LARGOS (2023)

1080x720 onsite footage capture, video mp4. Bryan J McLean.

Largo: a passage, movement, or composition marked to be performed with a slow tempo and dignified style. #contemporaryart #contemporarypainting

https://youtube.com/shorts/3uZ2ibVjA6M

TROJAN (2023) Bryan J McLean

— self experienced audio converted to data to depthmapping then 3d objects and collaged as animated footage .mp4, sound mp3.

I paint with the discarded data of abandoned moments. my work through the lens of object-hauntology explores self portraits of our analog world as it meets our digtial spectrum.

in Trojan, my self-portrait as 'horsehead' collage projection and crt-tv 'eyes' are working to investigate the space an audience is present in.

This data is gathered and stored, it's sounds of walking, people talking, bird traffic, parkades and basements, daylight and night trolling -- all of which are 'me' it's my experience of travelling through spaces, much of which is obtained without permission, yet it is just discarded information, the abject experiential.

This is transferred to raw data, then visualized, depthmapped, and processed into 3d objects. These then become materials to be used like colors with brushes or collages into other structures.

We have these digital lives you see.

There is a physical macro body, and internal microcosm of physiology -- but in our post-internet age we also have an additional digtial existence. It's a life we are living through handheld & keystrokes, hottakes, likes, and alggorithms, through microtransactions and microagressions in the comment sections. all inclusitory objects in their own right.

We are More than we appear. We are objects of physical and sense-ual. We are containers and vessels beyond the simple concept of self. identity, time, causality haunting our spectral selves. this is a trojan life where only the allegory of poetics can explain.

-B

OWP 2023-77 - Still From Video digital 3d mapped object and audio data collage, U-Raw data 72x60, 2023

Reflection:

I am getting closer to these (interactive) structures I want to build, but I seem to be focused on collaging animated gifs into videos. This has a lot of potential as the source of my documentation. Some of my important feedback was the scale and making the work larger so it can be inspected and experienced more directly.

The body traveling in space, I find there are opportunities, but a lot of when I collect information is random. So I need to look at a more rigorous schedule perhaps about how I am collecting the data.

As I collect and edit audio and images, I’m working to find some structure. It’s been a bit challenging finding some tools to do what I need. I finally am making some progress in collaging my collected documentation. I am hoping to get into making moving parts from my documentation to make more obvious structures, but I have yet to consider the final type of form, I am leaning towards a portrait but I have to sit with this idea within my process still.

Re-reading articles about Sigmar Polke, and they are related to my work as Polke had no singular style. Polke explored ideas in a similar way that I am working on theories. I am using art to explore my lines of questioning.

And reading more for Ei Awakawa – So Machen Wir Es / That’s the way we do it pp.60-71/ collects one of Awakawa’s projects and I am intrigued by how he collects people for social gatherings and presents his art or videos. This will help me think of better ways to present my concepts and how to get people to interact more with that work.

Polk article.

Arakawa pp. 60-71

Also, some feedback to include is reducing the randomness of the collection and perhaps considering making it more timed and intentional. I think both paths have value, but I think I’m stuck on how to choose the (timed) collection of data. I mostly want to collect and sit to reflect on the information, and how it fits back to me. I think I am also omitting certain data that I could really include to influence my work. This might be more important to go back and study my mobile device usage. I’ll have to think about that longer.

Works cited.

Arakawa, Ei with Dan Poston & Stefan Tcherepnin - . “How to Disappear in America (2016), 9th Berlin Biennale, Germany.” Vimeo, 2016, vimeo.com/176133283.

Buchloh, Benjamin H. D. “Parody and Appropriation in Francis Picabia, Pop, and Sigmar Polke.” The Online Edition of Artforum International Magazine, 1 Mar. 1982, www.artforum.com/print/198203/parody-and-appropriation-in-francis-picabia-pop-and-sigmar-polke-35612.

2022 Hopscotch – time out of joint, animated gif series, Triple-O

link https://youtu.be/mrOwBAuqZek

**warning strobe effect**

— b/w photography to become a series of object-oriented animated gif files. The ground the sky the sideways glance. our point of origin is lost in the perspective of objects, the debris of Art, the debris of human activity, the debris of memory. (time is out of joint, Derrida)

-processing to start collecting photographs of images happening in a time or a space, collecting the abject discarded debris of materials while making art and collecting objects I encounter in my own physical spaces. I was hoping to document my observations of myself though the objects that view me when they encounter me.

- I then format images in greyscale

- I then include images into an animated/video process

- then I present on social media or through channels like youtube.

- Next steps: this is hopefully a projection piece I can do during a presentation like spoken word or poetry. I am not quite sure about the writing and performance part of this idea yet. part of my practice is writing and this would be a way to utilize my skills in a different way.

Obtained Without Permission - no boundaries

— a modular approach of recording in spaces and not getting permits. An exploration the object of sound, how it be inverted and visualized and into shapes. The long-term goal is animating objects in augmented reality, for example a drawing that can be experienced through Instagram.

The process I am working on atm is

- recording sound bytes 1-4mins each in semi-private and public areas, these are ambient sound spaces, where conversations are sometimes happening, the goal is the sound of the space not the human activity. (My idea here is hauntology and Mark Fisher’s emphasis on audio)

-translating the audio by inverting it and manipulating it through Audacity. I export the ‘new’ sound track I have made but also export this as a Raw U-law file.

- I open the RAW file in photoshop, I then use 3D plugins to create a depth-map of the visualization of the RAW data into a structure. I then manipulate the new 3d object.

-I capture a PNG image to represent the soundbite

- my next stage is creating the space these digital objects will live in.

At the moment, I have two roads I can choose. (1) I can use Artiviva to build the 3d object again as a video and upload, but it requires a scannable image (maybe the PNGs), but this forces the users to download this app. (2) Another method is AR filter in Instagram (Spark AR software). I still need to learn Spark.

- atm still processing 3d objects and need to learn SparkAR

2022 The Book of Transfers - The OABJECT
paper debris of multimedia phototransfer, the remnants of the process are the new objects created, and the imagery is the collateral effect of the process of fine art creation. triple-o

timelapse videos link https://youtu.be/IRbVs2H1XVY

— a collected body of transfers on canvas. content is the dehumanization of image and bridges, bodies, and land. A nod to historical painting with a forward collection of ai arts failures where Painting is the illusion of planes and color. This is mainly an experiment using ai art and printing to test out what I can do with these materials. I did a larger scale 30x30 inch transfer as well, for project 2. I was unhappy with the results and will investigate a better process for this kind of translation. This has been a fun process of using generative art to pull topics up for planning larger paintings later. The laser printer images were not my favorite result, I had better luck working with inkjet on cheaper paper than using the matte medium for adhesive for the print to stick to raw canvas, as I found primed canvas did not give me good results. Once the paper is dried, I soaked the page, remove the excess paper, and apply a polymer to get the best gloss out of these. I have a few more ideas now on how to do a larger painting/transfer but the parts are definitely going to take a lot more planning.

