All that is liquid melts into solid

THIS paper is a compilation of notes and thoughts in response to the brief of Weaponising Speculation. It is a paper that is written in the way that I write best, erratically, with fluctuating styles – I am not a writer, I’m an artist.I make objects that are large lumps of vibrant matter made from the mate-rial oil paint. I am often referred to as a painter, although I don’t believe I fit into this category. In the term painter, there is a suggestion that the subject is tied to a strict, and perhaps conservative tradition. Materially I am tied to this tradition, as I invest in well developed tools that are made for very specific tasks. But my methodology is thought driven. I have no interest in imagery, or the abstract that has no base in reality. Because of a very specific logic that I apply to art making I seem to have stumbled into this Speculative Realist and Object Oriented bracket, happening through no intentions of my own. I have only been aware of continental and analytic philosophy for about a year and a half now. I have spent a lot of my time since then trying to catch up on things which are seemingly relevant, and it seems that there are a lot of parallels, and a lot of similar questions, problems and ideas are being posed. Historically, it seems that art often mimics, or at least is influenced by, current thought at the time of its production. Since Marcel Duchamp, and his value of thought over aesthetic which transformed art into something of value not only to the eyes but also to the mind, it was only a matter of time before art and philosophy started to crossover. Perhaps one day, academically, they could amalgamate into one system of ideas, but at the moment I feel there are problems with this. There are definite rules at play in engaging with art that just don’t translate into theory, and vice versa I presume. An artist can have all the theory to back there argument up, but for some reason their art is weak. I can’t delve into this theoretically, because I’m not a theorist, but I do look at a lot of art and generally speaking, can didactically explain why an art isn’t working.