Haydn Sharp Bio, Statement or Rambling Personal Manifesto?
I usually work in
mixed media with all kinds of materials. Some of the most commonly used ones
are acrylic, graphite, felt marker, pencil crayon, water, spit,ink and a couple
of times used motor oil. I primarily work on canvas, paper, and panels but I
have also been known to paint on skateboards, old shoes, walls, boxer shorts,
plaster casts of faces and even actual faces.
I use a variety of different things to apply
materials to surfaces such as brushes, pallet knives, pens, pencils, cups,
sandpaper, sand, golf clubs, sponges, rubber Halloween bats, hair dryers,
gravity, fingers, hands, rims of paper cups and anything else I can find that
might make an interesting mark or create an unusual effect. I've also recently
started to dabble with Photoshop and am quite pleased with the early results.
Digital manipulation has quickly become one of my favorite new passtimes.
I
enjoy working with little to no pre planning because to me spontaneity in the
act of making art is one of the most important factors in creating something
that is interesting to look at once you're finished. I believe that art should
make you think. Not necessary deeply or insightfully but I feel it is important
to make something that is worth at least a brief moment of contemplation if
that is all the time that one can spare aeven if that thought is just to wonder
what compeled the artist to create that. It doesn’t necessarily have to be
loaded with easily recognizable icons or hidden meanings or even be any sort of
real image at all, it could quite simply just be something to look at for the
sake of having something to look at. Most importantly though art should be
something that is individual and unique, something that has come into existence
only because the artist chose to create it.
For me painting is usually
something I start doing with only a vague notion of what I want the finished
product to look like. Sometimes I start with a detailed preliminary drawing or
a quick sketch and sometimes I start with nothing but the surface. While I’m
painting I don’t consciously think about what that piece will be about. I often
don't even plan out what I’m doing. For the most part I just try to let a
natural balance occur out of the drips, strokes, smears and shapes that I put
on the canvas, paper, board, wall etc.
At some point about mid way through a painting I will start to
see in my minds eye an image that would naturally fit within the overall
picture that is starting to develop. At times it seems like my subconscious
mind influences my hands to make me create some thing important to me without
out really thinking about it. Most of the time it seems as if I just let the
painting evolve out of itself and I am just holding the brush allowing the image
to be created.
It isn't until after I‘ve finished working on a painting that I
am able to contemplate just what it is that I was trying to do with that piece
and why it ended up looking like it did. The only conscious effort that I make
while painting is to ensure that the image ends up balanced. By balanced I mean
an even amount of curves and angles, light and dark colors, hard and soft edges
and abstract and actual shapes and images.
With my art I am trying to show
people how to imagine the world in a different light. How to see what is
already there but cannot be seen due to our current beliefs of what is real and
what is not. By combining realistic and abstract ideas in the same image I am
trying to challenge the viewers perception of what is real. Is my reality the
same as yours? Do you see the same colors as I do or do we both think that blue
is blue because we both call it blue?
I
enjoy working with little to no pre planning because to me spontaneity in the
act of making art is one of the most important factors in creating something
that is interesting to look at once you're finished. I believe that art should
make you think. Not necessary deeply or insightfully but I feel it is important
to make something that is worth at least a brief moment of contemplation if
that is all the time that one can spare aeven if that thought is just to wonder
what compeled the artist to create that. It doesn’t necessarily have to be
loaded with easily recognizable icons or hidden meanings or even be any sort of
real image at all, it could quite simply just be something to look at for the
sake of having something to look at. Most importantly though art should be
something that is individual and unique, something that has come into existence
only because the artist chose to create it.
