Regarding the Image of Violence


The technological data stream of violent imagery in society has conditioned our reaction to its content. The growth of collaborative systems, which define our models of understanding, has become a major function of the contemporary art world. Because of this technocratic approach, systematically defined artistic models such as photographic media have become the accepted solution. Painting has become a less regarded art form than those that use technocratic solutions. Painting suffers from censorship because it is a model based on the autonomy of the artist and not a function of postmodern artistic collaborative technological systems.


Photographic imagery uses a model, which is wedded to technology, time frame and surface. It is also suffused with its own contemporary self importance, manufacture and ability to truthfully represent its meaning. Painting is not a manufactured art form but is handmade and its surface is therefore unique to the artists’ imagination and aesthetic. This individuality in painting has the ability to provoke a psychological emotive force that is part of the painters’ response.


For me this is the dilemna when trying to understand and communicate the nature of violence. How to make images that are not just part of a technocratic collaborative solution but evoke the imagination and display an individual aesthetic which communicates pain in a violent world. gino.ballantyne@btinternet.com

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