GROUP MEETING 1
Today was the first day of our group collaboration, we discussed themes we would like to encorporate into the exhibition and came up with several:
- nostalgia and the generations of art; the work exhibited all has a Retro, nostalgic feel.
- socio-political; work made in reaction to a recent political event or current affair
- can art be impersonal?; work questioning whether art created by someone has to be personal
- historical art; art created In reaction to an art piece of the past
- art in relation to the art industry and culture; does a successful art piece have to be in fashion?
We're beginning to consider aspects of an exhibition that make up an exhibition too, such as space, marketing, place and technical details including lighting, shelving, and various other equipment.
I didn't realise that we could make a theme to coincide our work with, in this exhibition. I am used to just displaying your best or most recent work in an exhibition, like in my foundation exhibition. So i am learning more about curation every day with this project, which was the aim of BA3. So far I feel excited and positive about BA3, I get on well with my group (well, the ones that showed up), who show all different varieties of media (painting, print, digital new media, sculpture) so making up an exhibition will be stimulating and challenging, which Iwe all look forward to.
Thursday 15/03/12
Today was NUCA Fine Art's annual all day symposium which usually features artists, critics, writers and other figures in the contemporary Fine Art world. The speaker who stood out to me the most was Neil Powell, assistant principal at NUCA, he educated everyone in the artistic movement in Japan called Mono-Ha, and it's origins of absence and presence in contemporary Japanese sculpture. He used "Phase Mother-Earth" as a basis for his theories, a piece that stood out to me out of all the presentations and lectures of the day.
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| "Phase Mother-Earth" by Nobuo Sekine |
The speaker I disregarded the most was Sara Mackillop, a RCA graduate and contemporary artist. This speaker I found myself dozing off to as she clicked slide after slide of highly conceptual and banal sculptures, consisting of "bureaucratic materials". The notes I wrote during the lecture:
- Work is as thoughtless and empty as her envelopes
- Placement of object and material does not seem considered in any way
- Seems like she is making it up as she goes along
- In today's world (recession etc.) there is no place for art as futile as this.
- Work is childlike, flighty and vulnerable
With the day finishing on this lecture I left feeling pretty fucking discouraged. Was this what "Fine Art" was? Why was I here? Should I switch course? Do something that had more meaning and place in the world?
But then I remembered why I did Fine Art, I did it because it was a great platform to make work about what you believe in, in anyway way or media that you wanted. I decided that I needed to work on something that had meaning in the world, and referring back to said above, this right now for me is ecology and the state of our earth. So I've decided that I am going to work in a more journalistic way. I will portray issues and real matters in the world. Because to me, this is a big world and there are bigger issues elsewhere.
22/03/12
GROUP MEETING 2
I feel as though we could come up with a more unique theme to our exhibition. But as of yet I cannot judge, the end product might end up being really successful and interesting. Especially with this concept of showing raw development and process in the exhibition space. Something rarely every experienced in a fine art exhibition.
Ideas established:
- all work on one wall, like a collage or montage.
- Cluttered and chaotic, displaying a DIFFERENCE OF OPINIONS
- concept of clashing and harmonizing of minds, how opposites attract etc.
- display some development or process in space
PLAN:
-meet before exhibition (day before, to set work up and decide placement)
-experimentation in exhibition space
-make facebook group for correspondance
25/03/12
Continuing on my realization yesterday I have been purchasing old National Geographic magazines and reading up and researching some ecological concerns in our contemporary world. A natural formation that always fascinated me was that of what goes on in the ocean, otherwise known as marine biology. My thirst for travel and adventure have lead me here, along with my interest in conservation (flora and fauna alike). I think this direction my practice is heading to suits me as a person quite well, someone who has an interest in science yet is artistic, therefore combining the two disciplines. And in an almost insecure way, this trail of practice could suggest that I want to make art that has purpose. As perviously stated (look above at Sara Mackellop section) I feel as though this is important in our contemporary world, there is too much going on around us (naturally, socially and economically) to being making uncongenial art.
