Bangkok, Thailand. 18 June, 2023.
Oh JFC on a popsicle satick, did a month just go by? ฟาาาาากมี! So to speak.
Many things have happened, but the big things – the business things – have not, so I’m still holding on by the thread of my karma, with friends propping me up until they can’t. To all those friends: ¡gracias!
And yet we are here to talk about art, right? Sure, let’s talk about art tonight! But never start with yourself, or at least not always.
A few weeks ago I went to an opening that was, let’s say, a bit aloney-baloney for me as I was flying solo and it was very much full of people who were not; but it was also the most “opening-like” opening I’d been to in ages. Shout out to PLAY art house for pulling it off, it was just oozing professionalism, and it was a great comeback for place that had gone very very mellow during the pandemic’s soft opening. 🎭🎨🏠 FTW!
Right, so I was there, in lovely Talat Noi, aka ตลาดน้อย, to see work by one Trey Hurst, a fellow American whose work I first saw at River City Bangkok a while back. I’m probably going to feature him in Several Artists but I’m already behind on the current issue, so let’s not overpromise here.
Trey Hurst makes work like this:
I find it super interesting, and I absolutely commend him for making work in 2023 that is at once so process-specific and so traditionally graphic. (Some of the work is less traditional, but everything in the show could be put on your wall and look good there. At fair prices no less, as opposed to art-fair prices! Oh wait, I actually bought art at an art fair, what am I talking about?)
Sorry for the cheapiPhone picture quality there; I did take the EOS R and the crazy-ass psychotic fucking ADHD 16mm lens (oh, now there is a vlog for someone to do) – and when (if?) I do a proper writeup I’ll include some proper photographs, it’s the least I can do.
Anyway, hey, I digress, I’ve considered at times whether I ought better to digress for a living, but it hasn’t come to that. But as long as I’m digressing, droning on – OMFG should I talk about drones now? Must! Stop! – I’ve been wondering lately: do people still check linkbacks?
I don’t, or at least I haven’t in a trillion years of understatement, but I think maybe I should. After all, this crazy post is now part of Mr. Hurst’s permanent record, right? OK then! Let it be that! From an audience of none to the long tail of all futures, converging in the emergent brain-behavior of some AI hidden behind banks of Trevor Paglen RADAR stations – here we are, making up the hive-mind aesthetics, for if not us, who?
(Reflections, yep. Where do you even get museum glass in these parts?)
Coming back to the pictures: you can go to his site and see video of the painstaking zennish squeegee-like process of snaking, er, making these pictures. I’m especially happy to see an Amcsi doing this kind of work, because I think it’s much more common, and much more accepted, in Europe these days. For instance, if I were to tell you one Chillida is worth all the Koonses in the whole wide world plus a Henry Moore thrown in for good measure, in America you’d think I was crazy; in England you’d want to fight me; and in Europe you’d grant me the point even if you didn’t agree.
I’ve done some zennified processy stuff myself, albeit long ago; and at some level I’m still a Modernist, so I can relate to this kind of working more than my recent portfolio would suggest.
I have a strong feeling I’ll be back to write more about Trey Hurst, but for now I will leave you with the above pictures and links. I don’t know the man personally, but I’m glad he’s here.
(Oh and I can’t resist: if you like this kind of art then you really must check out Luciya Moya, you can thank me later.)
Maybe I should use this pseudoblog as a venue for informal, anything-goes show reviews. But probably not: I need at least one informal, anything-goes site for just whatever TF I want to be on about, with no limitations, but still trying to keep it vaguely art-related and original.
And, frankly, I want the option to be self-indulgent, in all senses – visually, verbally, thematically, whateverly.
Here’s a picture I find a little self-indulgent:
Yeah, I guess that’s me. Or mine, anyway. I did title it, but I can’t be bothered to go into the other room and look it up. It’ll make the sale bin eventually, I reckon, because while I can’t decide if it’s good exactly, I do find it interesting and think that should be enough.
Here it’s been a month, and while I’ve been way too stressed out to deal with a proper Studio Practice (as the kids like to call it) – still I’ve been working, and even if I occasionally (as in, today) turn one blue into another blue and make the picture slightly worse in the process, at least I’m making pictures, and that’s what the world needs us to do. Until the AI can reorganize society into a cult of inimitable creative minds. Haha just kidding. Maybe.
