For me, the key component which I took from this book was how William Kentridge’s process towards his art is always evolving from his own experiences and his own interests which form a dialogue, coming from South Africa and living through the troubles of Apartheid where Black and White was a key component of life, is it a coincidence that he works predominantly in charcoal and he re-works the images and incorporates this into still photography to create a movie. I see how he intermingles his interests in film-making, story-telling, and expressing his own art to produce a unique outcome. He is an artist who is immersed in his process and I see that for him, the actual process can be critical to the outcome. I enjoyed how the book showed the conversation where he talks about his inspiration coming from random things merged together, and each chapter heading was formed from various key words in the section, all intermingled to form a sentence, rather like his artistic process.
KEY LEARNING POINT
Art can be more process driven and performance based.
Fuse together different inspirations to make work unique.
Work can be modified and re-worked, especially charcoal which lends itself to this.
Neil C Drawing 2 