The Unsurmounted Peak - on friendship, sexuality and anxiety.

As with anything one perceives an inability to do, the desire to achieve the seemingly impossible leads to one placing inordinate importance on the completion of this task, however menial it is in actuality. This often imagined importance leads to great disappointment when the challenge is unsuccessfully completed. This theory applies absolutely to me, and my relationships with men (I use the word relationship as a catch-all, as opposed to specifically implying a romantic relationship). My relationships with men are riddled with anxiety because these relationships are the unsurmounted peak, and it has now reached a point at which my desire to reach the summit of this peak is not with the aim to take in the view, but simply to prove to myself that I am capable of achieving such a task.

This mindset has created an infertile environment for relationships to naturally occur. Rather than allowing relationships to flower naturally, I tend to the saplings of male friendship with such over-attentive zeal that I inevitably convince myself I have over-watered them and abandon the young growth in the absolute belief that I have killed it. Ergo, had I overwatered it or not, the sapling dies, as I have fled my role or gardener for fear that I have failed.

The origins of this peculiar situation are barely worth exploring, such is their complexity. Friendships with boys were not problematic in my childhood, relationships at this age are simple, unfettered by advanced concepts of gender and sexuality. Indeed, it was the realisation of my own sexuality and gender non-conformity that marked the beginning of the complexities in my relationships with men. I began to form an acute sense of being different, and both by choice and by way of pre-empting the rejection I felt sure I would experience, I began to detach myself from the sex that I was part of. Men became almost universally antagonists. They either represented the masculinity which I had detached myself from, potential threats to my own concept of my complete individuality, or potential sexual partners. None of the above make for comfortable friendships. However, it is the latter two which prove particularly problematic.

In an early adolescence which was essentially devoid of interaction with other homosexual and gender non-conforming men, there was little choice but to become comfortable with a sense of difference. This becomes an armour developed out of necessity, as you realise that this confidence is vital tolerating your own isolation. However, this comfortability becomes dangerous when it is allowed to stagnate too long, as it inevitably leads to uncomfortability when this sense of individuality is challenged. Rather than welcoming the appearance of a fellow homosexual male, as you might during early youth, the other gay male becomes a threat your comfortable individuality. This is a largely irrational reaction, though is not without its twisted reasoning. The other gay male is perceived as a threat not only to your individuality, but your whole identity, which has been formed from adolescence around the former. On top of this, the fellow homosexual not only challenges your identity, he also gives you a frame of comparison through which to assess yourself, which in my case inevitably leads to feelings of insecurity.

The prior becomes all the more potent when paired with the sexual frustration of an isolated homosexual adolescence. Men occupy a space of sexual desire, however, this is a plain removed from reality. The men who filled my adolescent desires were never feasible propositions, being either heterosexual or clusters of pixels. Sexuality was removed from relationships, and from any form of exchange. My heterosexual friends were discovering their sexuality in a different set of circumstances. They were holding each other’s hands and discovering sexuality concurrent to relationships. Sex was not about theoretical knowledge, it had been learnt in application. I am afraid of sexual relationships, not much because of the ‘sexual’, but because of the ‘relationship’ – the prospect of something so enshrined in unobtainable fantasy being part of my relationship with another human being.

My eventual freedom from this isolation intensifies this, as every encounter with a homosexual man now comes with the fear of the unobtainable being possible. The sexual frustrations of my adolescence suddenly have a target who is, perhaps, feasible. An unobtainable relationship, though often difficult, has certainty. The fact that it is impossible is a cold-comfort, for at least you know your position. When such a relationship become possible, all manner of possibilities open up, both positive and negative. On the one hand, there could be excitement and optimism. On the other, there is now new fears, the fear of rejection, of inadequacy. Bound up with sexual frustration, these fears unload onto the shoulders of friendships with other homosexual men, sabotaging a friendship with the fear of a sexual relationship, and the perceived inevitable rejection.

