Art Bank of Muskoka
fyfeART
  • Home
  • fyfeART GALLERY
  • Contact
  • About
  • fyfeBlog
  • Public fyfeART
  • The Edge in Beauty
  • Art Bank of Muskoka

Trashing Art - paintings with a due date

3/28/2018

1 Comment

 
Picture

Peter Fyfe, Boy and child (1986)

Picture

Challenge – to blog consistently
Purpose – to reveal what I think about, because art without thought is mere decoration.
Warning – so, this is a blog, so it may be full of opinionated crap…But at least I’ll try to make it interesting crap.
 

I recently mentioned on Facebook that I had taken a painting, “A Boy And Child” (1986) to the city dump. By the time it hit the pile, it was not in retrievable condition, because the ‘Orillia Waste Diversion Site’ has separate piles for garbage, household wood, metal, tires (off rims), drywall etc, and I had done my duty by ripping the canvas from the frame. The wood went to the wood pile, the canvas (now torn into several pieces) went to the garbage pile.

Done as an art student, the painting features an empty, wooden-framed, gothic ‘window’ in the centre, so separating the canvas from the wood without ripping it would have been difficult.  Likewise, applying gesso to the work and starting anew would have meant dealing with that centre window. But creating a new work from the old was not the point. My intent all along was two-fold. To rid myself of an artistic anchor of the past, and to clean out storage in our house.

Don’t get me wrong. I liked that painting, as did several of those who responded on Facebook. But how else to dispose of it? It’s not like it’s to everyone’s taste. And being an older portrait of sorts, it’s not in keeping with my so-called ‘current work’, so exhibiting it with the intent of selling it seemed not an option. Keeping it around for a retrospective which is never going to happen, just keeps putting it in the way.
So, for those of you who have never wondered, now you know of a new question to ask your local artist… What do you do with works that have never been sold? Store ‘em, or trash ‘em? (Or repurpose them if that’s an option).
Sadly, there were two other works that went to the pile that same day (below). And there may be a few others on the chopping block. Please check out my older works at http://www.fyfeart.com/older-works.html (those marked with an *) before they too are gone.

 
Links
Rauschenberg, Francis Bacon, Gerhard Richte 
​https://www.widewalls.ch/destruction-art-artists-destroy-artwork/


Michelangelo, Monet, O’Keefe…
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-6-artists-destroyed-art


​#artdestruction #studentpainting #artistswho #destroyart

Picture

Voice of Bird (1989)

Picture

Canada's Call to Women (1990), bricolage under glass

Picture

​Get Your Home in Canada (1990), bricolage under glass

1 Comment
Hayley
3/30/2018 11:13:24 am

A suggestion: how about an online auction as a fundraiser for the Downie-Wenjac Foundation?

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Peter Fyfe

    Currently creating abstract and highly stylized paintings in Orillia, Ontario, Peter is previously from historic Kingston.
    Compelled to be near water to fuel his artistic muse. He is currently drawn to nature and canoes in particular as jumping-off themes for his paintings and conceptual assemblages. Rich with colour and featuring exquisite line, a glance at Peter’s work is a glimpse into how he views the world.

    Archives

    March 2019
    May 2018
    March 2018
    September 2017
    June 2016
    April 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.