There's a world of playing to be had from collage. I am fascinated by the possibilities, by the spaces created- little theatres, I think, that are made from the constantly re-processed images of parts of a large painting that has since been destroyed. Each image informs the next. There is a train of thought, a meandering one and always questions: 'What happens if ..?'
Or listening, watching and waiting to see if anything is asked of me.
I draw at motifs and effects, come across sensation and the familiar in the same way memory works for me; by process and also spontaneously. The images reach a point of 'finished' and become part of an archive.
The memory is living; the archive static order.
Using this blog to work through a few processes,latest statement follows:

Imagined space fabricated time relationships context emerging and disappearing motifs changing ways of seeing living copy record art archived in a grid creation archive of space sensation non-objective questioning constantly re-copy moving process regeneration of images recorded re-copied pushed through media reassembled copy expansion extraction examination copy re-copy copy re-copy copy……


Sarah Riseborough 2011

If last semester was about doing, about rediscovering the space and mind to explore my artistic practice then this semester is about bringing to consciousness the processes involved.
If I have said previously that I like to share ideas and pass on information then today i am stating that it is a held belief of mine that human function is communication and perception and most of us live in a state of prescribed cognition. Communication is food, it is connection. it comes in many forms and there is a formal, institutionalised order to informations that ignors a spectrum of symbolic language that occurs in everyday life.
For example:
We learn at school.
Also communications have value. Knowledge can be power, we hold on to valuable information to retain control, to maintain ownership. Keeping ahead, ensuring security, protection. The most basic and understandable reasons mean an idea is kept devoid of life and unable to move on and be examined- why would we send our hard-won processes out into the world to be claimed by another? Why would we give for free what has cost us dear?
So, this semester I am asking questions; of my work, of my thinking and the context in which these questions are asked, and the thinking is-thinked...
So I hope it doesnt disappoint that there is no answer here, at the end of this post.

Working in an environment where I'm able to free the work from the plane and format of an 'a' sized piece of paper has helped shift some other givens, around which my work can orbit, if I'm not fully conscious.
I find myself becoming excited about drawing again, about discovery rather than moving toward a picture fixed in my head. One is not better than the other, but fully dismissing one for the other was capping a process.
Currently looking at cave painting and making efforts to understand more modern art movements. There's not alot of time for blogging, most reflection is made in the privacy of a small black notebook but will post more pictures soon.

Something...
...at least
Busy:
Malevich and the influence of Russian Orthodox Icon Painting: Essay
Drawing
Painting
Learning new print techniques
Talking with a broadening critical vocabulary- haltingly
Looking at artists both on the net and exhibitions
Driving

I have a small catalogue of original seascape and garden paintings available. If anyone would like a copy please email your address to me at sarah.riseborough@btinternet.com.
The process of putting a catalogue together took a while; getting the images together and the information and I am very pleased with the result- thank you Kevin and Denise at Printspot for your patience!
The aim of the catalogue is to have the paintings out there working for me while I am working at university. I don't envisage approaching galleries or creating opportunities for the representational art while I am concentrating on the abstract work.
I intend to update my flickr page with more of an archive of abstract work, beginning with the first pieces and the ensuing developments. This is a bit of personal archaeology for me. I have been looking through notebooks and sketchbooks, sorting out bits of scrapbook material and filtering old, half-realised ideas and half-painted canvases. I have thrown out so much stuff! I must make space!
The new pictures on the blog are a sample of the abstract paintings, the white and gold being a detail from a later development. The image 'Composition: Squares' is being posted for purely economic reasons this week as I have a number of these prints left for sale and hope to finance my academic year with their sale. i will post dimensions and details next time.
For now, i hoe the posts will settle into something a little more coherent and orderly. i have my dance class term to begin planning and a commission to finish so still feel a little pulled in different directions; still, my attention span is not astonishingly long...

Finally got confirmation tonight that I'm going to finish the fine art degree I started in 1994. That's a small part of the story.
I WILL finish that commission before I go back, don't worry.
I must pick the threads back up and make some decisions I didn't take the first time round.
Hopefully, there will by blog progress reports.
Contest is the issue, the abstract work lost its value in my eyes, as it appeared to serve a personal purpose and had limited success in finding an audience to respond to it. It floated in space, unconnected to the past or the present, so had no place in the future. The works, visually, appeared solid and ancient, but transient and formless. I could not pin down a lineage, trace the ancestry and mine the mythology. I will post a few, over time- a bit of a back catalogue alongside a few statements.
xxx

Purely by accident, I found a wonderful place called Jupiterartland. It is just outside of Edinburgh and sparely signed. Well worth a visit!
Having driven through super gates we wound our way cautiously through the grounds of an elegant house, getting a look at a few of the specially commissioned sculptures. We passed a little collection of furry animals, some lovely planting, then into the visitors centre, where I confirmed our booking and was presented with a map. Among the superb, mature trees a path was laid out which took us from artwork to artwork; each one, I believe, site specific. There is, among the beautiful trees, a fabulous collection of sculpture from an array of artists; Andy Goldsworthy among them.
I was amazed; everyone was happy! The youngest climbed (trees, not art- forbidden, naturally!) our eldest was inspired to make a photographic journal and my other half, too, happily meandered along, just happy to see what came next, in our path.
Not only a wonderland of art, but low-key, light on retail, done with heart and soul in abundance. I gather a couple, patron of the arts have just opened their grounds to the public to explore on certain days of the week. I thank them, what a treat! And, good coffee, too!
Anyone in Alnwick on Wednesday, by-the-way, please drop by the market square to see our tribes dancing together at noon, and again at 3pm.