As Twilight Fades
By Aaron Smyth
Stone Lithograph and Layered Silk Screen, 75 x 55 cm
1. This work is about . . . my recent series “The Fragile Nature of Intimacy”, which interrogates “lived experience” and “being”, asking questions of gender, intimacy, and relations. The series explores these themes from both sides of the discord between corporeal and metaphysical understandings of ‘being’; what Barthes describes as the division between ‘the real’ and ‘the lived’.
2. I made this work because . . . I produced this body of works as an investigation into intimacy and individualism, striving to create semi-ambiguous artworks as vessels for an audience to explore and experience, giving form to their feelings. The work pushes past the boundaries of the physical world by distorting the familiar. What at first appears ostensible subsequently reveals itself as a bricolage of body and gesture, time and experience, allowing a greater reflection upon the tenderness and toughness of this temporal place.
3. I hope when people see this work they will . . . I always create artworks for an audience to dismantle, deconstructing the layered narrative that the image presents, deciphering the socio-cultural and art historical gestural representations and the specific use of the fragmented body within the work. These images are constructed as vessels for audiences to explore and engage with, posing questions and presenting equivocal narratives, allowing the viewer to enrich the image with their own histories and emotions.
4. In terms of art history, this series of work . . . presents a layered bricolage of gestural motifs drawing from the rich collection of art historical and socio-cultural visual imagery. Paintings such as “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas” and “The Mocking of Christ”, among others, have helped in informing this collection of works. This inclusion of art historical references allows an audience to engage with the work on multiple dimensions, allowing for various meanings to present themselves for different viewers.
5. You can see my work . . . on my website, my Facebook page, and my Instagram account.
Curios [sic] About is a series featuring works by Dublin artists, curated for us by our friends at the Square in the Circle blog, and hosted there as well as here.
Each artist is asked to submit an image of one work and answer a set of questions about it. We’d love it if you’d submit something you’ve made.