Something that I haven’t quite understood myself is the idea of recognition. I brought it up in one of my art video logs. I mentioned my portraiture and how it relates to my video work and even abstract painting. I don’t exactly mean getting ‘recognition’ though that is a very important part of art practice but the act of recognising space, volume, category, facial, spatial and other forms of visual recognition. The point I made was the archiving of spaces in my video practice for example which is about recognising these spaces if for example that is possible. It could also lead to recognising similarities between faces or places as well. The idea is pretty vague and there are probably better ways already at hand to describe this but I am going from my own general understanding.

When I paint an abstract work I can see things like the play of illusive light, the movement of shapes or the pattern (facial recognition) of a face. The underlying structure of pattern that can be applied to understand facial features. This seems the same as what we use to see abstract work. This is already well known but like I said I am not a theoretical specialist but a novice trying to shed light on my own practice through my own experience. One thing I do know is I have used abstract patterns to recognise faces some decades ago as I needed a way to produce portraits quickly for graffiti work. I would draw a line map of corresponding tone and form in a layer I would print separately before painting a graffiti work.

This practice is what I based my understanding of recognition on. I needed a map to work with. A grid was too formal and didn’t map the way light fell onto dimensional features. I now try to explain it as the core drive of most of my work. A spatial abstract line form of recognising relationships that we carry around in our minds that is informed by our own memories.