STRIPPED (AGAIN)

Out of imagery, I took off all my clothes.

 

NOTES: Tension, friction, restless, flip. If your body collapses, you instinctually grip whatever surrounds you or what makes you feel safe. That day in the print lab I lost my grip. Restless legs undermined systems of thought, ideas collapsed into muscles of unknowing and conceptual rhythms sweat apart. Out of imagery and in void of desperation, I took off all my clothes.

 

Here we go again, an artistic survival strategy. Blow out. Stripped action with no fixed foundation. Chaos x-rays possibilities for change and outlines openings. Flipmoment. Chaos is mobile. Chaos is powerful. Don’t blur, nowness of movement is urgency towards change. Stripped down to desperate actions, I printed on any flat surface surrounding me. Mesh T120.120 openings within an inch in any direction. Move. Acceleration works.

 

Woooooshhh!! Doodles add just enough effortless stimulation to use up my brain’s spare attentional capacity and preventing me from losing grip entirely. You draw something and transfer it to something else. Monotype cannot be repeated, I mean, I do the same movement over and over again but it’s never the same. You get unpredictability that you cannot get from working directly on paper. Transparent surface. I draw with fingertips. Cotton swabs. Tampons works even better for the big strokes. The tip of the cotton tends to get loose and expands into red fluffy flower buds. Acceleration and then a tiny flower bud dot. Dot dot. As soon as the dot is there you recognize the flower. Now it represents something??! Open imprint. Right here. Still wet.

 

Exposed to light I strained silhouettes with a squeegee. Full body weight on interior. By pushing the squeegee, the outer edge of my undershirt appeared on a lightboard. Bright light. Like a big marker highlighting the outer edges of shapes. Like a landscape of billboards displaying semi figurations of puffy elevation or cotton rib depression. A rise and a fall of something. Mountains have an elevation based on how high they are, and your mood has an elevation as you get happier.

 

Doodle experts find deeper phycological MEANING in doodles, for instance, flowers are the most popular doodles to doodle, ingrained in us from childhood. Circular flowers with round stigma are one of the most positive flower doodles (?). Joy trip??? Someone asked in the print lab. The more circular a flower is, the more amicable the drawer is. Perky or droopy? Perky flowers point to openness and a carefree attitude. Droopy or dying flowers suggest an unwillingness to open up. In search for meaning (in life), we automatically try to find connections between object, actions, beliefs or make sense of them as we search for the logical connections, systems, representations or comparisons. Okay, let’s open up. No fixed image. The acrylic plate is totally unabsorbing, so I can continue my strokes forever. The actual prints don’t matter anymore. So, what if this is just about feelings?

 

Movement keeps my attention span/spasm/spam on a constant tipping point. Like an ongoing intraaction of feeling lost and confident. Confident about not being confident about what to do or how to feel. Doodle-flowers are like safety valves. The looped linear forms convey neither information nor narrative, thus turning flowers into ghosty abstraction. There is no gap. There is no representation relation between material and thought. This is material. Movement matters. Push ideas of meaning-making. Collapses of meaning. Mark making. Outbreaks.

 

Making is my warmie. The heavy press is my warmie. A warmie is also a weighty teddy bear that you can warm up in a microwave. Hug n feel. The heat and weight evoke sense of peace, security and safty, connecting you with your roots and creating a sense of assurance that all is well with the world. My grandmother has a lot of teddies. They are placed around the house for decoration and company. She talks to them and they make her happy. The elephant she got when my father was born. The monkey she bought back from a holiday to Germany. Kind of creepy, yet another mental survival strategy. Response to stimuli, what can I say? I’m a maker.

 

Like monotype, screenprint is a high-speed technique. Water soluble and sensitive to sharp etches. Sensitive mesh/flesh. Accidently on purpose speed frees mental constructions from creeping in on you. Self-portrait? A friend asked, naah… extended liberation (!!) out of action. Life and flips. Open to manifold sensation. Doodly doo, slippery moves, boundaries don’t hold.

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Exhibition period: April 4th - 21th 2024

Danske Grafikeres Hus, Copenhagen 

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