Cath Sheard Art

Tag: dreams

  • cjs18 day 12 Jessica Sporn

    Today’s artist is Jessica Sporn. I have followed her work for years, have some of her wonderful stencils, and admire both her art and process. So, I was very excited to see her working with flag imagery as I’d worked on flags when I did my art qualification at The Learning Connexion, and love the work of Jasper Johns (among others).

    As with all cjs18 classes I won’t talk about the process but in this instance I do want to tell a little of the story behind this piece. The story scratched into the gesso underneath is about a recurring dream I have involving my best friend Sandra and I searching for someone in hospital grounds. I can draw the buildings, see the land, follow the roads, and have a map of where people are at the final building we need to get to – so a lot of detail. I had the dream again last night and phoned Sandra to discuss it.
    She thought for a bit and said in the last couple of years she’d gone out to Tokanui Psychiatric Hospital, where a relative had once spent some time.

    I used Google images to search Tokanui and the third photo was *it* – the place in my dream. I tried some other abandoned hospitals etc but no, none of them were right. Tokanui it is. Why I dream about Sandra and I being there, I don’t know yet.

    The rest of the imagery is about learning a waiata (Maori song/chant) for Monday when we have a powhiri to welcome our new CE at work, my constant struggle to learn more Te Reo, and the flag is the Tino Rangitiratanga flag (actually black, white & red). This all ties in together, but not in ways I can articulate in words – hence it’s in my artwork.

    day 12 jessica sporn 

  • Memories and dreams

    I have been dreaming a lot lately; usually a sign my mind is very busy, which would be a fair comment. I’ve started a new series of paintings, after going back through old material form my years at The Learning Connexion and doing some fresh research into the artists we studied and whose work spoke to me. I re-read some comments from my tutor, Peter Adsett, and thought about how they apply to my work now.

    Once I started painting I found I’d gone right back to being fascinated by the edges of the canvas, and that my memories of the old Patea Freezing Works buildings – which I have painted before – have reappeared. I think those shapes are strongly ingrained in my mind, and appear in my dreams and when I am painting without thinking too hard about it. The first one hardly referenced the buildings, but the shapes get stronger as my hand keeps working.

    Here are the three works I have done so far – one may need warming up a bit yet, but I am watching it for a day or two. The white is not as stark as it appears, I kept getting glare on fresh paint from the lower afternoon sun.

    DSC_0004 Fog 1 port 1