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Michael Forbes - Statement of artistic practice 2008

Like a kid is drawn to brightly coloured sweets and the busy bee is instinctually lured towards the rich palette of nature’s making, I am drawn to the pursuit of beauty through the creative process of image making. My subject matter is varied coming from life experience and cultural histories, but containing a common thread of ‘morbidity and the failings of humanity’. I celebrate and honour these failings by presenting them in a new light. We have to be prepared to meet beauty halfway, or it will mean nothing.

I am conscious of not attempting to answer any arising questions; but I want to provoke the audience performance. For example in ‘The Kill’ I deliberately chose to present the text in a font small enough to force the viewer to become more intimate with the image before confronting them with the information about the nature of the crime potentially committed within the landscape.

I returned to education as a mature student, completing my degree in photography in 1998, and a diploma in Multimedia in 2003. However, driven by a need for a more ‘hands on’ creative process, I have returned to my earlier ambition of being a painter. My work continues to explore the relationship between painting & photography and an understanding of how they feed off each other for their continued existence.

In the last couple of years I have become increasingly confident in allowing the work to follow its own path through a variety of media, going backwards and forward before coming to the final product. As the artist I provide a rigorous exploration of each media, however I do not dictate whether outcome will be a painting, a photograph, an installation or even a textile. Recent projects include:

Coloured Black 2007/08 – 300+ painted figurines as an installation and large-scale photographs.

Coloured Black work challenges notions of cultural past and the line between African and European history (is there a line between African and European history?) fed by the continuing economic wealth of the European in love with its own image.
I spent many months acquiring hundreds of figurine which harp back to a glorious ‘European’ past when men worn wigs and lace, when the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade drove the Industrial Revolution and wealthy merchants and their families were seduced by the ferocious monster of consumerism. Each figurine, I then repainted in rich saturated monochrome colour with black hands, face, legs and feet. The brightness of the household paint appeals to the child within, we respond on a simplistic and intuitive level. The black features readdress the issue of the exclusion of Black people in history. All too often Black people are forced to watch modern media that excludes their presence, unless it is to fulfill a certain stereotype, which in itself induces a certain stereotype. This work is about creating a black presence that can be honoured.

What has emerged are a number of distinct bodies of work; The Black Madonna and Child, Black Angels, Black Boys and Coloured Black, each in an intimate dance with the viewer, create their own narrative. As the viewer, we respond to the work at three key sensory points - the eyes, brain and emotions. And it is these three markers I am still trying to understand and make sense of, for my acceptance of notions of beauty.

For the Young Ones 2007– a flexible installation.
This work explores child mortality and its relationship to poverty and race. Research for this project, provided evidence that high rates of child mortality, are closely aligned to poverty, and therefore by the nature of fiscal global politics and world history means that there is an ongoing genocide of children with brown or black skin. In this work I contrast the beauty of the painted coffins, the rich scent of fresh flowers, the richness of fresh grass, with the sadness of generations of black children living a miserably short existence.

This installation has been developed to be able to shrink and grow in response to the size of the exhibition space offered.

Found Dead 2007 – 8 large scale paintings 2.5m x 2.2m
This work started life as low-resolution Internet sourced images of accidents, murder scenes and many more tragic events. I was drawn to the fundamentals of fine art; shape, form and colour - whilst at the same time being fascinated by the subject matter. In these images the human body seems an expendable item that can be exploited and abused in a number of horrific ways. The work explores the relationship between shock, horror, repulsion, desire and beauty, raising the following questions;
Can images of death be beautiful, and if so, in what way? Why is the image of blood appealing? Are we drawn to images of death or repulsed by them? Do we as human beings flirt with death, and at what point does the image of death become more attractive than life?Is Pornography of Horror a valid term?

The Kill - (2006 continuing) photographs or large scale projections
Here a series of landscapes might offer an alternative view of our ‘green and pleasant land’ and our perception of beauty be challenged. Do these landscapes conceal many secrets of events that may or may not have happened in these locations? If I present you a landscape image that you have acknowledged, in your own terms is a visually beautiful image - is there a shift in your views when extra information of the scene is presented? Has this information changed your notion of visual beauty? How? Why?
If our perceptions are informed by our mind, which processes the information in front of us, and responds in such a way, surely we have to question whether the mind is friend or foe. The mind will and does play tricks on us, destroying beauty by creating fear out of nothing but fear, in this work I wanted to exploit this by recreating beauty from that fear.

I add to my artistic practice, the curating of contemporary exhibitions. The shows I have developed reflect my visual, intellectual and aesthetics values and support my ethos that good art comes from talent and rigor. I am interested in critical dialogues and ideas with substance, which follow through to making visually engaging work. I desire to engage in more critical debate around artistic practice. I regularly explore where I am as an individual in relation to my environment and contemporary culture, and am fascinated by notions of destiny and how this impacts on the philosophical reasoning to my existence and my work.






Michael Forbes
www.arttart99.com

Found Dead

2007
Domestic paint on canvas
250cm x 220cm

Found Dead

2007
Domestic paint on canvas
250cm x 220cm

Found Dead

2007
Domestic paint on canvas
250cm x 220cm

Found Dead

2007
Domestic paint on canvas
250cm x 220cm

The Kill

2006
Photograph or projections & sound
site-specific installation

The Kill

2006
Photograph or projections & sound
site-specific installation

The Kill

2006
Photograph or projections & sound
site-specific installation

The Kill

2006
Photograph or projections & sound
site-specific installation

Coloured Black

2008
Photograph mounted in between Plexi-glass
200cm x 140cm

Coloured Black

2008
Photograph mounted in between Plexi-glass
200cm x 140cm

Coloured Black

2008
Photograph mounted in between Plexi-glass
200cm x 140cm

Coloured Black

2008
Photograph mounted in between Plexi-glass
200cm x 140cm

For the Young Ones

2007
Installation – painted child coffins, grass, soil, Photograph & flowers
site-specific installation

For the Young Ones

2007
Installation – painted child coffins, grass, soil, Photograph & flowers
site-specific installation

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150 200 x 150

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150 200 x 150

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150 200 x 150

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150 200 x 150

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150 200 x 150

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150 200 x 150

To Prevent a Kill

2009
photograph, mounted on mdf behind Plexiglass
200 x 150 200 x 150

Coloured Black Surrounded by Whiteness

2008
mixed media
250cm x 220cm