This 'Brain Candy' series is my reaction to the pressures of going through a fine arts thesis program. In any academic situation, ideas and words reign supreme. Art students are taught to act like 'idea factories' rather than producers of fine art works. It should not surprising then, to learn that within the fine art academies more time is spent writing about painting than is spent actually painting.
Yea, you read that right. When you go to art school, you learn how to write about art. They don't bother to teach you very much about actually making the art that you are expected to spend so much time writing about. But they certainly expect you to write a lot about it. It's kind of like teaching engineers to explain their motivations behind choosing to include cables in their suspension bridges, without teaching them how to actually design and build a suspension bridge.
A lot of artists claim to have big ideas driving their work, but to me, it often seems like a case of the emperors new clothes; there is nothing there, but no one is willing to come out and say it. Often, an idea or concept is just arbitrarily slapped on any old piece of art so the insecure artist can justify the existence of an otherwise uninteresting, uninspiring, or just plain ugly piece of art. There is also a very small pool of ideas that are acceptable. Any idea outside of this clearly defined circle is rejected outright, or worse, not even noticed at all. Quoting obscure French authors is fine, but if you go anywhere near a peer reviewed scientific journal for inspiration, well, then you're not welcome to sit at the big artist table.
This series aims to make a mockery of the fine art institutions.
I have painted a series of entirely non-representational abstract works, using various acrylic mediums and techniques to give them a deep, shimmering, jewel-like appearance. These paintings exist only to please the eyes of any viewers who happen to look their way.
I have also typed up a list of acceptable contemporary fine art ideas. Each idea is printed standard printer paper with non-colourfast ink. After adding a piece of standard, non-archival clear tape to each printed card, I closed my eyes and slapped a card on each painting.
After showing this series several times, some of the cards are now damaged by moisture, torn, or faded. Others have fallen off entirely. And that is entirely the point of this series. I want to show how ideas come and go. Art can shed one idea and pick up another as concepts move in and out of fashion. Even without the superficial, superfluous ideas that were at one point attached to the painting, the actual object, the work of art remains.