| Project title: | Storytelling through painting: Dowr Tamar- exploring the historical and contemporary human narrative of the tidal Tamar through a series of artworks. |
| Location: | St Germans, Cornwall, UK |
| Dates (s): | August and September 2024 |
Artist Statement
I am a painter who works through sensory ethnography (Pink 2009) to provide ‘thick description’ of the world around me. I focus work within both the impressionist and expressionist context and use sketching extensively to develop conceptual ideas. My interest as a painter lies in dialogical practice (Kester 2013; Kirakosyan and Stephenson 2019), embedding myself in settings and situations for the lived experience to explore how hyperlocal communities have shaped, the historical context of these communities and the landscape in which they sit. Through this ‘lived experience’ my practice aims to explore how the fabric of communities is made up through a contemporary and historical lens, observing through ‘multiple eyes’.
Contextual Statement
Project Description:
The project is rooted in a journey of enquiry on the River Tamar and the interplay within communities along its route. The goal was to embed myself in life on the river, predominantly travelling in a traditional sailing boat to immerse myself in observational sketching as a method of storytelling. This enabled me to see, listen, write, sketch from different ethnographic perspectives and experience the feel of the river through sensory ethnography. Through this lived experience, I developed concepts and ideas around creative enquiry that led to a final series of twelve paintings exploring the narrative of the River Tamar through a socio-cultural lens. The paintings were painted about the river, to be displayed in the community along the river.
Methodology:
The objective was to develop a series of paintings focusing on the travels on the river. As my interest as a painter lies in dialogical practice (Kester 2013; Kirakosyan and Stephenson 2019) the element of embedding myself in settings and situations to explore how hyperlocal communities are shaped was a key facet. Exploration of the historical context of these communities and the landscape in which they sit in juxtaposition to the ‘now’ provided ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1973) to develop ideas and concepts. Through this ‘lived experience’ the project explored the socio-cultural element of life on the river and how the fabric of communities is experienced through creative enquiry (Barret and Bolt 2007).
Context:
The context of the project aligns with my interest in exploratory work through a social-cultural lens in communities, particularly shared space as the antithesis to ‘non-space’ (Auge 2008). Work developed and exhibited in communities. A research led approach, grounded artistically in the impressionist ‘fin de siècle’ era with noted influences being Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec, Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. The work of contemporary artists such as Jessica Warboys, Michael Taussig, Kurt Jackson and Amy Sillman inspired approaches to the work. The aligns with the notion of ‘flaneurism’ with the travels on the boat wandering and observing life on the river as it was discovered and recorded.
Collaboration:
Collaboration within the project revolved around the notion of participatory art (Bishop 2012) on a number of levels. The many conversations I had along the river whilst sketching shaped the project through research and participation thus contributed to sensory ethnographic approaches of production (Rafee et al. 2015). At a more macro level in terms of the public outcome, the collaboration with the Stables Café in St Germans allowed the paintings to be displayed to the public at the ‘Tunes in the Park’ festival in the Summer a community by the river. The owners of the ‘Local Post’ collaborated to allow me to place a painting image in my regular monthly column. This allowed the festival goers (up to 15,000 of them), to be invited to travel along the river through the paintings. The setting was important. The paintings displayed in a village on the river where the journey took place. The final piece of the project was to produce a book of the journey and collaborate with pubs around the Tamar Valley to place the books in the bar for people to view.
Project Documentation
www.stu-anderson.com