- My emphasis on this is the process, documentation of the labor, and collection of the debris of the objects.

- Video documentation as stop-motion, collected examples https://youtu.be/IRbVs2H1XVY

- not sure how to present this, it is more like my sketchbook, and I don’t really want to share the work itself, but the end idea is it is maybe bound on boar and made into a flip book. Have not decided yet.

Contextual details: “Sundial – BLUE”, above a still from video 0:00:49, 1080p 16:9 aspect, photography, projection, and mixed objects with canvas, 2022. MEDIA LINK https://youtu.be/mWrd_sZowds

Statement:

Displacement; the orientation of placement of objects. Their relationships to the sun and its phantom allies are easier to relate to when the viewer understands its point of origin. The process involved at first a gathering of objects and sounds. The sound, from standing in the same space that I collected months prior in the rain, you can hear the roadway behind (me), you can make out the drizzle of rain, its hissing instances a cohesive overture. And then the objects I needed next: a green shovel, a black four-legged stool, a hot lamp, its lightbulb, a stretched and then primed canvas. The next phase was aligning the canvas and digging out the path, tracing the weak shadows of overcast lines, digging out a trench from the traces of sun. this displaces snow, exposes the sleeping of grass, and places the white on white of canvas to the season.

Photography and adjustments required, this allowed me to explore the objects from another relationship, no longer objects but photos of objects. In the next phase I utilized projection of the image onto the hung canvas in an interior space, the projection at this point returned to the canvas itself. and I brought back in the hot-lamp to stand at the base of the image, touching its projected-self. Once this was rearranged, I captured video footage, used video software, and was exploring the decay of the video. I included the sound recording; I collected this and uploaded the completed footage (YouTube: https://youtu.be/mWrd_sZowds)

I had two things on my mind planning this work. One was traces (of remembrance) and the other was discarded or displaced objects. The traces came from a book-chapter I was presenting, Traces of Violence (2022) about the terror attacks in Paris 2015. It looked at spaces and how we may react to them. I was also thinking about Jane Bennett’s article, Encounters with an Art-thing. The idea that stuck most for me was how objects of reverence became demoted due to their decay. What becomes abject is reliant on time and how we perceive an objects’ value. These were both very interesting ideas to me. It reminds me of Hito Steyerl’s How Not to be Seen: A F#cking Didactic Educational .MOV File, 2013, which relies heavily on the point of orientation and origin for the viewer as well as how the digital subverts the audience in the illusions of space over time. So I wanted to explore the objects relationship with time, and I was trying to be less literal in the final image/video. We had been discussing triple-O and one of the important things for me is not only the identity of a person or thing (Harman’s objects), but its placement in space. Also, Derrida brings up the idea of ‘time out of joint’, and when we project an image, it is a moment of the past that gets held onto in this current moment for the viewer. (ie a photograph is an image of someone that is already dead.)

I was trying to get my head around what we discussed in class about ‘why is painting a rectangle’? beyond the salon, why is it necessary? So I thought what absurd thing can I construct a canvas with (sundial it turned out) instead of using the object in its intended way. Certainly, I go back to the canvas often, but why do I personally feel that is important? I still don’t know why, but I wanted to step away from it again in this work to re-consider what the purpose of that (commodity) of the art-thing object.. those ideas Bennett was interested in with ‘hyperkulturemia’ and the corpse of the esteemed object. I found in creating video I ended up stuck back with that same rectangle problem. I think I would prefer to reshape images next time and do more of a projection of the work in a space and on a larger scale, so the edges get removed by darkness and light in the space.

My original hope was to leave this ghost of a ghost, the final result is none of the objects. It cannot be held nor access in a tangible way, and in viewing these now translated objects, they go straight to memory after never touching the viewers hands nor eyes. At best the final work for me becomes a projection of an animated sequence that has been captured in time and reflects a few different moments (a sound recording from months prior, an exterior art installation out of doors, and then an interior exploration of space using those two-related moments; also including all the time between the construction of this work.) These moments become synthesized and digitized, and this is something I adore. It is this ephemeral thing and removes itself from being in the real analog world. Yet without the analog as source of its point of origin, it could not exist. The objects easily lose their identity when removed from analog spaces. Humans are like this, without memory of the body-as-object, the body as our anchor, does identity even exist?

Bryan J. McLean CONNECTIONS show 2020

"Assemblage in Cathode" installation, crt television, mp4 file, 5.25 x 4.5 inches, 2022. https://youtu.be/KV7e-EDzbIk

... we are connection. we are connected. we the network where we belong. capital surveillance through the social means. Who watches the watchers? are we subject and object in the realm of the all-seeing eye? big brother is no longer about control, big brother is saturation, overclocking brains, overwhelming with the preoccupations of the mobiphile.

a small black crt television, lit in red from below, contains a looping video of an animated series of eyes. This is a space for observing and being observed.

the ethereal qualities of the digital still tell human stories, how we are dreamers of the day, how we move in place and time, leaving echoes saying, ‘we were here.’ My relationship with time and my relationship with my dysgraphic artist hand, are countries I explore regularly. Trying to find ways to commodify these future-ghosts we live with, I work to pin them on a page and observe the broken abstractions, so I can create translations between our analog world and the digital spectrum.

Bryan J. McLean NO BELONGING show
https://youtu.be/XTm2SzIsYjU

"Assemblage in Space" print on canvas, augmented digital reality drawing, 15.25 x 19.5 inches, 2022. http://onelink.to/zv6vjz

... there is no.where to be. no.where to belong. the ethereal qualities of the digital still tell human stories, how we are dreamers of the day, how we move in place and time, leaving echoes saying, ‘we were here.’ My relationship with time and my relationship with my dysgraphic artist hand, are countries I explore regularly. Trying to find ways to commodify these future-ghosts we live with, I work to pin them on a page and observe the broken abstractions, so I can create translations between our analog world and the digital spectrum.

the ethereal qualities of the digital still tell human stories, how we are dreamers of the day, how we move in place and time, leaving echoes saying, ‘we were here.’ My relationship with time and my relationship with my dysgraphic artist hand, are countries I explore regularly. Trying to find ways to commodify these future-ghosts we live with, I work to pin them on a page and observe the broken abstractions, so I can create translations between our analog world and the digital spectrum.

Contextual details: “Mobitopia – RED study”, 30x30 inches, mixed media on canvas.

Statement:

Failure; there is something about the 2nd try on a work that is frustrating and perhaps defeating. This work lacks play and needs more. More depth, more texture, more of something. If the target is to remain distant of the work and objects it contains, then I’m too far removed, I need to come closer. Most of all, I am unhappy in this result.

