response to process art

Richard Serra | 2-2-1: To Dickie and Tina

John Hilliard | Camera Recording it's Own Condition

Here are two responses to the question that I ask myself, 'just what is Process Art?'. I have twice been told that my work is process driven and twice I didn't really understand what the statement meant and after a third person said the same phrase, I decided that the best thing to do is to do some research. I have only managed a little research at the moment and this means going on the Tate website (where the two images have come from) and a look on the [citation needed] site of Wikipedia...I KNOW that the Wiki site can't be trusted but for preliminary studies, it's good enough.

I have been offered several named artists, both known and unknown to me and some of the work are poles apart from each other...quite bipolar infact. I love the epic work of Richard Serra and I hope in the future that I can work on the limitless scheme that he works on, and I'm intrigued with Martin Boyce and his minimal-unmonumental way of working. Jon Hilliard's Camera (shown above) is mouselike in appearance to Serra cathedralesque installations but is so relevant to the ethos of processing artwork.

I gather, with my shortcomings of integral research, is that Process Art is Art that allows the mark making, workings, emphasis on materials, almost scientific and showing the construction of the piece that has been created. I have also been told that I'm visceral and guttural in the way that I work and I often show the constructions of the pieces that I do make. My conclusion is that I am leaning towards this art-form but I shouldn't rely too heavily on the concept.

Photography and collage, to me , is Process (Art) driven..especially film-based photography...it is all about the process of the final photography..not so much in the digital field. This IS the divide and contention between the two. And if you do step back and think about the concept of Film Photography... you select the image, get the aperture and depth correct, the lighting and then...BANG the image has been collaged onto thefilm...the process of developing and printing is then the process driven part... This is the same with collage, it's not all about glitter, crepe paper and silver stars...weights, textures, materials, composition these are all to decided and thought about.

So, yeah...process driven art works for me, it is very visual and take on many forms. Sculpture, photography, painting and collage; define and refine then construct.