Anxiety is a most effective saboteur, and as it manifests itself both in regards to identity and sexuality, my relationships with other gay men are crippled. The circumstances in which I find myself now, living in a cosmopolitan metropolis and at the start of adulthood, make this problem impossible to ignore. It is difficult to know how to accomplish the seemingly impossible, and the understanding of an obstacle does not necessarily render it easier to overcome. I am afraid that my only reasons may in reality be the validation that would come with proving myself capable and a primal desire for a sexual relationship. The former, as I have already mentioned, is self-defeating. The later is reductive as it suggests that the purpose of relationships with other gay men is purely romantic/sexual, which should not be the case. Friendships should be founded on commonality, and neither gender nor sexuality should create barriers.

I am unsure as to how common my problem is. Representations of homosexual adolescence do not fully reflect the anxieties I experience, and as such the hurdles I face seem all the more difficult, as I feel alone in facing them. 

(Another piece, in which I will consider my relationships with heterosexual men, will hopefully follow)

Some light relief as a reward for making it through. Doesn't quite capture 

the finer points, but is fun nonetheless. 

A Semester in Review

For our mid-session review, we were instructed to write a short summary of our first semester. 

As an artist it is good to be challenged, but that does not mean that being challenged is comfortable. This semester has certainly had its fair share of obstacles to overcome. I have not produced the volume of work that I had hoped to, though I have been anything but complacent on the cerebral front. The program of two-week projects has seen a myriad of thought processes not seen to fruition, which has been intensely frustrating, as I take huge enjoyment from the loving honing of an idea and then the execution an outcome. Despite this, when I reflect on the semester as a single project, that of formative development, I am satisfied with the outcome. The work I showed for the end of semester exhibition is a site-specific installation made up of five individual works entitled 14/15.

My foundation year in Falmouth was hugely instrumental in my creative development, but the work I created there was in service of an idea, as opposed to as a means of self-expression. I now realise that this had left me with a burden of unexpressed thoughts. It would be nice to just move forward, and that is what I had told myself to do throughout the year. However, such things become acid, and burn you out from within. It was these experiences repeating themselves here in Edinburgh, and being impossible to ignore, that proved the catalyst for my releasing both these feelings and those I had bottled up from last year. It is perhaps a testament to the persistence of these thoughts that they seemed to pervade every project set.

For the Phenomenology of a Room project I deconstructed my ‘ivory tower’ – both a spot of isolation and exhibitionism in the sculpture court and a frame of mind, in which my deliberate self-exclusion masquerades as intellectual superiority. The presentation we had to make for the Unmonumental project was for me a work in itself, I took the chance to express the ideas that I had not seen to fruition. This was my first tentative foray into performance, and was immensely enjoyable. For the Place and Position project I collaborated, for the first time, with a fellow student. We created a character, Yvette, and an accompanying body of work. It was through Yvette that I released some of the suppressed feelings from the past year. It is often easier to project your experiences onto a character than to place them in the context of your own life. Though seemingly disparate, all the work came together to create what felt like an honest reflection of my state of mind. 

Ivory Tower (part of 14/15), Pencil on Paper - Oct 2015

14/15, Installation - Dec 2015

An extract from the Yvette Score, Multimedia,
 A collaboration with Joshua Keeling - Nov 2015 

Behind the Blog

Though 'tags' are generally the reserve of blogs that actually have a readership, my friend Megan, of the blog megansartspace, tagged me in the 'behind the blog' tag, which I believe she created. I thought it might serve to humanise me in cyberspace, however on completing the tag I realised what an unsympathetic character I am. I hope you appreciate my honesty. 

1) Describe yourself in five words.

Acerbic, Self-righteous, insecure, anally-retentive, sensible.

2) Where are you happiest?

Anywhere after receiving a compliment.

3) What drives your practice?

 Jealousy channelled into a drive for self-improvement. The enjoyment of being in control.

4) Do you listen to music when you work?

It varies. I cannot listen to music when I am writing, but I can watch films when I draw/paint/collage.

5) What media do you prefer to draw in?

4b pencil.

6) What are you currently reading?