The vision for this piece was to give leading evidence into the normality of human activites, I feel I have blundered my way through this communication again. The glitchy results of the process left me outside of the desired mood I had hoped to create. I think this can be saved but is it worth saving. I recognize this is not really a statement so much as a reflection on the results. I dearly loved the red and blacks. Yet I’ve broken the image and its not my best second attempt at this piece.

The history of painting is not about the objects we have made. It is about the control of the images that was acceptable and expected by the society of its time. It is about their stories and perhaps events that are untold and inaccessible. So, I find myself tossed in upheaval trying a new process (yet again) to see if it will fit into my work. It fits my sketchbook just fine but expanding on the idea I cannot say if the results are making me happy.

John Locke says memory = identity so are we the vessel, parts replaced as the Ship of Theseus and we become anew-alike or are we the spirit of memory, a soul? This case study is very relevant to my practice, I enjoy the exploration of identity, not in what the answers are but in the impossible answer.

I encountered some interesting side-effects during this photo transfer experiment, I have done this before but with acetone and smaller works of paper and nothing this large of scale. Yet at one point I could sit with the parts being exposed, showing its new identity, but simultaneously I was creating more and objects in removing the old unwanted and abject paper just to keep the ink from the printing. So now I have all this left over paper-debris and its maybe a throw away thing, but these little pieces of acrylic and paper are now old objects, tiny little scraps that denote labor and time. It’s a shedding of the skin and what has value, the before, the after, or truly is it the transformation in between. Graham Harman’s use of objects in his triple O continues to read like he has chosen a path that is written in science fiction relying on its own mythology to carry it forward. (Einstein had it right, spooky action at a distance.) Harman has his critics and that is perhaps a component of avoiding the outliers that demonstrate the cracks in his work. I am beginning to feel in the same vein, I have too many cracks in my own ideas.

In researching artist Sigmar Polke’s body of work, it is very relevant to my own practice. All kinds of different approaches and media. Polke seemed much more engaged in the exploration of the work than being concerned with answer to questions or even perfecting a style or medium. Its certainly a space and artist lineage I should be looking towards. As I want to explore ideas and I don’t feel chained to any medium. I will admit, I feel as though I am back to making images on a rectangle. Its possibly my reaction to the hyper-sensationalized usage of digital work. I just haven’t found my way back to the moving parts of the medium I really want to utilize. Augmented applications, Sound and projection has a lot more to offer giving mood, yet at the moment its not fitting into what I am trying to investigate with human activity and people on the move.

Contextual details: “Mobitopia - Bridge Study 1”, 24x20 inches, acrylics on canvas. Work in Progress, study towards a much larger scale series of paintings.

Statement:

I reflect on something Kate Evans, artist of Threads (2017), asked of herself: “How do I use my art when there is a time of immense suffering?” This resonated with me earlier in the year, as I am working towards conversations on dehumanization and how we are experiencing societal change. A focus for me of late is the Rosso-Ukraine conflict and its escalation this February 2022. I was personally struggling with why it bothered me so much as I am distanced from it, in time, place, and personal relation. I am a Canadian of English descent and a half a planet away. What do painters do in a time of war? What can we do? We paint.

Trying to understand, my reflections lead me back to a question I am always looking at for myself, why are we when? Why make art now? How did I get here. And a war in Europe felt like history. The past. But it is happening now, and I couldn’t truly understand why it was on my mind so much. In time I realized, why I am when. My grandmother and mother left the UK to be here in Canada after WW II. I am the child of a British immigrant. My grandfather died in the war in 1939 the year my mother was born, and five years later, a devastated Europe meant little hope for my grandmother. A move across the ocean was a safer choice to raise her daughter. People make choices to cross borders and its complex realm of systems and governments work to dehumanize and ‘other’ many newcomers. There is much to overcome.

My explorations have led me ask what a place is? Why have war over a place? what is a utopia, dystopia, heterotopia, and something I have started calling mobitopia (‘mobi’ as in mobile), and spectertopia, and my investigations into people on the move, refugees, and immigration. Mobitopia is a place of transience, it is a state one is forced to live in. Homi Bhabha talks about these ideas of ‘the unhomely’, those without identity, nation, or home. These are immigrants and refugees – fleeing-from or fleeing-to something. Spectertopia, in relation, is place of ghosts, a longed-for memory of location, a home one cannot return to.

Looking towards Edward Bullough’s article ‘Psychical Distance’ as a Factor in Art and as an Aesthetic Principle’ (1), his number #3 item discusses the (terror of being in) fog at sea. This related to how I wanted to explore the loss-of-identity and loss-of-future experienced by refugees during war and afterwards. The Fog of war and its violence, fog of the future, fog of personal safety, fog of safety for others – these unknowable terrors exist long after experienced, they lead hauntingly through time for any individual.

A secondary theme I am chasing through hauntology is meta-modernism and how technology has changed society, what we believe the future would look like and how it remains to haunt us, yet also virtual and real places we experience are constantly in flux. Hauntology deals with identity and its placement in relationships towards time, one could argue through OOO objects as well have this time-folding experience. This was all very relevant as I explored the migrant and refugee life changes. There are locations and objects that are completely destroyed. People can never return to these places.

The Work and Image - The first week of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an image that stood out for me - was a crowd of people taking shelter under a bridge. I wanted to start exploring ‘the bridge’ as OOO metaphor, and this bridge as an object can tell its own stories. Bridges have many meanings such as crossing from one place to another, one state to another, 3-dimensional structures, its purpose is often to cross rivers or traverse difficult landscapes. Bridges also give us the space to Distance ourselves from conflict (and yet homes).

I have a lot to explore here through my writing on fine art and technology and the identities linked to places. I will continue to ask: how can I relate to those mobile-identities, how can art relate and lead us into the plight of what is important, how can I avoid dehumanization, avoid the consequences of indifference? War affects us all; it follows us through time.

So, what can a bridge tell us about ourselves?

Contextual details: “Mobitopia - Bridge Study 1” , 24x20 inches, acrylics on canvas .

Statement:

The use of acrylics on raw canvas is expressive yet planned. These are grey values of the forms apart from the blue and yellow bolt in the center of the work striking downward. The technique in the process clearly includes drawing, which sketch lines are still visible and painting on raw canvas which is still showing in parts. There are fast strokes combined with slower blending and the overall pictorial plane has a sense of depth, with liquid brushstrokes and other sfumato. There is abstractions and more defined forms, and this keeps the content raw and expressive to retain the emotion.

Conceptionally, through the title which is the date of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine (escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War) February 24th, 2022. The content is clear, these are distorted suffering human forms because of war. The blue and yellow flag is a direct indication of a Ukraine flag. The overwhelming sense of information against the agony of faceless or nameless forms and other body parts. My visual research lives here, exploring the materials as part of the painting itself. The reading I have done over the semester connected me closer with not only this course but my other course about Migrant Futures. I also used the ai tool I was working with previously, as I have been learning other ways to use artificial intelligence to create images from text inputs. Then I took these source images and created the background and elements of human forms. After doing the drawing work to enlarge the image, I moved through adding shape and form. There is a point in working when a drawing becomes a painting, and I was able to make better choices to creatively explore the final image once I hit that point.

