here, and yet

Colette Standish

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Eroticism, surrealism, and sensuality induce and incite my art. My visual language jubilates in these themes, using mixed media - painting, drawing, and photography to speak about opposing energies within the human psyche. As an artist, my role is to challenge, explore, and advocate poetic alternatives to the superficial, over-sexualized pornographic concepts of what eroticism has come to mean in the 21st century.

My recent work explores the use of glass and mirrors (mirrored paint and film). I use aspects of the mirror and the erotic imagery to draw and seduce the viewer into my work as part of the journey into the other with the erotized body as a guide. The mirrored and glass aspects of the work represent the present – 'Real-time, whereas the photography evokes the past, i.e., memories. – 'Past Time. The drawing and painting connect both time elements and helps the viewer engage within the same frame.

So, where does the guide lead the viewer, and why the eroticized body? An erotically charged body's physiology heightens the senses opening the body up to experiences that would be otherwise inaccessible. The sensualized body becomes a conduit between the conscious and subconscious world, a portal to an internal, surreal landscape, where form, thoughts, and gestures are yet to be fully developed, where specific genders are not yet distinguished, and the past lives with the unborn future.

The writer Anais Nin, on the conscious and subconscious in her art, talks about how she strives to keep the passageways open to both by using psychology to move from one dimension to another. I see my work in the same way. These artworks represent what the subconscious is to the conscious mind by exploring opposites and the curiosity of the human psyche.

Kit Radford

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DROUGHT (1:10:00)
Audio / Film / Book

DROUGHT is a ten year, compositional poem. A navigation. To recalibrate the fractures. To repair the wound. It is an invocation. A song-story. A broken lullaby. A siren - a recognition of the stories that live within us, and the attempt, the process, the eternal ceremony of letting go.

It explores a duality, a mirror-myth. Interweaving ancient mythology with lived experience. A possession. A sister in time. It explores internal landscapes and external landscapes.The psychic trauma The interplay between the mind-state and the physical. The drowning and the release, the burning and the salve. The disentangling of time, and self, and story.

There are multiple entry points - It started with sound, and the words. This can be heard. Over time there was a need for this to integrate with the body. A communion. To engage the body with the journey, with the process. Earth, sea and soil. With the release. To find a space big enough to contain this. A need. To bury it. A pilgrimage. This can be seen. It can be read. In a quiet place. With not even a whisper.

A journey to be drenched with freedom-

(may we be flooded with it).

Alternative modes of viewing:
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Links: ‍

https://www.kitrdfd.com

https://www.instagram.com/kitrdfd/

https://vimeo.com/kitradford

Kit Radford is a multi-media artist and poet. Materials can include; words, sounds, time, history, anthropology, physics, biology, philosophy, technology and silence. She is heavily influenced by mysticism, mythology, the female body and the natural landscape. Art forms include, performances, musical compositions, installation, digital and visual art, books, and documentation of her lived experience through photography and journals.

Her work is to investigate the elements of experience. To use art as a language tool for communion and expression of both the individual and shared happening through the lens of the expansive body.

Flora Wilds

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False Neutrals, Fake Naturals, 2021
photographs of a sculptural installation made of previously worn clothing

Specific Objects in 296 Questions
The following text features Donald Judd’s 1965 essay “Specific Objects” transposed into inquiries, made while transporting False Neutrals, Fake Naturals from San Francisco to San Diego, May 2021