Notes from Underground (Dostoyevsky), though I have stalled. I am unfortunately being killed by the internet. I used to read obsessively until I got a laptop. It really comes down to laziness, it becomes instinct to turn on the laptop when I get home, I really ought to pick up a book, it isn’t exactly difficult.

7) Something people may not know about you.

I hate drawing in public, I tend to work at home until it looks good and then do the finishing touches in the studio. This is not a good thing.

The Problem of Autobiographical Art

The artist’s hand makes anything they create a projection of themselves, the individuality of an artwork is as much in the nature of the artist as it is in the slight of their wrist. This lends weight to the argument that all art work is - in a broader sense - self-portraiture, for the artist will put far more of themselves into any work than they are conscious of. There is a purity to this, and it is often in artwork that is not intentionally self-reflective that the true nature of the artist is revealed. Intentional self-reflection is by its intentionality self-aware, and therefore self-edited. The problem of overt self-editing is one I find both in my own studio practice and in the work of others.

During my foundation studies in Falmouth, I perhaps subconsciously avoided working autobiographically. During the first month I made two small autobiographical collages, reflecting on the anxieties that presented themselves in the face of the utterly new experience. Though cathartic, I find that replaying anxieties and experiences though a creative frame with the mind to create work is not always the way to solve the problem. At the time I found it more beneficial to occupy myself otherwise, and I found that through doing this that my problems often resolved themselves.

Stay Away From Constantinople, Mixed media collage - Sept 2014

I then spent the rest of the first and the second semester working on projects where a concept/manifesto was central. I enjoyed this enormously, and though I remained in a state of emotional fluctuation, I released this through the physicality of my work, the meticulous rigour acting as a form of emotional control. I now look back on the work I created during this times and do see, despite the fact that the subject matter is not autobiographical, a reflection of my emotional state at the time.

One of my issues with artwork that seeks to explore the mental state of the artist or those around them is the dishonesty of giving those things a solid form. Emotion is anything but tangible and solid, and the material that you chose to enshrine those things in will only ever present an illusion of that feeling, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe.”. Often what the artist creates is not a satisfactory representation of what they were trying to capture, and whereas with a solid object the artist can compare their representation and assess how lifelike their rendering is, emotion has no definitive form to compare the representation to.

The act of enshrining become problematic too, and like a religious relic, the experience the artist is reflecting upon becomes enshrouded in gold leaf. The act of recalling and articulating the experience repeatedly becomes dishonest also, and the subconscious edits. It is important to remember that our minds create memory from scratch when we recall it. It is easy at this point to both consciously and subconsciously make decisions on how we represent these things that are selective, and even make decisions that deliberately place ourselves as part of the ‘tortured artist’ tradition, the experiences of others before us, often those of people we admire, do affect the way we reflect.

Of course, much of this is completely subconscious and therefore all but inevitable. I had seen this as an unsurmountable obstacle, and had therefore avoided autobiographical work out of fear of my own dishonesty. It was only when considering this further, and thinking about the self-reflective artwork that I particularly admire, that I came to a realisation. The key to successful autobiographical work is doubt. An acknowledgement (not necessarily overt and often more grounded in tone) of the artists potentially dishonesty, and the inevitable dishonesty of the intangible taking tangible form, paradoxically makes the work feel more honest.

It was with this in mind that I created a small autobiographical installation for our end of semester exhibition. A site specific piece responding to the studio-come-exhibition space that I have been working in, I have brought together five small works. They are all pieces that seem to me, as the maker, irresolute, and therefore mirror the experience concerned. Many feelings never get to the point of being representable by a single word, let alone a solid object. Not all are representational in any way, one; a simple assemblage of wooden children’s building bricks was not created with any one experience in mind, it was created in a place of mindlessness. Sometimes all you need do is remove thought, and what is created through the simple act of making is completely honest and without pretence.

14/15, Installation - Dec 2015

This work is the single most satisfactory autobiographical piece I have created, and has made me more comfortable with allowing myself into my work. Both overly considered self-reflection and rigorously controlled concept can be barriers to the truth of the artist showing through the work, and this one time, I think I may have caught that balance.