Critique Summary:

Visually this connected with my audience. This body of work carries with it materiality and these images that resolve into figures. Jumbles of body parts and recognizable forms of individuals. The feedback and reception really captured many topics I had hoped to communicate. The audience were able to relate to other paintings, such as the Raft of the Medusa, or Guernica where instantly understood. The painting has movement and keeps its structure for the audience to explore. The flag gave a sense of solidary and support, there still a clear sense of raw emotion. The flag has a velocity, striking as a violent rift from the top, like torturous missile. This also speaks to crippling nationalism. The work itself is impressionist enough to engage the viewer as abstraction but there is something illusionistic about it that keeps the viewer engaged (a more grotesque/realistic visage may have the viewer look away.) In a sea of figures, the flag is there but also appearing to cover over more and that asks the audience “what is hidden?”

This feedback was helpful, as it is reaching all the right points that I had hope to connect visually without having to be too direct. A challenge for me here is knowing when to be more realistic and evoke more emotion without alienating the audience. It also helped me consider, why war and not something closer to use at this time (such as residential schools or other wars). These are important to consider, and this war is much larger as it affects us globally.

Inspirations

I wanted to add that one of my favourite paintings is The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya. This work sets the violence right in front of the viewer, it captures the most important tension that other works, such as Consequences of War by Rubens also engage the audience. There are other painters that work in symbolism like Philp Guston. Sometimes the violence Guston demonstrates visually is hidden but the understanding lies in the content of objects like shoes or hoods. All these works have influenced me, whether I have worked digitally or physically. I am grateful to return to physically painting.

My feedback also reminded to avoid ‘tragedy porn,’ artwork or images that sensationalize violence, and so “the challenge to move away from the familiar spectacle of misery, from the sensationalized imagery of suffering in these times of proliferating humanitarian emergencies,” (Demos 249) is extremely important.

I think with tragedy its important that we do not look away, that we do not close our eyes, and I hope to continue in my work to understand how to reach my audience with this message without glorifying violence but communicating there are people just like us suffering under the violence of other’s choices.

A Personal Reflection:

I had struggled this semester getting in motion. Even for a course on slowness, I wanted to stroll like the flaneur, and could not find my footing. My original idea I felt was flat and I had wondered if I had been hitting that pandemic isolation wall again. However, the February invasion of Ukraine motivated me, but I was not able to understand why. Why did war in Europe concern me so much? What is my relationship to this conflict? At this same time, I am taking a CCST course on Migrant Futures and there are relatable concepts to my own work in dehumanization, hauntology, refugees, migration, etc. I was struggling to understand why this war was deeply affecting me. I am not from Ukraine, nor do I have any particular interest in war. This work had been asking more personal questions. I have encountered a child’s illustrated book, “Wishes” (2021) that explores the story of Vietnamese Boat people and their migration for safety. This helped me remember that I am only in Canada because my grandmother was fleeing at the end of World War II with my mother. War affects everything it touches and at this root is people, victims fleeing conflict into safety of any place that will accept them. We can open discussions about this war and the other conflicts taking place on earth currently. My own interest in the history of painting brought me back to “what do painters do during wartime” and “who are we to speak for others?” but in research I found answers. Edward W. Said opens his book, Orientalism, with a quote, “They cannot represent themselves; they must be represented.” —Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Said 1). And there is this written piece by Francis Alÿs, 1943, that captures these moments of artists and war, who all became refugees or immigrants.

All I could think about “what do painters do in war time” to answer that is its “paint.” So, I decided to abandon my previous ideas and work with this concept of war but more accurately those persons affected by war. This really opens room for more questions, and I hope this gives me a body of work going forward into next year, my fourth and final year. /fin

there is an illusionary sense of where we perceive the past and the future exist. I associate pockets or blocks of events and people with their overlapping relationships to myself. only now operates as a kind of reality experienced. the further we get from the nostalgic past, the more corrupted the memories become.. the more the uncertainty of the possible future the higher the anxiety or hope co-exist in the mind. -B

‘Entropy of the Living’ (One Two Three)

mixed media, foil, glue, long exposure portraits on board, 24 x 36 inches, 2021.

The illusion is that nothing changes, that the universe is a permanent machine, that objects we perceive remain the same, that identity remains the same. This is not so. Western imagery holds fast to the stability, the icon, the concrete. The East confronts us with paradox, versatility, and the truth of impermanence.

Each body image sensually undresses the permanent person, exposures of images that cannot sit still and cannot help but to erode into the entropy of dissolving data.

Video here https://youtu.be/0ylA-8Tr4dg

‘Portrait of (My) Isabelle in 2029’

Crayon on canvas, augmented digital reality drawing,

15.25 x 19.5 inches, 2021.

This augmented image is an anchor. It sits between today and eight years from now. It is as much a manifestation of the future echoing backwards, as the moments that already created this work. In collaboration with my daughter, I tried to envision what tools and materials might change and what brings us together as father and daughter.

On the surface is the tangible artifact, a crayon and canvas sketch based on a series of an AI generated image of a girl almost 11 years old, rendered in my artist's hand, a father’s hand. Yet in an augmented virtual space, it expands into a structure of animated lines, utilizing the artist hand of my daughter's sketches, when she was two and a half years old. Encoded in her lines are the visual and audio representation of her words and fingers. They spiral outwards from her visage, a future self - the future and past living together. A memory in the future, but a moment happening right now.

who are we, we fathers, we daughters, if nothing but the connections that shape the future?

—

To interact with the digital medium, please download the free ARTIVIVE APP

http://onelink.to/zv6vjz

Notes from Dystopia, St. Petersburg 1864

digital projection, 2021.

(duration 6 minutes, loop)

Looking for a way to incorporate and translate a body of text, the elements of story, and the genius loci (the spirit of the location). The work explores utilitarianism, literature, and the stories that drive dystopian fiction. What I hoped to investigate here was how the past opens a conversation with the present, and how we are haunted by our histories.

A combination of digital drawing, data bending, and audio, the work is intended to be a still painting that cannot find rest, as beneath the surface of city, the story is encoded into the visual.

The process incorporates physical text from the novella, Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Coding text into audio and rebuilding the new raw data into an image. Then using reference photos from pre-revolutionary Russia, the drawing is incorporated and manipulated into the visual data. The audio presented is also a digitized reading, slowed then transferred and manipulated and incorporated into the video. The placement for projection is to interact with the physical space available. If the city is never at rest, how can we reflect upon history and change the future.

file types explored:

TXT, BMP, RAW, MP3, M4A, MP4

some tools:

Audacity 2.3.3

Adobe Photoshop 21.2

Processing 2.1.1

Cloudconvert

PhotoScapeX

Video Express

Youtube

lens projector

Bryan J. McLean

Zen Sutras and Chants (in 9 images)

digital projection and body performance, 2021.

