SHAPE 2017 TateExchange Book FINAL Draft - Flipbook - Page 15
Macular degeneration Georgina Kleege gets very close to a painting so
“every painting even the most representational becomes an abstraction.”
“Paint is paint,” she says, “But paint is also the point. Looking at a work of
art is seldom simply a matter of identifying the objects or people depicted
there.” 5 (1999:94)
Grayson Perry says “Our job as artists is discriminating, whether between
colours and forms and materials, or ideas, artists and eras.” 6
The job of describers is very similar, our tools are words, syntax and vocal
expression. We should guard against being ‘indifferent to the distinction
between things. AD is about choosing and juxtaposing words. Anne Rooney,
Professor of Creative Writing at Reading University put it this way: “it’s not
clever to choose an unusual word. It’s clever to use ordinary words in a new
way”. She also talks about impact, describing it as “an emergent property.
It comes from making words spark off each other, producing more than the
sum of their parts by drawing on all they have going for them – associations,
connotations, their sound, the way they feel as you say them” It is this, I
believe that makes AD more than information, that gives it the potential to
be art.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary online, the definition of art has
changed overtime. From the 1300s it was considered to be “skill; its display
application or expression”. By the 1600s it had become “The expression or
application of creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as
painting, drawing, or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily
for their beauty or emotional power. I advocate that AD, too should focus
on conveying beauty and emotional power to convey a sense of wonder and
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