Notes: Notions of Travel
Haisai Okinawa!
Consolidated fieldwork made in 5 days at Nago, installed in my hotel room, 2019
Haisai Okinawa! spurs the continuation of "Journeying Japan" and also my first solo trip after four years. Allured by a bargain flight to a land promising an expanse of shimmering aquamarine sea lapping on lengthy Okinawan perimetre beaches, I booked a nine day self-imposed artist residency/holiday and navigated it as a creative retreat. Five days were spent north of the island in Nago and the remaining four days were scheduled for the capital city Naha.
While in residency (checked into an un-manned hotel that made an excellent studio!), it occured to me that this "holiday" was significantly different from all my other travels. How I approached sight-seeing in relationship to art-making surfaced as an important negotiation, for example: choosing to venture out vs quiet time working indoors; or spending time exploring a place vs painting plein-air, in-situ, were key considerations. Travelling alone in solitude also tremendously drove creativity.
Other factors and challenges that came into play were creative blocks due to familiar materials brought for the trip and the physical limitations of creating while moving around a tourist attraction such as the zoo. Meeting another travelling artist who generously passed on a box of oil pastels put a spin on working methodologies, proving very helpful! A blatant revelation occured to me while facing all these decisions needed to be made in order to be productive yet actively engaged with my immediate foreign environment-- I am working on a travelogue!
Most of the art I've been making the past years is based on some aspect of travel however the conditions of travel were never a key focus of my art-making processes or outcomes. Hence this happy discovery has raised a new research interest in exploring notions of travel, particularly but not exclusively in the still medium of drawing and painting.
The artworks and travel notes produced in Okinawa were consolidated as hotel room installations to review my ideas as fieldwork. Thinking along the lines of "artists' letters" as record, some of the images were then mailed to fellow artists and friends around the world to create connections and spark dialogues. These approaches are starting points to my wider inquiry on art-making about travel which is also sustained in my home studio.
*What constitutes a (visual arts) travelogue?
*What does it mean to make art from travels?
*How does production on the road, in-transit, encapsulate travel as a medium?
*What happens to the concept of travel when remnants of the journey are revisited as regular studio practice?
~A. Daysor
While in residency (checked into an un-manned hotel that made an excellent studio!), it occured to me that this "holiday" was significantly different from all my other travels. How I approached sight-seeing in relationship to art-making surfaced as an important negotiation, for example: choosing to venture out vs quiet time working indoors; or spending time exploring a place vs painting plein-air, in-situ, were key considerations. Travelling alone in solitude also tremendously drove creativity.
Other factors and challenges that came into play were creative blocks due to familiar materials brought for the trip and the physical limitations of creating while moving around a tourist attraction such as the zoo. Meeting another travelling artist who generously passed on a box of oil pastels put a spin on working methodologies, proving very helpful! A blatant revelation occured to me while facing all these decisions needed to be made in order to be productive yet actively engaged with my immediate foreign environment-- I am working on a travelogue!
Most of the art I've been making the past years is based on some aspect of travel however the conditions of travel were never a key focus of my art-making processes or outcomes. Hence this happy discovery has raised a new research interest in exploring notions of travel, particularly but not exclusively in the still medium of drawing and painting.
The artworks and travel notes produced in Okinawa were consolidated as hotel room installations to review my ideas as fieldwork. Thinking along the lines of "artists' letters" as record, some of the images were then mailed to fellow artists and friends around the world to create connections and spark dialogues. These approaches are starting points to my wider inquiry on art-making about travel which is also sustained in my home studio.
*What constitutes a (visual arts) travelogue?
*What does it mean to make art from travels?
*How does production on the road, in-transit, encapsulate travel as a medium?
*What happens to the concept of travel when remnants of the journey are revisited as regular studio practice?
~A. Daysor