(duration 5 minutes)

This work reflects my personal practice in soto zen Buddhism. The body is used as a vessel as it intersects with the mind. Our body is a tool for creating kinetics, sound, heat, and light. The performance is a shortened version of my routine. Myself as the figure is in a seated pose, for the duration of the sequence until the time elapses. In zazen, there is no goal, just the intentional action of being seated and staring forward at a non-distracting surface, arriving in the present moment.

The process takes my personal audio of known chants spoken during parts of zen practice. I combined these chants with my voice in process of audio manipulation to transpose into raw data images and back again. The video images are of 9 stills I had chosen and includes an additional audio creation of tracking sounds manipulated through another program to create an ambient music result. All the work I am presenting is derived from the source of my body, my chanting during practice, and my experience in the moment as it arrives.

(9 Stills / images in animation MP4)

1 Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra 444

1 Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra 555

2 Purification Vow 222

3 All Buddhas Vow

4 Before Lecture Vow

5 After Lecture Vow 222

5 After Lecture Vow

6 Bodhisattva Vows

7 Bodhisattva Ceremony verses

(audio)
Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra 444 MP3

(video)
Sutras and Chants MP4

file types explored:
TXT, BMP, RAW, MP3, M4A, MP4

some tools:
Audacity 2.3.3
Adobe Photoshop 21.2
Processing 2.1.1
Cloudconvert
PhotoScapeX
Video Express
Youtube
lens projector

** STROBE EFFECT WARNING: This video/animation may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised. **

TWO SUNS (brush 17) 2020, Bryan J McLean

Digital Animated Projection, 21 ft x 30 ft

(Hitchcock Magazine September 1980 swatch digital brush17) An analog magazine scrap scanned and translated to Ps brushes, digital painting process; followed by data-bending layers in audacity exported as u-file raw, layers returned to Ps and reformed image with digital painting. Animated Effects software, merged into one final Animated GIF file for Projection and social media footage.

Original Format JPG ( 21 ft x 30 ft ) 300 dpi ( 6430 x 9000 px ) / Merged Format GIF ( 720 x 1280 )

— 𝔸𝕟𝕒𝕝𝕠𝕘 𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕒 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝕕𝕚𝕘𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕒𝕤 ℍ𝕒𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕘𝕪, 𝕒𝕤 𝕡𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕝 𝕗𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕕𝕚𝕖𝕕 𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕪 𝕙𝕒𝕦𝕟𝕥 𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕕𝕒𝕪, 𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕔𝕙 𝕒𝕣𝕖 ❞𝕒𝕝𝕨𝕒𝕪𝕤-𝕒𝕝𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕪 𝕒𝕓𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥❞. 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕡𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕤𝕖 𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕗𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖𝕤 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕒 𝕓𝕝𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕖𝕗𝕗𝕖𝕔𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕚𝕡𝕦𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕤 𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕞𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥⨟ 𝕒 𝕤𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕨 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕓𝕖.

* GIF audio MP3 royalty-free “alien spaceship” by Daniel Simion
*** Documentation Video audio “Evergreen” by Morgan Kibby

CONTENT
1. Image: Original Digital Painting after processing
2. VIDEO: documentation of projections for scale ***
3. Image: photo of mirror, projections, and projector
4. Image: a small sample of animated GIF
5. Image: photo of a person (me) in front of the projector
6. VIDEO: a 2 Min loop of the Animated GIF *
7. Image: detail / zoom
8. Image: detail / zoom
9. Image: detail / zoom

HAUNTOLOGIES (brushes) 2020-21, Bryan J McLean

Digital Sketches and Studies

a note on Process - some peices incorporate Hitchcock Magazine September 1980 swatch digital brushes. An analog magazine scrap scanned and translated to Ps brushes, digital painting process.

Original Formats Vary - JPG ( 21 ft x 30 ft ) 300 dpi ( 6430 x 9000 px ) / Merged Format GIF ( 720 x 1280 )

— 𝔸𝕟𝕒𝕝𝕠𝕘 𝕕𝕒𝕥𝕒 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕤𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕥𝕠 𝕕𝕚𝕘𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕝 𝕒𝕤 ℍ𝕒𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕘𝕪, 𝕒𝕤 𝕡𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕝 𝕗𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕕𝕚𝕖𝕕 𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕪 𝕙𝕒𝕦𝕟𝕥 𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕕𝕒𝕪, 𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕔𝕙 𝕒𝕣𝕖 ❞𝕒𝕝𝕨𝕒𝕪𝕤-𝕒𝕝𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕪 𝕒𝕓𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥❞. 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔼𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕡𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕤𝕖 𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕗𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖𝕤 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕒 𝕓𝕝𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕖𝕗𝕗𝕖𝕔𝕥 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕚𝕡𝕦𝕝𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕤 𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕞𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥⨟ 𝕒 𝕤𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕨 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕓𝕖.

Windows into Memory and What Makes A House a Home

96 x 71.36 inches (28,800 x 21,393px), Projection of Digital Collage, 2021.

Explore the image here: https://bryanjmclean.com/home-and-memory

The work is a visual map that explores the home. Investigating my personal spaces, objects, habits, it is a conversation between what is seen and what is hidden. My art practice explores how the analog world interacts with the digital spectrum, and this project is an extension of the tools I employ. My personal research is in narratives and hauntology, in order to discuss identity, memory, pattern recognition, interruption, entropy, erasure, and the small stories of daily life.

This is a process-driven work, where tracing paper was used to capture textures of the home, from objects, flooring, appliances, and other material possessions. Then the textures, now abstracted, have been scanned and translated into digital brushes to utilize with digital painting using the artist’s hand. This research continues by visually taking photos for reference, as well as drawing from memory, next sketching during a period of several weeks to explore my home. The final piece can be explored through a projection back onto the physical world. This creates a cycle of home, and how the digital can re-map itself to the surfaces that gave it life. The abstract mark-making returns to representational through the act of drawing. As deeply this is a digital work, these objects and spaces fill my memory, I have a physical interaction with everything I have explored here. It is fitting, during a time of isolation (the covid pandemic), these digital ghosts exist in the ephemeral and yet are readily explored through digital interaction.

Welcome to my home, please explore with me.

Two Questions

1) Is there a better presentation I could provide you from home? ( ie: ebook? Website?)

as I encourage you, keeping data plans in mind, to download the collage and explore the details within the image.

2) Should I have created a more appealing pattern or added actual stories to this work?

Works to be Cited and Other Notes:

The Home, as well as Collage of Martha Rosler, John Heartfield, and Hanna Hoch

“An Unhomely Genealogy of Contemporary Art.” The Unmaking of Home in Contemporary Art, by CLAUDETTE LAUZON, University of Toronto Press, Toronto; Buffalo; London, 2017, pp. 26–68. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1whm8v6.6. Accessed 12 Mar. 2021.

