ScratchPad/Blog

Travel: Berlin

2010-07-29T18:53:47Z

I took this video clip while walking down the back alley of the studios at the Universitat der Kunst in Berlin. It kind of felt like a tour through a graveyard of ideas with half finished or dead projects piled everywhere.

UDK from dylancram on Vimeo.

New Work

2010-07-25T13:22:46Z

This is the sister image to Canary, an image I painted back in the winter. Reproducing images has always been a part of my practice, but I've never attempted something like this before. I started with a duplicate print of the one used in the first painting and tried to find a new intention for the subject matter. The reason behind Canary was to attempt a transformation from a woodpecker to a canary, and from dead to alive; I fully expected to fail. I thought I could make this version more alive, but that didn't work either. It took several days for this painting to make sense to me. I switched into black and white, I tried to pull an ethereal light out of the breast, got lost for awhile...

In the end the bird, although luminous, remained dead. And so, this overly pretty painting became about the spectacle of death. And I felt compelled to lie about the form and my intention for it.

Moth (Liar), Oil on Inkjet Print, 2010

New Work

2010-07-21T14:59:17Z

Bird, Oil on Canvas, 36" x 48", 2010

New Work

2010-07-18T16:01:24Z

I've been using images like this in my body of work for a couple of reasons. For one, it's a kind of play - with aesthetics, with sarcasm, repulsion and attraction. Also, it allows me to break open the imposed rules that govern a 'series' of images. The corraling of meaning into a thesis-like platform, while somewhat necessary, negates the ability of an audience; it breaks down the look-think-feel mechanism in the individual. Basically it's boring. It sounds stupid actually, but after I finish a painting like this I feel I have 'permission' to go deeper into the intense subject matter that is the real basis of my research these days. One puppy, three guns, one puppy...

Bait (Heaven) Oil on Canvas, 24" x 24", 2010

Study

2010-07-11T16:43:01Z

I've been in the studio quite a bit this summer so far. I've got a few new pieces and plans for several more. For the last year I've been painting for deadlines but now that those have been completed I can return to a slower pace. I've begun to recognize the value of the painted study. A preliminary painting has the ability to work out the details of colour and composition. It can also contain the vitality that is needed in the finished work. Perhaps most importantly for me, it can tutor one in the ability to recognize when something is finished. This is, without a doubt, the hardest part for me.

This study is part of my series, 24 Frames, and also connects to some of the reading I'm doing regarding anti-visual philosophy. Most of those that have seen it can't get past the gore and I can't blame them really. I primarily see the tradition of still life. Mostly though, it's a painting that looks away from the viewer.

Study: Enucleation, Oil on Board, 12" x 12", 2010

Travel: Edinburgh, Scotland

2010-07-04T18:19:44Z

Two things I'm inclined to disagree with from time to time:

Martin Creed and Nathan Coley (respectively)

Sketchbook

2010-06-27T16:57:19Z

I was out rummaging through old photographs yesterday morning. I honed in on an antique military surplus store here in Victoria. The great thing about their disorganized selection is that it is a combination of official press and documentary photographs with a good portion of family photographs mixed in. A little time spent searching produces a different interpretation of war then is normally presented. This balanced viewpoint, between home and away, war and peacetime, or the 'tourist' photography of a soldier allows me to see a little outside the norm. I gave myself the near-impossible task of trying to find ethereal moments in war photography, and achieved minor success.

Sketchbook: Early Work

2010-06-20T17:36:52Z

New York, USA

Sketchbook: Early Work

2010-06-20T17:30:18Z

Kentucky, USA

Sketchbook: Early Work

2010-06-13T20:43:30Z

The previous post is really the product of a series of images that I began in 2002 when I was driving across the country from Victoria to Montreal with a 68’ Dodge Sportsman packed to the headliner with everything I owned. Every time I saw a quintessentially Canadian landscape I’d pull the van over to the side of the highway and march into the field with a primed canvas, dig a hole, and plant it.

At the time I was trying to reconcile the gap that I perceived between the two mediums, literally attempting to fuse painting and photography together. The canvas breaks the horizon line and plays with the lines of perspective that govern the photographic medium. The focal point is actually a void, an interruption, or a beginning maybe, depending on how you look at it.

Alberta, Canada