At one of our earlier meetings, Jeff suggested Francis Bacon to me and his imagery really resonated with me. Especially the three that I've posted. I find them very haunting and unnerving and violent. Though his subject matter tends to be much more grotesque than my own, I found solace in some of the things he mentioned in a series of interviews with David Sylvester about his method.
"It was like one continuous accident mounting on top of another."
I feel like my work is often this way. I may have an idea in my mind about what I want to happen but it seems to always turn out that something else ends up working better that I hadn't anticipated and I don't think this is a problem. That accident happened for a reason, whether by my subconscious or some greater power. Bacon does find more frustration in this however, saying that he tries now to make more specific works but finds that the final piece is the fruit of an accident.
This also goes along with something that I found in my notes that Sophie Calle mentioned about not necessarily having a meaning at the start of a project but finding it somewhere throughout. I think it's important to be able do without being bogged down with the why. That's not to say that the why isn't important, but I think that for me, I get stressed out by it when I feel that it is imposing on me. I'd like to be more like Bacon and Calle. Just doing and letting my meaning find me through my work.
In Order of Appearance: "Head VI" 1949, Figure With Meat, Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X 1953
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