Um, hmmmmmmm!

Hi All
Here is a brief description of where I’m at with my work
I have had lots of starts this year, none of which seem to have led anywhere, there seems to be a problem of investing in things. There have been moments of interest but the intention behind it has been confused and without direction, which meant there was no clear criteria for making decisions.

Earlier in the year I had narrowed my interests to the relationship between viewer and image, the seduction and disruption of perception (if you can call that narrowing!). This led to placing images on windows and rephotographing them including the scene out the window, resulting in a kind of optical illusion.

While this met some of my interests, to me it really didn’t feel like ‘my’ work.
The qualities of my work that I enjoy are decadence, obsession, decoration and dreaminess, which I always return to without really knowing why. I felt I wasn’t achieving these goals; that the photographs were dry and lacked the qualities I enjoy. As a result I was not happy making them.

I have come to realise that the way in which I view images is one of enchantment and escapism. They all connect to the bigger world behind what I’m looking at. It is this bigger world of portals that I would like to explore. Perhaps this is better interpreted as an interest in imagination.

I have identified what interests me but I don’t have anything that binds these interests. I still don’t know what position I’m taking, what’s that big motivating question I am asking that will give my work direction?
I have tried to simplify in order to understand by doing what comes most naturally, collecting images that appeal to me. This has been something that has been the fundamental part of my practice for a long time.

I have been looking at the images and trying to find some continuity. Why choose some images and not others? A lot of them seem to present me with moments of escape, moments of idealism, beauty, drama, nostalgia, narrative. I see decoration as a way of enhancing or connecting these moments of enchantment, or providing its own. There is also an interest in formal issues such as spatial concerns, surface and the materiality of the image as an object

I don’t think the group can provide me my ‘big question’ but perhaps helping me to identify what is happening with these images, as a whole would be helpful.
Is there a larger connection between these images?
What do you feel is being communicated here?
Is this interesting?


I hope this will be helpful.
Cheers
Bex