Recently I have found a fascination in geology, crystals and aesthetically organic looking forms, but in my practice I made these forms out of man made materials and processes, something I enjoyed and found practically and intellectually stimulating.
This has lead me to looking at marine life: mainly coral, and in the great barrier reef, one of the greatest natural wonders of the world.
Aesthetically, i love the way coral looks, especially, in quite a morbid way, when it has been "bleached".
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| Coral Bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef. [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/21/Bleachedcoral.jpg/800px-Bleachedcoral.jpg] |
"In corals, warming temperatures and increased exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays lead to a stress response called bleaching- when the colourful algae in coral cells become toxic and are expelled, turning the host animals skeletal white. Fleshy seaweeds may then choke out the remains." (Jennifer S. Holland, page 50, National Geographic May 2011 issue) I find this biological chemical process interesting and in a way, poetic. 16/03/12
"Fragile Empire
From tiny coral polyps grew a marvel: Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Could it all come crumbling down?"
[Title from the online barrier reef article from National Geographic
I love this title "Fragile Empire", maybe I could use this poetically as a title later on. It is highly relevant to my ongoing theme of the simultaneous fragility and strength of Nature. I appreciate it for its figurative poetic qualities, and for the way its tragically true. The great barrier reef is said to become nearly bereft of life in a mere fifty years, leaving nothing left but "
Coral skeletons bathed in algal slime". Poetic and sad, yet true. If this isnt purpose on which to base my art on I don't know what is.
I feel as though with this as a basis to my work, I could create something visually and conceptually rich.
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| http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/05/great-barrier-reef/wallpaper |
WHAT I PLAN TO DO NEXT (following this train of thought):
- Visit the coast during Easter holiday to collect sea life residue
- i.e. cuttle fish, seaweed, corals
- Visit Great Yarmouth Sea life centre
- Mimic these forms with industrial materials (i.e. latex, plaster, felt)
26/03/12
Facebook page is up and running, there is a lot of debate ensuing.
"Ok so building upon the previous discussion I feel that making the exhibition into a mood board styled space might work. We could even allow development to be presented in order to have a exhibition showing process as well as outcome?"
-Martin
People who did not attend the meetings are letting their opinion across, there seems to be a small clash in artistic morals and techniques, whilst the group of us that came to the meetings work through process and development, therefore love the idea of having a "moodboard" style exhibition space, the people who didnt show insist their work is purely based on end product.
"i dont know what a mood board style display implies. personally, my art isnt much until the final product so showing the process would be difficult. but i think the most important part is cohesion.. however we might achieve that."
-Maria
"^ I agree with this.
obviously i havent had a chance to meet with you, but my work sort of only works as the end product. though i like the idea of documenting a process."
-Chris
Then we discussed whether documentation of our practice should go into the exhibition i.e. photgraphs of processes and development. I insisted this should not be necessary, as process should be shown anyway. But this is my opinion and the way my practiceworks.
There is a clash of opinions and debate already, which is exciting.
05/04/12
I've been thinking maybe I should create a sort of jellyfish style sculpture as a piece for my exhibition. Jellyfish are quite alien-like and the sculptural form I fabricate could be highly imaginary and taken from my head. This would help the finished piece not be too obviously a jellyfish, and open to interpretation.
I want to continue my themes of process with industrial materials and use of linear structure (i.e. rope, string, Eva Hesse style) yet combine it with my envronmental and ecological concerns. So I will use the great barrier reef and marine biology as a basis for my research. These two themes combined definitely suggest a jellyfish style form.
I have the ideas and motivation to my work, now it is time to collect up som materials and actually begin making up some work. The stage of the Fine Art processs I typically find the most challenging.
11/04/12
After a substantial break from my practice and stepping away from my work for a while over Easter I have realised I need to re-immerse myself again.
I begin this by looking at exhibitions in which to visit, I have found Thomas Ruff at the Gasgosian Gallery in the West End of London. This artist typically uses photography as a main medium, manipulating images digitally to create new imagery, he has been known for finding pornographic images on the web and distorting them by enlarging them until the point that they are unidentifiable.
