Circumstance A growing network of artists in Staffordshire. Increasing confidence in sharing work publicly. A desire to platform creative process as the subject — not the finished object — and to create space for other artists to do the same.
Method I filmed myself painting — layering a boy, then a bird, then a boy, then a bird — never arriving at a final point. Dom Lancaster edited the raw footage, disrupting chronological order, working forwards and backwards in split screen so the process of making was never resolved. Gwilym Morus Baird composed an original soundtrack referencing Welsh mythology. The completed film was shown at the Feral Film Festival — a short film event I produced at the Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek, platforming creative process as the subject of artistic work.
Materials Acrylic paint. Canvas. Film. Music. The myth of Icarus — boy energy, flight, the sun.
Collaborators Dom Lancaster, editor. Gwilym Morus Baird, composer. The Foxlowe Arts Centre, Leek. The emerging network of artists gathering around the Feral State practice.
Reflection Producing the Feral Film Festival was as much a part of the practice as making the film — bringing artists together around shared work, shared process and shared audience. The Feral State identity was becoming something others could gather around.
Learning The painting process itself can be the subject. Transformation without resolution is a valid artistic position. Building infrastructure for others to share work is an extension of practice, not a distraction from it.
FERAL STATE 