Lucy Renton

 

Art & Time

 

The time making something complicated that you never show but without which you could not have made the simple thing that’s good

 

The time gathering references that sit around and come out in the work in a different form

 

The time of:

Looking for a new studio

Sourcing and buying new materials

Making applications

Making money that isn’t art

Complying with institutional requirements

 

The time in the studio sitting and staring, thinking. The time in the studio sitting and not thinking

The time spent on process that is visible in the work

 

 

The time of feeling lost and the time of finding focus

The time of intense interest in something and the time of disillusionment with it

 

The time of new pencils

 

The time reading

The time writing

The time looking at the work of others

The time looking at work like an art critic and cultural historian

The time looking at work as a craftsperson

The time looking at work as a painter

The time making coffee

 

 

The work of making time for time making work

 

 

The time playing

The time of deciding to turn something upside down

The time of turning something upside down

The time of repainting the wall white/orange/pink/grey….. so it’s possible to see what’s happening the work

The time of finding the detritus more interesting than the work itself

The time it takes to understand what the good bit is in what has been made

 

 

The weight of the time that is the productive time

The familiarity of the time of failures

 

 

The time of tuning colours in

The time of discovering a new palette

The time of losing confidence in a palette

The time of deliberately choosing colours I don’t like

The time of thrilling colours

The time of the vibration of colours together

The time of seasoning colours, acid, salty, sweet

The time of feeling colours and their surfaces

The time of historic references of colours

The time of new, more expensive and intense colours

The time of fluorescence

The time of making something again but in a different colour, and how the meaning changes completely

 

 

The work of making time for time making work

 

 

The time of delighting in flashy trash

The time of delighting in deceit

The time of adding more and more

The time of taking out everything that doesn’t need to be there

 

 

The time of:

Looking for a new studio

Sourcing and buying new materials

Making applications

Throwing things away

The time of packing up for an exhibition

The time arranging transport

 

The time of losing track of time

 

The time right in it

 

The time thinking about flatness

The time thinking about illusion

 

The time thinking about repetition

The time thinking about layers

The time avoiding technical bravura

 

 

 

The time of installing an exhibition

The time of thinking about fixings

The time of complying with Health & Safety

The time of disagreement

The time of reaching agreement

The time of rearrangement

The time documenting an exhibition

The time of publicising an exhibition

The time of talking about an exhibition

The time of the viewer, viewing.

 

The time of deinstalling an exhibition

The time of reflecting on an exhibition

The time of wondering if the work is irrelevant in the current context

The time of losing interest in works once they have been exhibited

The time of new ideas generated by an exhibition

The time of looking for new opportunities

 

The time of somehow always coming back to the same interests but in a different form

 

The time of:

Looking for a new studio

Sourcing and buying new materials

Making applications

Throwing things away

The time of packing up

Finding transport

Moving things to storage while you look for a new studio

 

The time of collaboration

 

The time of being alone

 

The quality of time of making work that is of no time, no age, is of itself and always available to step into out of the passage of life.

 

Lucy Renton (April 2022)