Documenting The Creative Space As Art Form
Where Amazing Happens
During those formative years as a student of art; one of the most fascinating aspects of an artist life was to collect photographs of their studios. Simply for creative and voyeuristic reasons to see if one could figure a sense of meaning when engaged in observation of their works. Francis Bacon 7 Reece Mews studio book is such an ideal specimen towards the idea of documenting the artist home and place of work as a form of art.
” I am very influenced by places- by the atmosphere of a room… I just knew from the very moment that I came here that I would be able to work here.”
–Francis Bacon
Studio Tableau comes at an interesting point as I embark on a journey in months ahead to go see close friends and family in MD. In a future essay, I will announced the brand new site design of contemporary visual artist: Sylvia O. Sylvia, a life long friend and upcoming contributor to Art Journal will dazzle your retina with her thought-provoking subject matter.
Her paintings and works on paper drawings illustrate her experiences. An investigation towards an arena behind “the beautiful grotesque” as the subject and concept behind her work. Furthermore, the Studio Tableau as a documentary series will illustrate the creation of Sylvia’s “Femicide” mural wall. A commission based project (circa 2010) for the G40 artist exhibit in Washington DC. And the only known photographs ever taken of the artist while working on her monumental wall masterpiece. The idea of documenting artist studio as seen in 7 Reece Mews provides a historical framework for understanding how contemporary artist like Sylvia may arrive at subject matter. It provides the viewer a small glimpse into the inner working of how we eat, work, consume and distribute our work to the masses.
7 Reece Mews | Francis Bacons’s Studio
Francis Bacon moved into 7 Reece Mews in London’s South Kensignton district in 1961. It was to remain his principal home and studio until his death in 1992. For some close to Bacon in his lifetime; the studio was a heroic statement, a work of art in its own right. Created over many decades to distill and give form to his aesthetic intentions. Prior to the removal of the studio to the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin in 1998. Access was granted to photographer Perry Ogden to produce this record of pictures of the artist home and its contents. He capture every part of the small buildings hidden and untouched interior. In the studio itself, thirty years of artistic endeavor has accumulated unchecked: the slashed, discarded canvases scattered across the floor; the brushes, rags, and tins encrusted with paint. The door and walls used as impromptu palettes with piled of photographs scared all over the floor.
Foreword by John Edwards,
Soon after I met Francis Bacon in 1976 he invited me to Reece Mews. “People think I live grandly you know, but in fact I live in a dump.” By the time I’d climbed up the steep, wooden stairs, guided by the rope banister, I could see he was right. He opened a bottle of champagne–probably vintage Krug– and I stayed the night. He slept on the couch and I on the old circular bed. As we sat at the dinning table in the bed sitting room I noticed the door to his studio was ajar. Through the gap I saw an unbelievable mess. In fact the chaos was much worse in those days than it was later on. I’m naturally tidy so was puzzled by the sight of dozens of small canvases, all with holes cut into them, all over the floor and mixed up with hundreds of photograph, books and bits of cloth.
9017 | DSC Studio
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I believe an artist studio is that transformative space where amazing happens. A place where existential epiphany and mysterious yet essential barnstorming are in constant flux.
For some of those close to Bacon in his lifetime, the studio was a heroic statement. a work of art in its own right, created over many years to distill and give form to his aesthetic intentions. Now on this astonishing book we are invited to take a privilege space, to become intimate witness to the amazing conditions in which he lived and worked. To gain unrivaled insights in to how, why and what he painted.
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