ART is some kind of mark making response to the moment, to the swirling observations, thoughts, emotions, mysteries, traumas, beauty and silences we live immersed in.
More than one friend has said to me “O you’re a bit arty are you?” or “O my wife does that kind of stuff to help her while I’m away” or “Now that I’m retired I’ve decided I will do something arty.”
South African artist William Kentridge describes his art practice: “I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain ending – an art (and a politics) in which optimism is kept in check, and nihilism at bay.” Instagram: @williamkentridgestudio
John O’Dononue suggests convincingly that we are all artists with imagination and so we are all constructing a world from those centres that continue to add to building and breaking. I am convinced that nothing is ever finally built or broken as all existence is in a never ending flow.
“We can speak beauty into the world or poison it with our words; we can build things up or tear them down; we can dream of a world that is vast, alive, and interesting, or reason it to be small, hard, and empty. “We are each an artist”, said the poet, priest, and philosopher John O’Donohue, “We each possess an imagination. Everyone, whether they like it or not, is involved in the construction of the world”. Every action we take and every word we speak builds or breaks the planet.” Nick Cave Red Hand Files Issue #315
Identity Crisis Ink, red pencil, guache, graphite, gesso on found dictionary pages. Artist: Peter Breen 2017
Dried aerosol paint chards on a plinth. Approximately 16 years aging. Jugglers Art Space 2018
The Folly of Certainty – Waste no Time #2 Charcoal, ink, red pencil on paper 2023 Artist: Peter Breen
City Lights – a Mile Up Charcoal on arches paper Artist: Peter Breen 2024
The Near Present Opportunithy Guache, ink, charcoal, gesso on found encyclopedia page. Artist: Peter Breen 2025
All of the above works are an attempt to observe, listen and respond to the life I am immersed in. The moments each work concept arrives, triggering the work as a note in a journal or a list or a mark on a scrap of paper on the bench. Each work is within a moment in time, a response. And then it evolves or is the door latch to a new draft and as Kentridge says that it is the “less good idea” that often gets up!
Artist: Andy Goldsworthy
Andy Goldsworthy is an installation artist based in Scotland. This work of his was my profile image on Facebook for a couple of years. Evocative of “kicking against the pricks” – a well worn biblical phrase – and for years it communicated a subtle sense of comfort. It seemed to me that this artist was looking out through my eyes into my life’s thorn infested pilgrimage in the flow of living.
Each of my works above evoke memories and further questions. They invite me to sit with them a bit more. To find their soul and mine. And I wonder about Andy Goldsworthy’s inner path to his installation.
What is going on with these works?
The multitudes of possiblities are scratched onto old pages in Identity Crisis, grief’s stamp is on the beauty of 16 years of open graffiti studios, The Folly of Certainty, Waste no Time #2 is a call to find a path in the brambles of overwhelming words and noise, nostalgic reminiscences flying into Narm in City Lights – A Mile Up as I listen spell bound to composer Stuart Greenbaum’s piece of the same name on ABC radio and then under the spell of Russian film maker Andrei Tarkovsky I sit with him and refect on the multitudes of possibiities in The Near Present Opportunity. What do I give myself to? What does existence mean? The honest never ending search for meaning is as open ended as anything can ever be.
These works are autobiographical, narrative chapters in a complex life of complex choices and experiences. Moments caught as marks. Making marks is a human thing, a way of being, acting and acting out and recording. As an artist I spend time, hours and days finding my mark making genre and honing eye hand fluidity. I look foward to the creak of the studio door, the space on the bench, the brush and ink, the charcoal and paper, the guache and pencil, the founation pen. The draws of paper and progress and completed works, collections and books stored away from moisture and moths. The space as a place of home.
Reflection:
Which one of these works would you consider you have some resonance with?
Why?
In the next ALSO – ART essay I will look at Art’s appeal – aesthetics and decor.
Next week: March 12, 2025 The second ALSO word: Love
Peter Breen March 5, 2025.
Artist: William Kentridge “Sunlight on a leaf”
As we wait for cyclone Alfred to land here in Brisbane, “Sunlight on a leaf” has future possibilities.
Peteskibreen's Blog 
An engaging post Peter. Unlike you, O’Dononue and Mr Cave, I disagree with the proposal that everyone is an artist.
In contrast: everyone responds to the world – one must in order to survive. One must work against gravity, one must find food, manage emotional responses, learn to read and write and so on. All of these reactions to living involve creative responses, that does not make everyone an artist.
Artists have a particular knowledge that is the result of insight, training, skill, history, reputation and public acceptance within society.
No one is going to look at my drawings as art. But they will look at yours because you identity and claim the role of artist. Popularizing artists as every person demeans art by artists.
Being creative in order to live is another matter.
With brotherly affection.
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Hi Marcus.
Thanks for your response. I appreciate it as a brother and your expertise, training and intelligence. My view on artists is one that is a definition of a core human reality often suppressed or unrealised. Artists are in embryonic form from birth that can be or may not ever be realised and honed. My experience to some extent except for a range of influences especially our parent’s.
Peter
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