Is half or more of the best new work in the last few years neither painting nor sculpture? Are painting and sculpture related, closely or distantly, to one or the other? Is this work that is not painting nor sculpture diverse? Are there some things that occur nearly in common? Does the new three-dimensional constitute a movement, school or style? Are common aspects too general and too little common to define a movement? Are the differences greater than the similarities? Are the similarities that are selected from the work a movement's first principles? Does three-dimensionality function as simply being a container? Have painting and sculpture been functioning as containers? Are painting and sculpture less neutral now? Are painting and sculpture less containers now? Are painting and sculpture more defined now? Are painting and sculpture undeniable? Are painting and sculpture unavoidable? Are painting and sculpture particular forms that are circumscribed, producing fairly definite qualities? Is the motivation of new work to get clear of these forms? Is the use of three dimensions an obvious alternative? Does it open to anything? “Is the motive to change always some uneasiness? What sets us upon the change of state, or upon any new action? Is it some uneasiness?” Are the positive reasons more particular? Are the insufficiencies of painting and sculpture familiar? Are the elements and qualities of these insufficiencies more easily located? Are the objections to painting and sculpture going to sound more intolerant than they are? Are there qualifications? Is the disinterest in painting and sculpture a disinterest in doing it again? In not doing it as it is being done by those who developed the last advanced versions? Does new work always involve objections to the old? Are these objections to the old work only really relevant to the new work? Are these objections part of the new work? If the earlier work is first-rate, is it complete? Are new inconsistencies and limitations retroactive? Are new inconsistencies and limitations only the concern of work that is being developed? Will three-dimensional cleanly succeed painting and sculpture? Is it like a movement? Do movements no longer work? Has linear history unraveled somewhat? Does the new work exceed painting in plain power? What are other considerations, besides power? What is the difference between power and expression? Are there ways other than power and form in which one kind of art can be more or less than another? Is a flat and rectangular surface too handy to give up? Can some things only be done on a flat surface? Is Lichtenstein's representation of a representation a good instance of a thing that can only be done on a flat surface? Does this work, which is neither painting nor sculpture, challenge the necessity for a flat surface? Will this all be taken into account by new artists? Will it change painting and sculpture? Is the main thing wrong with painting that it is a rectangular plane placed flat against the wall? Does a rectangle determine and limit the arrangement of whatever is on or inside of it? In work created before 1946, did the edges of the rectangle act as a boundary, the end of the picture? Did the compositions from this time react to the edges? Were they unified? Did the compositions stress the rectangle? Were the relationships of color and form occurring among the rectangles more important? Are the elements inside the rectangle broad? Are they simple? Do they correspond closely to the rectangle? Are the shapes and surface only those which can occur plausibly within and on a rectangular plane? Are the parts few and so subordinate to the unity that they are no longer parts in an ordinary sense? Is a painting nearly an entity? Is a painting one thing? Is a painting the indefinable sum of a group of entities and references? Does the one thing overpower earlier painting? Does it establish the rectangle as a definite form? Is it no longer a fairly neutral limit? How many ways can a form be used? Is the rectangular plane given a life span? Does the simplicity required to emphasize the rectangle limit the arrangements possible within it? Does the sense of singleness have a duration? Is the sense of singleness only the beginning? Does this sense of singleness have a better future outside of painting? Is this occurrence in painting a beginning? Will new forms be made from earlier schemes and materials? Is the plane also emphasized and nearly single? Are there two planes? Is the relationship of the two planes specific? Is it a form? Must everything on or slightly in the plane of the painting be arranged laterally? Are almost all paintings spatial in one way or another? Which paintings are unspatial? Is there little that is nearly unspatial? Is it possible that not much can be done with both an upright rectangular plane and an absence of space? Does anything on a surface have space behind it? Do two colors on the same surface almost always lie on different depths? Will an even color almost always act both flat and infinitely spatial? Is the space shallow in all of the work in which the rectangular plane is stressed? Where is space shallow? Where is space traditionally illusionistic? Where is there a flat plane that seems in turn indefinitely deep? When is paint obviously on the canvas? Is space mainly made by any marks on a surface? Do concentric bands flatten literal space more? Will bands advance and recede? Will even a single circle warp the surface to it? Will it have a little space behind it? Does anything spaced in a rectangle and on a plane suggest something in and on something else? Does anything spaced in a rectangle and on a plane suggest something in its surroundings? Does anything spaced in a rectangle and on a plane suggest an object or figure in its space? Is the main purpose of painting to suggest clearer instances of a similar world? Are recent paintings completely single? Are there are a few dominant areas? Are there dominant areas the area around rectangles or circles? Is there a gap between the main forms? Are the main forms the most expressive parts? Do the central forms still occur in a wider and indefinite context? Does the singleness of the paintings abridge the general and solipsistic quality of earlier work? Are fields limited? Do they give the appearance of sections cut from something indefinitely larger? Are oil and canvas familiar? Do they have a certain quality? A certain limit? Is their quality especially identified with art? Does the new work resemble sculpture more than it does painting? Is the new work nearer to painting? Is broad scale the newest thing about it? Are its materials somewhat more emphasized than before? Does the imagery involve salient resemblances to other visible things? Does the imagery involve a number of more oblique references? Is everything generalized to compatibility? Are the parts and the space allusive? Descriptive? Somewhat naturalistic? Do the parts suggest machines and truncated bodies? Is a combination of plaster and metal more specific? Are beams used as if they were brush strokes? Do the materials imitate movement? Is this following a lineage? Do the materials have their own movement? Does a beam thrust? Does a piece of iron follow a gesture? Do the beam and iron together form a naturalistic and anthropomorphic image? Does the space correspond? Is most sculpture made part by part? By addition? Composed? Do the main parts remain fairly discrete? Are the main parts and the small parts a collection of variations? Are there hierarchies of clarity and strength present? Is there a proximity to one or two main ideas? Are wood and metal the usual materials? Are these materials alone or