19th September 2013


Do we start life visually attuned ? Do we attach significance or symbolism to objects and imagery without being aware of it ?

Images in art affect people from all backgrounds. Different aspects of work appeal to or "resonate" with each individual without any knowledge of the artist or the work's original intent. I'm assuming this is the case because this is my own personal experience.

Visiting the Walker art gallery in Liverpool during the seventies, the works I was drawn to over and over were the medieval religious works, the triptychs painted on wood in tempera. Later on I would pore over the Egyptian amulets in the Manchester museum and pictures of African Ibeji figures . I'm drawn to the spiritual content in art it seems.

I also returned many times to look at Holman Hunt's "The Scapegoat" because of it's strange colours and theme, but the work that really made me want to make art and understand it was a weird piece entered in a John Moore's exhibition comprised of a large sheet draped high from the wall without a frame. I can't picture this work exactly now, but from what remains of my memory of it, the sheet was pulled out slightly so that it did splay a bit, rather than drape down naturally. I would like to think it was actually nailed to the gallery wall, but I can't see the curator allowing this so I may have invented this detail. It definitely had 2 lolly sticks forming a rough cross shape in the top left hand corner and these, along with some faint pencil marks formed the only additional visual content.

I seem to remember returning to look and puzzle over this work three times. I felt excited by it. It's audacity, the fact that it had been chosen to be put on display. For me, it meant that art had endless potential and that people were prepared to consider new and strange ways of working and presumably of being.

It was only years later that it dawned on me this was probably about the crucifixion.

Personal preferences are, I acknowledge, only a beginning. It would be very limiting to only look at or study what pleases us. We expand our understanding by trying to appreciate other ways of seeing, different aesthetics and ideas. However, I believe that by referring back to our personal taste and trying to analyse how this came about, we can gradually gain some insight into our responses to the world. We stand alone but not autonomous. We refer to our own memory and imagination, but these have been formed by the world we inhabit. No-one can know the content of another's mind but art can portray glimpses for us to share.

If we try to be honest in our taste and not try to pin it down too securely, but explore it along-side studying art and art history without prejudice,  we can begin a "dialogue" which can counter-balance the confusing and sometimes overwhelming deluge of images and ideas we are bombarded with these days.


Notes on what to read : John Berger Ways of Seeing


                                      Susan Sontag ?


Art to Look up :            Fra Angelica

                                      The Walker Art Gallery