I am not faithful to one medium. My job has encouraged this. I work on the Graduate Diploma, a multi- disciplinary course. I am regularly challenged to tackle other ways of creating. My own practice feeds on that.
The common theme of all my work has been time.
Each work records time. Mark making remains but I get distracted by other mediums along the way.
I am fascinated by changes in work and practice due to the need to show work in the digital realm. I am interested in how work has to change for online platforms, how the work is viewed differently on screen and the acceptance of the loss of control over how the work is viewed. This is possibly why I am making, and showing, some video. To regain some control by choosing a screen based medium. If this were a physical show maybe my practice would look different. I have attempted to show drawings however they were intended to be viewed in person so they are different here.
My videos record a time in my space. My space (like many others spaces) used to only be my home but has now become my work. I spent a lot of time only in this space. I use my phone, cameras were locked at work, my phone sits neatly on my window ledge. This was work born from lockdown. I am stood behind my phone, listening whilst it’s recording. My moments of calm. Listening to the sounds of my internal and external space. The work happens at the moment I am standing and listening, my silence, their noise. The outcome, the recording, is just proof of this time.
Our TV, my partner chatting on the phone, his keyboard tapping away, the kettle boiling, the kids upstairs on summer holidays stuck indoors running up and down on their wooden floors, bluetooth connecting, buses, motorbikes, vans, cars, arguments and laughter. Dalston.
A moment of my space. I am protected indoors but there is the lure of the outdoors. This work was born from lockdown.
Mark making remains. My drawings may be 2 things:
- pattern, light, colour, form
- a record of labour
They have order and freedom. Freedom to add shapes to fill- or stop. The act of filling is ordered. They are selfish, needy, permanent marks that do not forgive. One misplaced mark bothers me. I trace my objects around me. All domestic. Plate, vitamin tub, pen lid, coaster. I choose circles because they have no start and finish, no hierarchy. These are a proof of time, a record of labour. A map of time and space
I bought a timer and I started to record the time these take me. Should I be doing something else? Probably.
www.annabeel.co.uk | @annajbeel
