lois palframan ARTIST
lois palframan
ARTIST
The Atrocity Series/from Postmodernism to Post postmodernism
How my artwork changed from Postmodernism to Post postmodernism.
I spent many years trying to say nothing, like John Cage- ‘I have nothing to say and I’m saying it’, to effect freedom in myself the first viewer and subsequent viewers. The terrible consequences of ‘firm beliefs’- the inquisitions, the exterminations in the cause of true beliefs.
In Postmodernism anything goes but this just leaves a vacuum for the next fascist, I mean strong believer. I was probably depressed and unmotivated till I started reading about Metamodernism, Post postmodernism, Performatism. This is returning to the optimistic beliefs of Modernism with the proviso this time that the beliefs are personal (not missionary). In the event of the artwork, framed, one can posit a belief in Good e.g. Beauty, Truth. This can lead the viewer out of the nihilism and uncaring negativity of Postmodernism.
Eshelman claims this is a new epoch of Post postmodernism. He cites some architecture, novels, films, photographs that can suggest optimism, even the miraculous, by this process.
The can of worms that there is no truth, can be a can of goodies- truths can be created as long as this is clearly stated in the form, by way of framing-enclosures of art.
The first picture is one of my 2020 drawings- improvised, small, unframed, blindly drawn, monthly, minimal allowing freedom, trying to say nothing. Invisible, like a sheet of glass enabling the surroundings to be seen clearly free from prejudice. Sometimes called beautiful and I was a little perturbed as I didn’t want to say anything at all- beauty being such a loaded connotated word associated with genderism.
The next drawing is one of my new series of 2025. Based on logic- the Atrocity series.
There is a generally accepted notion of healing Nature, as in Forest bathing. Aesthetic attention to Nature, freeing from problems of practicalities, brings peace of mind, relaxation, good for mind and body. If so, then putting the colours of Nature around and overlapping images of atrocity- culled from news and personal traumas, then the despair can be mitigated, escaped from, for peace of mind, and therefore calm thinking can emerge.
This process of belief needs to be clearly framed as art rather than as another strong belief with missionary tendencies. The small intense canvas panels of the Atrocity series may show how to avoid despair while outside of the Art World is Postmodernist allowance of ethical pragmatism.
Process- of aesthetic attention- forest bathing of finding the colours- some bark from a dead tree, some juice from plantain leaves. and after, the feather to stroke off all the extraneous material.
Making Pictures is all about seeing reality for me. What is art what is reality. Framing is important. Reality is judging, way to go, choose ones battles, locate the conditions-what can be changed. In the event of art one sees as one wants- this is the ideal reality. Compare reality with art- try to make reality like art, so one is free, or like nature- exhibiting nature that is/as liberating. (forest bathing)
photo by Rebecca Williams
atrocity series/emancipation series. photos of the unbearableness of life are surrounded/overlapped by the colours of nature- actual colours gathered from nature- plant materials. ( Martin Seel- 'aesthetic practice, aesthetic freedom.' 'aesthetics of appearance' as opposed to the 'wildest dreams focused on logic' )
The colours of nature (actual colours of nature-from flowers, leaves, bark etc) are agreed to be beneficial for mental health (as in for e.g. Forest Bathing). They are added to a small canvas panel around and overlapping troubling photos. The photos are representations of past events and connected with personal trauma or news items. Therefore the total artwork may go some way to effecting a present, calming, and therefore thoughtful and relevant response to atrocity.
photo by Roddy McMillan.
Lois Palframan‘s parents went to Leeds Art College where they became evangelical christian missionaries. Their own life is influenced by their reaction to religion through art, and early experience of music. Always drawn, becoming more refined into markmaking by a process of improvisation. Having gained a degree in Environmental Science and an MA in Art at Leeds Metropolitan University, Palframan won a scholarship to study philosophy via the International Society for Philosophers.
