Painting a fine line, 2009. Collaborative paintings with Touko Ruth.
Paintings one and two are from a collaborative project between artist/mother and son. This conceptual project deals with boundaries between mother and artist, and between parent and child. The creation process and gesture of these paintings provide a physical opportunity to reflect upon these relationships through making, sharing, learning, compromising, patience, frustration and discovery.
The resulting abstract images, themselves, are residue of a conceptual collaboration.
Every child is somewhat of a genius in their own parent’s eyes. And in recent years several young children (of artist parents) have risen as painterly geniuses in the art-world (Maria Olmsted, Freddie Linsky, Aelita Andre). It is not my intention to promote my 2 year-old as an artistic genius. All children have an innocence, which allows them to make uninhibited gestures. The marks from these gestures can be interpreted by artistic scholars as masterful simply because it is difficult for adults to repossess the unobstructed psyche of a child. Throughout their whole careers, many abstract painters have made tireless efforts to empty their minds of the knowledge learned at school, in the hopes of creating a more pure form of art.
On this level, I can truly appreciate the marks and gestures made by my son. But we are collaborators; I am the artist and he is a child. He is not yet fully in control of his actions and choices nor can I completely control how and what he makes. The act of painting together combines all of our strengths and weaknesses but more importantly the creation and gesture of working together provides an opportunity to reflect upon the relationships: child-mother and mother-artist.
What do I allow to remain on the canvas? How many colours do I allow him to use at a time? When do I clean up? When do I work on the painting alone? What and how much do I change/modify?
Where is the line between mother and artist?
And when the painting is finished, where is the line between mother and son?
The resulting abstract images, themselves, are residue of this conceptual collaboration.
Paintings one and two are from a collaborative project between artist/mother and son. This conceptual project deals with boundaries between mother and artist, and between parent and child. The creation process and gesture of these paintings provide a physical opportunity to reflect upon these relationships through making, sharing, learning, compromising, patience, frustration and discovery.
The resulting abstract images, themselves, are residue of a conceptual collaboration.
Every child is somewhat of a genius in their own parent’s eyes. And in recent years several young children (of artist parents) have risen as painterly geniuses in the art-world (Maria Olmsted, Freddie Linsky, Aelita Andre). It is not my intention to promote my 2 year-old as an artistic genius. All children have an innocence, which allows them to make uninhibited gestures. The marks from these gestures can be interpreted by artistic scholars as masterful simply because it is difficult for adults to repossess the unobstructed psyche of a child. Throughout their whole careers, many abstract painters have made tireless efforts to empty their minds of the knowledge learned at school, in the hopes of creating a more pure form of art.
On this level, I can truly appreciate the marks and gestures made by my son. But we are collaborators; I am the artist and he is a child. He is not yet fully in control of his actions and choices nor can I completely control how and what he makes. The act of painting together combines all of our strengths and weaknesses but more importantly the creation and gesture of working together provides an opportunity to reflect upon the relationships: child-mother and mother-artist.
What do I allow to remain on the canvas? How many colours do I allow him to use at a time? When do I clean up? When do I work on the painting alone? What and how much do I change/modify?
Where is the line between mother and artist?
And when the painting is finished, where is the line between mother and son?
The resulting abstract images, themselves, are residue of this conceptual collaboration.