[LAUIL601] Artist Research: Terrence Wilde

 

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

[All unnamed and undated]

Figure 1: Could be a self portrait. Unrecognisable self after trauma or eating disorders, looking in the mirror with mental illness. Hard to tell where our true authentic self begins and the trauma has taken other parts of us. Could be trying to recognise someone else through their mental illnesses. Seeing the world through a distorted lens. Who is a friend? Who is trustworthy? What is safe? Exaggerated body parts. The brain is exposed and the mouth is fractured, disabled. Unable to speak. Tonally and visually, a very dark and thought-provoking illustration. Monochrome, people are shades of grey.

Figure 2: Tonally in the same vein as the first illustration but depicting people as puppets or a Pierrot, a sad clown pining for love, and a stock character of pantomime and comedy. Dunce hat, connotations of foolishness, stupidity, humiliation, trauma. Dissections of the body revealing what's underneath - exposing ourselves and our vulnerabilities. Being open to then be humiliated by others.

Figures 3 and 4 are very abstract expressionist and remind me of the work I make in my own portfolio, unpicking my blindness and my new levels of sight after retinal detachment. Created in a soft focus and and blurring together of the senses, mixing colours to convey confusion of disorientation. Shapes and symbols are not physical or concrete and are not representational. It is more the feeling and intent. Figure 3 makes me feel a sense of warmth through the autumnal colours, there is a sense of space in the composition but the mark making gives the illusion of skeletons, bones and decaying physical forms, Hiding oneself away. Presenting something else on the surface. Perhaps this is the internal self?

Figure 4 is more cold, more loose. Centrally there is a shape or figure (two dark lines curving towards the lefts indicate legs moving, in the sense of the left direction) with an aura surrounding it. A sense of disorientation, displacement, dark thoughts, envelopment, being wrapped up. There are illustrative and naive qualities, with parts of the canvas coming through.The figure shifts in two places almost like being left behind. 

I chose this work as two of the pieces are different from the work that I make, but the themes of mental illness and trauma are the same, we just interpret it in different ways. Two of the pieces are very similar in aesthetics, composition and tone and they draw me in the most and attract my attention.