It seemed, in my opinion, that the organisation was no longer a neutral showcase for a diverse range of art, but had become a reflection of the selectors' tastes or ideas of what art should be. I had noticed that increasingly it showcased digital/photographic or video based media.

I put out a message on Facebook, and have had a large number of responses from other artists, and I am now pursuing the matter with letters to various art magazines. My complaint to Axis brought no positive result, so now I am fighting for the right of all kinds of art to be reinstated on this website that was started with public funding and still gets public funds. It is a fight for the individual's voice rather than collective opinion, and for the rights of the website's visitors to find a cross-section of art rather than a reflection of market place values or trends.

http://www.axisweb.org/

('Afiromeni.' oil and acrylic on board, 61cm x 31cm, 2012)

Time or Not

As Christmas draws closer, I am racing to finish some work before a few days of non-painting causes my oils to dry. I remember my student days, when time was a distant concern and I could devote all my waking hours to my paintings. A false sense of time stretched out indefinitely. As I tweaked some paintings yesterday, I debated whether a lack of time seriously damages or invalidates one's work. For most artists, 5 days a week in a studio is a goal yet to be attained, so painting is slotted between daily duties. I know artists who work full-time and paint at night, or spend all their weekends painting. I would dearly love the chance to paint full-time, as I believe that it promotes a flow and rhythm I can't have when I work in irregular hours, snatched here and there. (Though I probably have more time to paint than friends who have children.)

But all the part-time artists I know haven't suffered any loss of integrity or substance in their work. So it made me wonder if perhaps a lack of time can force you to focus very intensely and make some deeply considered and quite definite decisions. I wondered if perhaps it could be turned to an advantage? Most artists are painting even when the brush is not in their hand, and it's possible to sit in front of my canvas and find that the stored hours of visual adjustments and possibilities, played with internally during daily routines, suddenly flood into the painting. Many a painting has been finished in the final half hour, when pressure forced unexpected resolutions.

('Terrain.' Oil and acrylic on board, 31cm x 61cm)

Interpretation versus taste

Taste and prejudice are the enemies of creativity. As a painter I can't afford to 'hate' any colour or my options are limited. Through the act of painting, new horizons open and we follow where they lead, without self editing. The worst thing is when someone says 'I prefer it when you paint trees,' or 'Your flower paintings were so good.' Other people's interpretation of what you do grows from many sources, some relevant, some not, but how crushing it is when someone blocks the flow with a random remark. I've known painters who couldn't paint for days.

Recently an art agent collected 11 canvases for a show. I thought a lot afterwards about how others look at my work once it has (hopefully) become a separate world. Always there is the fear of how one's work will be interpreted - and of course, maybe I am deluded and in a creative cul-de-sac without realising it! (The fact that it is not an exact science leads me to many wobbly moments.) What amazed me was that she selected what I considered to be one of my worst paintings ever. ('Puddles in the Park.') I wondered what she had seen in it that I was unable to connect with, because of the tangle of aesthetic and technical questions in my mind.

I had deliberately used shapes and colours that challenged my visual comfort zone, and had been unable to unify them. I let the painting go for exhibition as perhaps when it re-enters the studio, it will need just a tweak here and there.

One of the exciting and eternally challenging aspects of painting is that there is no set viewpoint, no one way or fixed interpretation. But artists tread a fine line between listening, and closing our ears to unproductive interpretations when working.

Then there are the demands and evaluations of the market, but that's another post!

('Puddles in the Park,' oil on canvas 50cm by 70cm. 'Coastal Landscape,' oil on board 12ins by 24ins)

Square versus Rectangle

Recently I have been exploring differently shaped canvases to challenge my increasingly pre-set response to landscape composition. It occurred to me how the dynamics change according to the shape you choose. When it comes to painting in situ, I tend to automatically use a rectangular shape of watercolour paper, yet I don't want 'automatic' responses in my work!

I stretched up a selection of squares and rectangles, and found myself totally out of my comfort zone. Squares seem to demand that you 'break' their calmness and symmetry, and this in itself gives clues as to how to build the composition. I found it literally opened new horizons for me. Rectangles were a bit more familiar, so I tried some longer ones, and then of course you have to make sure your painterly elements link along the entire dynamic. New questions appear, which in turn expand your perception and approach.

In writing this, I'm aware that it may come across as being quite technical and devoid of the emotional aspects of painting. I believe that as a painter, you need to keep evaluating technical and aesthetic issues, in order to find the best expression for your evolving emotional responses to both paint and external factors. The shape of your 'arena' seems to be a huge factor in the presentation of your passion and ideas, and a very exciting one.

(Paintings: 'Autumn Rythms,' oil and acrylic on canvas, 90cm x 50cm. 'Breezy Spring Day,' oil and acrylic, 60cm x 27cm. 'The Hill,' 30cm x 30cm, Oil and acrylic on canvas)

I Never Imagined.....

When I made this drawing 25 years ago, I was teaching English at the Americanos College in Nicosia, and this was the view from my second floor classroom. The large window framed the main square, and the Nicosia Town Hall. It was an image I loved, and on my days off I drew from the flat roof above my classroom. It was a magical time, and I'll never forget drawing above the piercing sound of traffic, as the flickering sunlight cast green fire into the foliage below. As the heat burned my back, I delighted in the sense of being in my own secret world. Possibilities fanned out all around me, and on my paper.

I never imagined that one day, many years later, and after a life tapestry heavily textured with grief and light, I would be married in that same Town Hall. I often wonder if there's a time-line that with some insight I could have looked down, and seen that future self stepping into that muted pink building, with its lovely columns, on a day when I was truly, incredibly happy.

I married on August 5th, at 11.30am, to a wonderful man I have known for 9 years, and had a long distance relationship with for five years. Everything just fell into place, in a way that's rare in life. We booked our marriage 48 hours before the event. My pace slowed as we walked along the cool corridor to the Registrar's office, because I recognised paintings by Cypriot artists I knew well. Suddenly I stopped in front of a huge oil painting of Nicosia. 'It's my painting!' I shouted so loudly that a woman came running out of a nearby room. But she began smiling when I explained that this was the painting I'd donated to the Mayor of Nicosia in 1988! I hadn't seen it since 1990, when it was hanging in the conference room, and I'd assumed it was in a dusty cupboard somewhere! I felt as if the past had reached into the future, and seeped into the committment I was about to make.

They allowed us to take photos in front of the painting, a few minutes before the marriage. For a split second I remembered Tom, who died 13 years earlier, and who had embodied Nicosia for me back then. As I took my vows, I felt that a huge circle had closed.

(Photos: Me in front of the Town Hall: Me with my Marriage Certificate: In front of my Nicosia painting, just before we married: my charcoal drawing of the Town Hall.)

Waves of Life

It came as a surprise to see how long it is since I wrote my Blog. It was entirely unintentional, as life's waves engulfed me and I lost all sense of time! I've been taking part in exhibitions, entering work for other Open Submission shows, and trying to arrange my wedding in Cyprus. The loveliest months of the summer have just slipped by. And as this is also being written against the clock, I'm just going to add a couple of new paintings. (Inscape 1 & 2, oil on canvas, 30cms by 40cms)