Palframan has made many artists books entirely of drawings (post-conceptual) which are in international exhibitions and collections including Tate’s library. The artist has shown work widely in solo and group exhibitions. Over the past 2 years, they have worked with improv musicians producing audiovisual concerts (Iklectik, London and Access, Sheffield), playing and vocalising drawings.
Nature Grab- an emancipatory impulse- grabbing colour from nature to make drawings; trying to find my own embodied voice - performance; trying to connect with the subconscious- writing.
Use of natural materials
Nature- that which can be objectified (Foucault)
An Ostensive sign- colours of flowers/leaves/plants are designated as having an attribute of healing.
Ostensive signs (Gans, 1981) are performatist, demonstrative, monist, post post-modern. Eshelman (2008) describes the deeply negative and irresponsible attitude of post-modernism. Performatism is a responsible attitude that faces up to the truth of the human subject’s capacity to posit (e.g. to posit a larger, all-encompassing truth- God, Time, the Unknown, Fate, any doxa etc) in a dualist schema where the subject is absolved of responsibility.
Healing= peace of mind, sanity, ability to think clearly
Traumatic Image= persistent, overwhelming, loss of subjectivity, confusing, stomach bashing.
Process- Colours gathered from flowers/plants/leaves are applied around and overlapping traumatic photos. Thereby representing healing, so that healing is known and appropriated ‘ready for use’ (a Heideggerian analytic term).
What is/can be known- I suggest flowers, trees, plants are emancipatory in form and colour because they survive despite humans. Emancipation is necessary for peace of mind, sanity, ability to think clearly. Adorno’s aesthetic philosophy (the benchmark of aesthetic philosophy) is emancipatory. He had an emancipatory impulse. (Claussen’s biography)
Since December 2021 I have been producing monthly 20 x 20 cm drawings- natural materials on canvas panels (42) recently including traumatic photos.
Eric Gans (1981)- the origin of language, a formal theory of representation.
Raoul Eshelman (2008) Performatism or the end of Postmodernism.
Monthly drawings on 20 x 20cm canvas panels, usually using plant materials- gathering colour and applying it unseen and in an improvised way. The colours of flowers, plants, leaves are designated as healing and these are used to surround and overlap a traumatic image of my young father as a soldier in Malaya in 1952 (‘Father tree’). ‘Badger tree’ is colours gathered from three plant materials in an area seen as frequented by 3 badgers and 3 crows. ‘Cezannes’s tree’ from leaves off a tree that I can see looking like a tree in a Cezanne painting. ‘Sycamore’ is sycamore leaves. ‘War effort’ using colour from a ticket from the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights in Vilnius.
The colours of flowers, plant, leaves are designated as healing because these survive despite humans and are therefore emancipatory in form and colour.
Adorno, the benchmark of aesthetic philosophy, had an emancipatory impulse.
Emancipation is necessary for ethical peace of mind, sanity, ability to think clearly.
I am a radical artist, as in returning to roots, analytically understanding pictures in reality- returning to an elementary essential minimal level of picturing, simplifying to a series.
I have produced 20 x 20cm canvas panels for many years but since the end of 2024 a new series: ‘atrocity series’-this is changing to become more constructive.
The series are all about time- showing representation in the form of prints of photos (records of past reality)-the ‘real’ world surrounded by actual colours of/from ‘nature’-plant material- (another ‘real’ world as in Forest Bathing). The colours suggest a meditative being in the present moment as a way of coping with the represented ‘reality’. That’s why they were called the ‘Atrocity Series’- of personal and news trauma in this way made bearable- a calming effect enabling thought. (grandma tree and father tree from the series- others are: - war tree, homes tree, orifice tree, Lois tree- see website)
The series is more constructive recently- rather than merely responding. Kite tree for instance tries to create value.
By putting 2 realities together (represented/past and current meditative) – 1+1=2- a mega real is constructed. Trying to stay sane, look after myself and live in ‘reality’.