STUDY FOR 'THE ARTISTS DREAM'

© The Estate of Ian Breakwell. All rights reserved. DACS. 2023.

STUDY FOR 'THE ARTISTS DREAM' 1978

Ian Breakwell (1943 – 2005)

Details

Dimension
65 X 51 CM
Media
PHOTOGRAPHS, COLLAGE, INK, PENCIL AND TEXT ON CARD
Accession number
P3701

Summary

Abstract art bores me. I have always felt that formal abstraction and realism were merely the two sides of the same coin, and that the currency was counterfeit. What kind of person can spend his time (I saw it as predominantly a male characteristic) painting one-colour canvases or arranging rectangles of wood on the floor? At night, in his dreams, did ‘the sleep of reason beget monsters?, as in Goya’s etchings? I made a series of photo-text sequences speculating on this theme; this a study of one of them.

Cratylus The English Artist and The Word, The British Council, London 1979

 

Glossary

  • Abstraction

    To abstract means to remove, and in the art sense it means that artist has removed or withheld references to an object, landscape or figure to produce a simplified or schematic work. This method of creating art has led to many critical theories; some theorists considered this the purest form of art: art for art’s sake. Unconcerned as it is with materiality, abstraction is often considered as representing the spiritual.

  • Painting

    Work of art made with paint on a surface. Often the surface, also called a support, is a tightly stretched piece of canvas, paper or a wooden panel. Painting involves a wide range of techniques and materials, along with the artist's intellectual concerns effecting the content of a work.