“Kerwin Lee Klein issued a scathing report on what he termed the advent of the “memory industry” – the exponential growth of memory as a key vector of concern in the arts and humanities. [ … ] three trajectories: the rejection of modernity’s blind trust in progress and development, the articulation of anxiety around the increasing flux of postmodern globalization, and an emphasis on minority rights and marginalized histories.”

TOOL SHED Lee John Phillips | https://www.leejohnphillips.co.uk/the-shed-project-1

“Lee: My grandfather, Handel Jones, passed away in 1994. My grandmother, Myrtle, has treated his toolshed as a mausoleum ever since. I am in the process of creating an illustrated inventory of the entire contents and work to this set of rules:

1. IF THE ITEM CAN BE PICKED UP AND DOESN’T CRUMBLE IF RUBBED - DRAW IT.

2. IF THE PACKET/CONTAINER IS/HAS BEEN OPENED, EMPTY IT, DRAW ITEMS, REPLACE THEM, DRAW CONTAINER FULL.

3. IF THE PACKET/CONTAINER HAS NOT BEEN OPENED, IT WILL NOT BE, AND DRAWN AS FOUND.

4. IF THERE ARE MULTIPLES OF THE SAME ITEMS - DRAW THEM ALL.

—

Windows into Memory and What Makes A House a Home, 96 x 71.36 inches (28,800 x 21,393px), Projection of Digital Collage, Bryan J. McLean, 2021

P E R S E U S (aMerger) 2020 

60'x40' (5ftx3.3ft/152cmx102cm)

Acrylic Latex Mediums on raw canvas,

— last week of finals in Painting Studio I

.. this is the first in a series of enlargements from long exposer textile photography and digital deletions of colour values and re-merged.

as I continue my investigations from the analog into the digital spectrum (and in some cases return to the analog), its primarily the connections between these visuals that are most fascinating.

pencil sketching on raw canvas after stretching a frame and then working with latex, acrylic, pouring medium and varnish let me buildup layers to maintain a flat but active surface. cyan, vermilion, naples yellow, and a black primer with some titanium white.

The constellation Perseus can be located underneath Cassiopeia in the northern hemisphere skyline. This is also a known Greek warrior in western mythology. there are also narrative connections with exploration of space within science-fiction tropes and most specifically a 1974 Jerry Pournell and Larry Niven novel titled 'The Mote in God's Eye' that deals heavily with dehumanization.

It is our nature to make connections and narratives from the visual field. any image can be reduced to abstraction. Such abstractions can be mimicked with the artist hand, but these gestural renderings are meant to communicate, the past, present, or future.

what does our experience with any image or object convey? how do we feel when we encounter any visage? Is it instantly forgotten or Does it linger to haunt us long after? what do we do with visual information once we have been exposed?

Thanks for reading, B

#contemporaryart #abstractpainting #abstractartists #abstractart #contemporarypainting

2020 Mote In Gods’ Eye - prints and large scale painting studies

——————

Motelight 2020

Digtial Data Manipulation of Texture Exposure photography ,

— last week of finals in Painting Studio I

.. this is a series of enlargements from long exposer textile photography and digital deletions of colour values and re-merged.

as I continue my investigations from the analog into the digital spectrum (and in some cases return to the analog), its primarily the connections between these visuals that are most fascinating.

pencil sketching on raw canvas after stretching a frame and then working with latex, acrylic, pouring medium and varnish let me buildup layers to maintain a flat but active surface. cyan, vermilion, naples yellow, and a black primer with some titanium white.

ABOUT P E R S E U S
The constellation Perseus can be located underneath Cassiopeia in the northern hemisphere skyline. This is also a known Greek warrior in western mythology. there are also narrative connections with exploration of space within science-fiction tropes and most specifically a 1974 Jerry Pournell and Larry Niven novel titled 'The Mote in God's Eye' that deals heavily with dehumanization.

It is our nature to make connections and narratives from the visual field. any image can be reduced to abstraction. Such abstractions can be mimicked with the artist hand, but these gestural renderings are meant to communicate, the past, present, or future.

what does our experience with any image or object convey? how do we feel when we encounter any visage? Is it instantly forgotten or Does it linger to haunt us long after? what do we do with visual information once we have been exposed?

Thanks for reading, B

#contemporaryart #abstractpainting #abstractartists #abstractart #contemporarypainting

drawings / paintings digital & into VR.

1) my drawing is original from a hand-sketch then made a photoshop edit with multiple versions attached images (below) but examples here :

https://www.bryanjmclean.com/digital_exits

2) I then made a Webpage / html file but the image is here : https://tinyurl.com/usej66n
- which is a scrollable image, another way to interact with it.

3) created a VR augmented reality of the drawings and created a basic object in space that activates when the VR app sees the image (the original drawing).

You can view video tests on
my Instagram here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-MDkaXgbNV/?igshid=1g32vm9fzgdj8 )

4) I would also project this Digital painting in a much larger than life format onto a space/wall (or maybe the original drawing projected)
- Not actually sure how the VR works to identify the (ghost) images. have to learn that skill still. It would have been nice to show in class.

+ had the idea of seeing if someone could just draw a square 🔲 and it would create the VR object for them with the app (without my drawing) so that's the last trick I'd like to learn.

I've learned a lot about VR today.
that was super new for me.
This skill will definitely advance my digital painting ideas going further.

👍 I think using these ideas and the data-bending I presented you with will help me make something big out of this for third year next fall.

☑️ my goal of the painting as object to just sit with or contemplate is more clear with this piece now reflects and fits with the connection to zen meditation I wanted to discuss.

Iterations Part 2 (2020) Bryan J. McLean, latex press on canvas - Blacks & Blues Gold/ Red Metallic Foil

— ALSO included are some oil studies and other abstract iterations

Iterations (2020) Bryan J. McLean, latex press on canvas

2019 Digital Media LIVE Feed ( Mylar sculpture, Security Camera Projection, Laser Pointer)

A glimpse into the invisible boarders of technology. Where, in our quest for opportunity, we require security, membranes, and limits imposed on the populace. ?who watches the watchmen? what lengths will we go to enforce our invisible boundaries. A sculpture with laser pointer ( a single line ) that reflects and refracts within a micro world that is then projected into the marco space of our viewership.

2019 Mixed Media Acrylics on raw canvas 30x30in
- studies in line work and the active motion of still objects

• $ Sold 

Dehumanizing the Portrait (2019) Bryan J. McLean, acrylics on canvas 30 x 30 inches

Disruptions of the human form, creating a sense of 'The Other'.

