Planet Angel I and II (the live painting performance)

[helenic]

I never got the chance to write up the Happening Kristen and I did at Planet Angel in August. It was disappointing and successful in different ways. The process of getting everything organised, turning up early in a cab with four huge canvasses in tow, helping rig the stage, put down tarps and do everything else that was needed wasn't particularly stressful, but it was tiring. By the time everything was ready we still had a couple of hours to kill before the club opened and all our friends arrived. We were excited, but by this time nerves were pushing their way to the forefront as well. We both wanted to be sober and clear-headed for the event itself, but it wasn't scheduled until 1am, and trying to enjoy the clubnight while going through the equivalent of exam nerves and no easy way of relaxing was really not much fun. I just wanted it to be over with so I could chill out and start enjoying myself, rather than trying to dance while I felt like a bundle of nervous energy.

I was a bit nervous about what we were going to do - sometimes when we start on a collaborative piece we have an idea or theme in mind, but most of the time we just pick some colours, start covering the canvas in abstract swirls, and wait to see what they turn into. Because of the time constraints and the pressure to produce something that 'worked', I was keen to have an idea in mind when we started. It was so loud up there on the stage though that by the time I thought of it, while we were waiting to start, I don't think Kristen actually heard any of what I suggested to her. I think she was more comfortable without a plan in any case - her art is definitely the more free of our two styles.

Then there was a misunderstanding about the start - we'd been told that we'd be announced by a compere, and after we met up with the organisers on the stage in the Funky room at ten to one, we were waiting for over twenty minutes for something to happen. At first it seemed that the DJs didn't realise they were meant to stop, and then we were told that there wasn't going to be an announcement, we should just start. All this while we were crammed onto a tiny stage being stared at from all sides, with our friends crowding round us, and us not at all sure what was going on. That threw me a bit - but then the DJ started playing a trance remix of Oricono Flow, which was the perfect music for creating a focussed, creative atmosphere as we started to paint.

But it was swelteringly hot up there on the stage above the crammed dancefloor - there were no fans producing cool air, and after standing and working at high speed for twenty minutes, I felt like I was going to pass out. There wasn't space to step back from the canvas to look at it; we could only see it at very close range. The lighting was completely unsuited for painting - I couldn't tell what colour any of what I was putting onto the canvas was; it all looked the same muddy brown. One of the photographers was constantly getting in the way firing flashes into our eyes, which made it even more difficult to see what we were doing (and after blinding us for the first half hour we were working, he only actually posted one photo on the galleries). It was almost impossible for Kristen and I to communicate; I felt like we were working in complete isolation from each other, without able to see what the other person was doing or talk to them. I managed to talk to her a little bit, but only small remarks like suggesting when we should swap places or take a break.

It was hot, and hectic, and unbelievably exhausting. All our friends were bouncing around having an amazing time and we were working our socks off. It was exhilirating, but also very frustrating to neither feel like I was having the good time the environment was trying to encourage, nor able (due to the dark and the heat and the noise) to concentrate on working in the way I wanted to. When we came back from our toilet break, we agreed that we were both finding it really hard. I didn't feel like we were acheiving what I'd hoped. We had a sketchpad by the side of the stage and people were encourage to draw ideas on it, but we just ended up with half a page of meaningless graffiti. The original idea was that we'd connect with the energy in the room and translate it onto the canvas, and I was so distracted by the logistical difficulties that I didn't even begin to do this. A dancefloor is not, when you aren't part of it, a friendly environment - it's loud and shrieky and shovy and bangy and everyone's in their own world. If I'd been down there, looking up at the UV patterns on the ceiling, with my friends bouncing around me, I'd have felt connected - up on the stage, with lights dazzling me and music deafening me and people shoving into the stage and not able to even see what I was painting, I didn't feel connected to anything I wanted to reproduce on the canvas. Even connecting with Kristen and producing something from within ourselves was difficult. After an hour we gave up, and I felt exhausted and sick for the rest of the night before heading home early and considering the experiment to be a failure.

Except - afterwards, when we got home and I saw the finished paintings side by side in the dawn sunlight, all I could think was wow. They were - beautiful. I'd had no idea how bright they were. Vast, sunny swathes of colour swooped and soared across both canvasses, all in euphoric shades of pink and orange and blue. The name of the club was represented in images of a planet on one canvas and an angel on the other. A huge blue-purple dragon dived across the top of the picture, patterns streaming in its wake. I stopped and stared at the paintings for about ten minutes, realising that however uncomfortable and disorienting the experience had been at the time, we'd succeeded in our aim: we'd taken the Planet Angel vibe and put it onto canvas. And it was beautiful.

Because we'd stopped painting an hour earlier than we'd intended to, and because the paintings were going to be exhibited at K~nesis, Kristen and I talked to the Planet Angel organisers and agreed that it would be within the spirit of the event to do additional work on the paintings afterwards. The live painting experience was a kickstart, an inspiration, even if it didn't feel like it at the time; we then took the ideas we'd sketched in colour and ran with them. The two resulting paintings are tidier and less chaotic than the originals. We firmed up the structure of the composition, added more imagery. The underlying shape and tone of the two paintings was preserved, but re-imagined, turned into something new.

Me working on the canvas in the early stages of the Happening. I think we'd been going for about 20 minutes at this point.



The original paintings as they left the club


And the finished pieces:


Planet Angel I and II
Diptych; acrylic on two canvasses, each 32" x 40"
by Kristen Clatworthy and Helen Lambert
(click on each image to enlarge)

Not for sale
3 limited edition runs of 50 prints of available to order. Prints of each canvas should be ordered separately.

Some favourite things about these:
- The way each canvas stands alone as a balanced composition, but when you put the two together the shape and focus of them is completely transformed
- The fact that the planet and the angel are split between the two canvasses, framing the composition, and each with a mirror in its own half (the blue sphere to the planet, the eagle to the angel).
- The greater dragon head emerging from the background of the canvas on the right, to balance the two smaller dragons on the left; with its huge fiery eye and great blue snout, blowing flames beyond the smaller green dragon. This happened completely by accident, or else our instincts were more tuned in than our conscious thoughts :)

Comments

[libellum.livejournal.com]

I think the comparison between the originals and the finished result is interesting, as is the comparison between our perception of the painting during the Happening and how it actually came out. I like both phases of its lifespan :) Thankyou for posting the pic - I've reuploaded it to my own webspace.