Paintings and Audio Description
I work on one metre square canvases. The size creates a perfect impact. The paintings are loud enough for everyone to hear, whether that be in a workshop, a gallery space or on a domestic wall. The square allows the viewer to be able to rotate the image a full 360 degrees and find new, fresh unintentional aspects from the work. The signature on the painting is placed on the bottom right canvas edge, indicating to the viewer which way the artist positioned the canvas when making all decisions about content, colour, form and composition. Whatever the viewers preference, the discreet signature never suggests the canvas is upside down.
I paint with acrylic as this has always been a medium that satisfies process and outcome.
In addition to painting I am making audio accompaniment for my work. The music I select for my paintings comes from copyright free sources on Youtube. Many of the new composers allow use of their work as a form of advertising. It is extremely useful as it is new and fresh to my own ear and to participants and this makes it easier to translate in a pure abstract manner. Music that is known is too easily associated with representational images evoked by memories and these impair a true response. The other advantage is that the music can be used in my workshops, exhibitions and online, without fear of prosecution for breaching copyright law, or payment of large sums of money for permissions and licences.
The audio description created so far is still in its formative stage. I want to share my efforts with the RNIB in Cardiff and with their suggestions I can make final modifications so I the tracks can be used when I exhibit my work in the near future.
The first audio was an improvised discussion of 2 persons as if they were viewing my painting for the first time. I made notes during the discussion and produced a script to make the final recording. Once we started to record it was easier for the actors to read the script to remind them of the improvisation, then to improvise, rather than to use it verbatim. This gave a sense that the discussion was in the moment and real.
The first attempts were rejected due to an external banging sound, which I realised was made by the rustling of paper (the script). Also the first actors I used were women, who unfortunately made it sound like a scenes from a French and Saunders sketch. For the second recording, we placed a mike on a cushion, kept hands well away from the script, changed one of the actors and the results were greatly improved.
The second audio was made from my response to my paintings. I wanted this to be poetic and emotional, rather than factually accurate. I had not enjoyed the audio description at the RA Abstract Expressionism Exhibition in October 2016 and wanted to experiment with something completely different. I scripted the words read them exactly as they appeared on the page during the recording. This worked well as all the recordings were captured in one take, except for the penultimate recording, which took twelve!
Both tracks were overlaid onto the original music that inspired the painting with software called ‘VideoPad’. Again one can trial this software for free and I’ll upgrade when and if my efforts are approved by the RNIB.
The audio is intended to further stimulate the senses and intensify the experience of viewing the paintings as well as making them more accessible. If I achieve this then I can continue making audio with every painting and explore other ways to heighten the experience.
The final MP3 files will be added to the website. Then QCR codes at the exhibition will direct the viewers device (smartphone) to the music and the audio description.