From Carol Becker’s article, alongside the discussion that art ‘challenges and disrupts’ (127), a major take away for me was considering art as a location in creating fictitious worlds and giving the sense that “the fabricated world becomes more real than reality itself.” (117) This is where the form of the work lives. Through non-representational imagery that I created; it becomes its own space the potential for a portrait is ready to be re-assembled by the audience, it became the challenge for the audience visually placing the puzzle back together.

My content and the image’s context come from my other readings while investigating what makes monsters (the other). Michelle Maiese’s article, Dehumanization, which states that, it is “a psychological process whereby opponents view each other as less than human and thus not deserving of moral consideration… Dehumanization is actually an extension of a less intense process of developing an "enemy image" of the opponent” (Maiese) and this is where I wanted to play with imagery of ‘the other’, the enemy, and the monster; considering how we create them and then use this against them.

I also looked to Leo Braudy’s book, Haunted, for information, where his asks us, “What makes us afraid as individuals, afraid as groups, afraid as nations? The question of fear is not just a question solely of individual response… and perhaps more immediately a question about how a culture responds to events,” so here I was hoping to base some of my future work around this concept of ‘the other’ and how the process of dehumanization damages not only those that are subject to this treatment, but as well the individuals that carry out the act of dehumanizing them.

I also considered the horrors of political events in Francesco Goya’s painting – as well his piece The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. Taking a more contemporary look, I investigated some disrupted portraiture from Kim Dorland in their ‘you are here’ series.

Resources

Braudy, Leo. Haunted: on Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of the Natural and Supernatural Worlds. Yale University Press, 2017.

Ilie, Paul. “Goya's Teratology and the Critique of Reason.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, 1984, pp. 35–56. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2738305.

Maiese , Michelle. “Dehumanization.” Beyond Intractability, 24 Oct. 2016, https://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/dehumanization. Accessed Nov. 27 2019.

Russell, Luke. “Evil, Monsters and Dualism.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 13, no. 1, 2010, pp. 45–58. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27764633.

Neo-Expressionist vs Surrealist (2020) Bryan J. McLean,

acrylics on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

Related Resources

Dubnick, Randa. “Visible Poetry: Metaphor and Metonymy in the Paintings of René Magritte.” Contemporary Literature, vol. 21, no. 3, 1980, pp. 407–419. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1208249. Accessed 25 Feb. 2020.

Entropy of Objects + Night Narratives (2020) Bryan J. McLean (2020) 72 inches by 36 inches

colour conté & mixed media on banquet paper. Includes Booklet of Object Narratives.

Related Resources

Gunn, James E. The Science of Science-Fiction Writing. Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2000.

“'The Process of Drawing Is like Writing a Diary: It's a Nice Way of Thinking About Time Passing': Rachel Whiteread – Tate Etc.” Tate, www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-20-autumn-2010/process-drawing-writing-diary-its-nice-way-thinking-about-time-passing. Accessed Feb. 7 2020.

Wendig, Chuck. Damn Fine Story: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative. Writers’ Digest Books, an Imprint of F W Media., Inc., 2017.

this is how research turns into process..

#WIP

1️⃣ EntropyType 1of2(?) RHZ

• Charcoal On Bond 16x22in

©️Bryan J. McLean

2️⃣ EntropyType 2of2(?) OMI

• Charcoal On Bond 16x22in

©️Bryan J. McLean

Reads: Bryan— "I enjoy the entropy of materials, how one medium infects another and it can never be perfect again; like crumpled or dirty paper.. the commodity is reformed and its relationship to its (family of identical paper, untouched/uninfected) is destroyed and how mistakes can never be replicated (only expanded upon) —

#unfiltered #abstractart #abstractdrawing #FineArtDrawing #contemporarydrawing #typography #entropy

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.

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comparing rhizome theory, gaming science, buddhism, and visual essays at 1am..

artschool is weird..

Transection of Two Teapots (2020) Bryan J. McLean,

acrylics, canvas, stretcher bars, framing, wire, 20 x 60 inches

For this project, the focus was on deconstructing painting. In the film, Robert Ryman: On Painting, Ryman narrates, “a painting begins with the materials. By materials, I mean of course the tools that painter use. Paints, brushes, supports and so on,” and from here I wanted to work directly with these materials to continue this conversation.

Several challenges presented themselves while brainstorming solutions to this task. The more I tried to investigate the deconstruction of painting, each idea lead more into sculpture or into installation of three-dimensional objects, and that kept taking me away from my goal of visually discussing painting. I investigated further processes with artist Jala Walid, who uses fats, plasters and paints to create sculptural objects in her practice. One of their challenges was her decay of the materials and I liked the idea of disintegration of a work of art, as that creates a conversation on the impermanence of reality.

Another artist I researched was Oliver Jeffers who does many different styles of paintings. I looked towards his Dipped Painting Project that takes completed portraits and then dipped them into a solid colour, destroying part of the work and creating a new representation of the image.

This led me to the idea of weaving two images together, knowing the images would interrupt one another. For subject matter, I wanted to also manage a continuation of my previous image work with tea and tea equipment, as they are a natural source, and have an evolved production process much like painting. Ater deciding I wanted to focus directly on the materials of a more traditional concept of painting (canvas/linen on support creating a flat pictorial plane and focus on what Ryman calls an illusion to the representation – an image within a confined space.) I decided to paint two different styled tea pots, in two colours, swapping the blue/green. I chose this limited pallet as I generally work in a wider array of tones. I was attempting to use more natural materials, so the blue of water and the green of tea leaves was a starting point for the paintings. After their completion I started to dismantle the image by cutting into strips and breaking down the function of the original images. Then I wove the pieces together in a manageable pattern in order to transect the imagery. It was also my desire to use the support pieces of stretcher bars, strip framing, hanging wire, and d-rings. I stained the supports to bring out the more natural feeling of the materials’ wood grains.

I had hoped a few things would take place with the interaction of the tea pots being merged. I supposed I foolishly desired for there to still be something recognizable about the final image, however it actually deconstructed more than I had hoped, and this was defeating. I believe with a bit more planning and maybe a broader colour pallet the imagery might be more distinct or more interesting. For the support and its relationship to the final woven image, I wanted them to be separate to highlight the materials. However, in feedback, the group sensed the materials were perhaps too removed from each other.

So, if I were to continue with this idea, I would find a more functional way to ‘stretch’ the canvas, perhaps to use the triangular shape in a more defining way, as sculpture in the round or something more obvious. I was not happy with the final results, the experiment needed further adjustments to make a clearer statement. Also for the result of project, I felt I destroyed two paintings that had potential, with some editing, to become something closer to the familiar. This uncomfortable result makes sense in the end, since the goal was deconstruction. I do believe I would change this project around next time, and I would focus more on pigment and how materials degrade. I am much more interested in the interaction of certain solvents with paints, and that may be a better launching point in the future.

Resources

Fisher, Aaron. The Way of Tea: Reflections On A Life With Tea. Tuttle Pub., 2010.