together? If together, how much of a contrast is present? Is there any color? Do the middling contrast and natural monochrome help to unify the parts? Is there any of this in the new three-dimensional work? Is the most obvious difference within this diverse work that which is something of an object? That which is a single thing? That which is open and extended? That which is more or less environmental? Is there a greater difference in their nature as in their appearance? Have there been precedents for some of the characteristics of the new work? Are the parts subordinate? Are they not separate? Are ready-mades and other objects seen at once? Are they seen part by part? Can part-by-part structure be too simple? Can part-by-part structure be too complicated? Does part-by-part structure seem orderly? What is the degree of abstraction? What is the extent of reference to the human body? Is ready-made, assemblage and low-relief preliminary to most of the new three-dimensional work? Are the composition and imagery secondary to an appearance of disorder? Are the composition and imagery at first concealed by the material? Do altered objects tend to stay that way? Is it neutral at first? Is it not artistic? Does it later seem objective? When the structure and imagery become apparent, does there seem to be too much time and space? Does there seem to be more chance and casualness than order? Could the aspects of neutrality, redundancy and form and imagery be coextensive without three dimensions and without the particular material? Is the color sensitive? Is the color natural? Does it have a wide range? Is most color that integral? Is color never unimportant? Is color usually unimportant in sculpture? Is the order rationalistic? Is the order underlying? Is the order like that of continuity? Is the order one thing after another? Is a sculpture an image? Have painting and sculpture become set forms? Is a fair amount of their meaning not credible? Is the use of three dimensions the use of a given form? Has there been enough time and work to see limits? Are three dimensions mostly a space to move into? Does only a small amount of work contain the characteristics of three dimensions? Is the work being like an object? Is the work being specific? Will the characteristics of the work persist? What other characteristics are bound to develop? Will three-dimensional work divide into a number of forms? Will three-dimensional work become larger than painting? Will it become much larger than sculpture? When compared to painting, is sculpture fairly particular? Does it get much nearer to what is usually called a form? Does sculpture have a certain kind of form? Is the nature of three dimensions set? Within the realm of three-dimensions, can something credible be made? Can almost anything be made? Is there more narrowness and less strength and variation within the given form of painting? Can sculpture be only what it is now? If sculpture changes a great deal it will be something else? Is sculpture finished? Are three dimensions real space? If three dimensions are real space- does that get rid of the problem of illusionism and of literal space? Are the several limits of painting no longer present? Is a work as powerful as it can be thought to be? Is actual space intrinsically more powerful and specific than paint on a flat surface? Can anything in three dimensions be any shape, regular or irregular? Can anything in three dimensions have any relation to the wall, floor, ceiling, room, rooms or exterior? Can anything in three dimensions have relation to nothing at all? Can any material be used? Does a work need only to be interesting? Do most works finally have one quality? In earlier art, was it the complexity displayed that built the quality? In recent painting, has the complexity existed in the format and the few main shapes? Were these shapes made according to various interests and problems? In the three-dimensional work, is the whole thing made according to complex purposes? Are these complex purposes scattered? Are these complex purposes asserted by one form? Is it necessary for a work to have a lot of things to look at? To compare? To analyze one by one? To contemplate? Is its quality as a whole what makes it interesting? Are the main things alone? If so, are they more intense, clear and powerful? Are they undiluted by an inherited format? Are they undiluted by variations of a form? Are they undiluted by mild contrasts and connecting parts and areas? Has abstract painting kept the representational subordination of the whole to its parts? Does sculpture still do this? In the new work, are shape, image, color and surface single? Are there any neutral or moderate areas? Are there any connections or transitional areas? Does the use of three dimensions make it possible to use all sorts of materials and colors? Does most of the work involve new materials? Does most of the work involve recent inventions? Does it involve things not used before in art? Was little done until lately with the wide range of industrial products? Has almost nothing been done with industrial techniques? Is this because of the cost? Will this cost prohibit this happening for some time? Could art be mass-produced? Do the materials vary greatly? Are the materials simply materials? Are the materials specific? Are materials used directly more specific? Are materials used directly aggressive? Is there an objectivity to the obdurate identity of a material? Do the qualities of materials have unobjective uses? Can materials just look the same as ever? Can materials look disagreeable? Can materials be objective and pliable? Objective and sewn? Objective and stuffed with? Objective and hung or set down? Objective and sagging or collapsing? Are most of the new materials not as accessible as oil on canvas? Are most of the new materials hard to relate to one another? Are most of the new materials obviously not art? Is the form of a work and its materials closely related? In earlier work, were the structure and the imagery executed in some neutral and homogeneous material? Are there problems in combining different surfaces and colors? Are there problems in relating the parts? Does relating the parts weaken the unity? Does three-dimensional work usually involve ordinary anthropomorphic imagery? If there is a reference, it is single and explicit? Are the chief interests obvious? Is the image, all of the parts, and the whole shape coextensive? Are the parts part of the whole? Does most of the new work have no structure in the usual sense? Which internal and external references have been added? What makes an image new and surprising? Has an image never before been the whole work? What makes an image explicit and aggressive? What makes a strange and dangerous object? Is obsession narrow? Does related intensity and obsessiveness make for strange objects? Is obsessive repetition a single interest? What elements of a work are emotive? Does extreme anthropomorphism make an emotive form? Does blatancy subvert the idea of the natural presence of human qualities in all things? Are human-made objects empirical matter? When someone or many people make objects, how much of their preferences are incorporated in the object? How many people made a choice, and how many more agreed, as to the appearance and existence of an ice cream cone? Can anything that is made be completely objective? Can anything that is made be purely practical? Can anything that is made be merely present? When changes in art are compared backwards, is there always a reduction? Do we always count fewer older attributes? Are new things more? When we use real objects, how much do we depend on the viewer's knowledge of these objects?