Jeffers, Oliver. “The Dipped Painting Project.” Oliver Jeffers, www.oliverjeffers.com/oliver-jeffers. Accessed Feb. 4 2020.

“Robert Ryman: On Painting.” Raussmller Insights, 15 Feb. 1993, raussmueller-insights.org/en/robert-ryman-a-talk-with-the-artist/. Accessed Jan. 27 2020.

Thackara, Tess. “These 20 Female Artists Are Pushing Sculpture Forward.” Artsy.net, 30 July 2018, d7hftxdivxxvm.cloudfront.net/?resize_to=width&src=https://artsy-media-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/5XnNBT8YwalgUduKRA-hZw%2FJala+Wahid_image+7.JPG&width=600&quality=80. Accessed: Feb. 8 2020.

Three Teapots (2020) Bryan J. McLean, mixed natural media on Maidstone paper, 22 x 30 inches

     “When a professor came to inquire about Zen teachings and meet Master Nan-in for tea, the Master kept pouring tea into the professor’s cup until it overflowed. Then he continued to pour. The professor exclaimed, “No more will go in!” To this, Nan-in replied, “like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” reps77

      My constraint given was to use only natural materials. I was not excited to work with new media as there is a very short amount of time to experiment and get solid results; however, I like the idea of working with new solvents/materials. This was still a good opportunity to get a few tests in place and see what each material did alone or together. One of my main challenges was finding the right pigment from a natural souce, so I tried dirt and paprika, with little success, however I found materials like (red)tea, coca, and turmeric to have a stronger pigment and so I choose to work with those in the final piece. I did have other ideas like growing plants from seeds to work on abstracted shapes, however there was not enough time to make this work, so I stuck to what is more of a water-colour type of wash work. I did find it hard to get enough glazing in a few cases to make strong images.

    I did research on a few topics on smuggling spices and tea, conservation of tea, and historical information like the East India Company and colonialism. I also included some reading on Chado, the zen way of the tea and rituals related to serviing tea. I also had considered ideas like serving tea to the class while we discussed my pieces but it was not something I had the equipment to complete this time.

    Also I researched natural materials and how to make my own pigments to get some kind of guidance on how to create stronger works. It was certainly an interesting task as I have done a bit of research on the painter J. M. W. Turner and his techniques.

    Some of my major problems were the type of paper I was using as well for a support. So I chose a strong paper for the final work but I think a soaked watercolour paper would be most successful if I continued to work on this.

    I would say the outcome for the work was acceptable. I decided to use three of my teapots a visual reference to make a final piece. The result was more abstract, and this gave me a more accomplished sense of what I had hoped to show visual. I think I struggled most with the content and what to show, so I decided ti highlight the mediums I used and keep the imagery to still life, even if I crossed three images together. I would like to try a few more of these pieces just to see if I could develop a better design to the final imagery. Noted that in framing the final work this makes a note of western commodities, and also work identifying the invisible hand that moved these materials to the artist for use.

    Feedback today included: it might be good to work in only teas and also make the image stronger with more contrasting colours to define the specific teapots.

Resources

Cha Do The Japanese Way of Tea. https://tru.arcabc.ca/islandora/object/ tru%3A1418/datastream/PDF/view

Experimenting with Natural Paints. https://artful-kids.com/2010/09/08/experimenting-with-natural-paints/

Fisher, Aaron. The Way of Tea: Reflections On A Life With Tea. Tuttle Pub., 2010.

Hoh-Cheung, and Lorna H. Mui. “Smuggling and the British Tea Trade before 1784.” The American Historical Review, vol. 74, no. 1, 1968, pp. 44–73. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1857629. Accessed 19 Jan. 2020.

Reps, Paul, and Nyogen Senzaki. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: a Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. Tuttle Pub., 1998.

Zhang, Lawrence. “A Foreign Infusion: The Forgotten Legacy of Japanese Chadō on Modern Chinese Tea Arts.”

Gastronomica, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, pp. 53–62. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26362320. Accessed 28 Jan. 2020.

LEFT

Found Abject Painting, Castor Wheel (2019)

chalkboard paint on raw canvas

18 x 20 inches

RIGHT

Found Object Painting, Rusted Wrench (2019)

chalkboard paint on raw canvas

18 x 20 inches

___________________

Found objects used as brushes, representing the abjectification of commodities.

/ White on Black (1999) Bryan J. McLean, acrylic on paperboard, 32"x32" 

tl;dr - keep making more art.

#Throwback - this is a final painting I did during my 3rd year associate degree.

I was doing a whole bunch of Dante's Inferno 'inspired' paper collage from magazines and I was making paintings from those collage works.

This painting was much larger, like 6 feet, on this hard paperboard I pulled from a dumpster. it was the end of that year, and emptying my studio space, I pretty much hated it.. So I cut out this square-stamp of the parts I like and kept it.

It traveled with me as a flat board through every move.. a few years ago I decided to mount it and frame it. nothing fancy, but this hangs on my wall in basement / studio and it's likely one of my favourite things I've ever done, because of what it reminds me to do..

so I've kept it, not because it's an amazing piece, but because it's a reminder of my ability and that All we need to grow as a creator is permission to make something dear to us (and it's not about sharing it with other people) and make another and make another..

I see it as a failure, because of all the other paintings I did at that time - they all were bad or I thought so, but also I did many of them from drawing projections (very hard back then) and I felt like I was cheating, drawing and then painting.. so this black one I did freehand, and made it special..

I had this notion that great painters didn't do that. They just painted.. so this work is a reminder of how WRONG I was. Process is anything you make it and classical work includes many many steps and many many artists working together(including drawing and then painting).. I felt I had to 'do it alone' and asking for help was failure.

So this piece (and all my paintings then) Never made my final show ( I presented a series of small etching prints based on klimt and historical jazz/blues musicians instead)..

and this one painting, a survivor, was once about Dante's decent into poetic allegory (I should have titled it Beatrice, but I decided it was best unnamed).. and so over time it became about Failing and Mistakes and is a symbol of dedication and hard work.

who was that Bryan in 1999? where did he go? Is he still me? could I tell him back then where this journey took me (far away from being an artist and then back again) or how if I had just kept 'being me' I could have done more work and that really would have been okay; that greatness comes incrementally by making more and more.

but he can't hear us, he is 1999Bryan, sad and dark struggling, with an unknown and unguided future waiting.

and now I am 2020Bryan, darktimelineBryan, strong and dark, struggling & sad, but hopeful, being a light to others? a light maybe in those dark spaces no one really wants to venture into, but being me..

I now know the secrets I needed then..

that failure, when you surrender to it, becomes falling.

and when we are just falling,

we are free.

thank you for reading,

B

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#TBT #throwback #throwbackThursday #Art #contemporarypainting #contemporaryart #Painting #drawing

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