But what I am to examine at this gallery is Ruff's exhibition "Ma.r.s", which contains astronomy based images of the planets, blown up on a large scale in which you can see every crevice and detail of a planet's surface. The look of these images intrigue me and seem relevant to my work in their use of texture on an organic being, interpreted onto something man made (the C print).
I feel as though my current work's theme of man made v the organic reflects my ecological concerns and the relationship between the natural state of our world and the circumstances the human race inflicts on this.
Along with that I intend to pop into the Tate Modern, I wanted to swerve away from the Tate and go to a more unknown gallery, but upon exploring the website I discovered that there is an entire section on Process Art on floor 5 of the gallery.
Facebook page is up and running, there is a lot of debate ensuing.
"Ok so building upon the previous discussion I feel that making the exhibition into a mood board styled space might work. We could even allow development to be presented in order to have a exhibition showing process as well as outcome?"
-Martin
People who did not attend the meetings are letting their opinion across, there seems to be a small clash in artistic morals and techniques, whilst the group of us that came to the meetings work through process and development, therefore love the idea of having a "moodboard" style exhibition space, the people who didnt show insist their work is purely based on end product.
"i dont know what a mood board style display implies. personally, my art isnt much until the final product so showing the process would be difficult. but i think the most important part is cohesion.. however we might achieve that."
-Maria
"^ I agree with this.
obviously i havent had a chance to meet with you, but my work sort of only works as the end product. though i like the idea of documenting a process."
-Chris
Then we discussed whether documentation of our practice should go into the exhibition i.e. photgraphs of processes and development. I insisted this should not be necessary, as process should be shown anyway. But this is my opinion and the way my practiceworks.
There is a clash of opinions and debate already, which is exciting.
05/04/12
I've been thinking maybe I should create a sort of jellyfish style sculpture as a piece for my exhibition. Jellyfish are quite alien-like and the sculptural form I fabricate could be highly imaginary and taken from my head. This would help the finished piece not be too obviously a jellyfish, and open to interpretation.
I want to continue my themes of process with industrial materials and use of linear structure (i.e. rope, string, Eva Hesse style) yet combine it with my envronmental and ecological concerns. So I will use the great barrier reef and marine biology as a basis for my research. These two themes combined definitely suggest a jellyfish style form.
I have the ideas and motivation to my work, now it is time to collect up som materials and actually begin making up some work. The stage of the Fine Art processs I typically find the most challenging.
11/04/12
After a substantial break from my practice and stepping away from my work for a while over Easter I have realised I need to re-immerse myself again.
I begin this by looking at exhibitions in which to visit, I have found Thomas Ruff at the Gasgosian Gallery in the West End of London. This artist typically uses photography as a main medium, manipulating images digitally to create new imagery, he has been known for finding pornographic images on the web and distorting them by enlarging them until the point that they are unidentifiable.
 |
| "Nude dr02" 2011, C-Print |
But what I am to examine at this gallery is Ruff's exhibition "Ma.r.s", which contains astronomy based images of the planets, blown up on a large scale in which you can see every crevice and detail of a planet's surface. The look of these images intrigue me and seem relevant to my work in their use of texture on an organic being, interpreted onto something man made (the C print).
I feel as though my current work's theme of man made v the organic reflects my ecological concerns and the relationship between the natural state of our world and the circumstances the human race inflicts on this.
Along with that I intend to pop into the Tate Modern, I wanted to swerve away from the Tate and go to a more unknown gallery, but upon exploring the website I discovered that there is an entire section on Process Art on floor 5 of the gallery.
" Sculpture addressed its immediate surroundings in new ways, drawing attention to the architecture of the gallery or gesturing to the space outside its walls."
. 2012. . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks?rid=5636&ws=date&wv=grid.
[Accessed 12 April 2012].
[Accessed 12 April 2012].
This statement I read on the Process Art section of the Tate Modern website interested me, and made me consider my work in context to the space we will be exhibiting in. And how to produce work in response to the area, a theme that always interested me. I should definitely visit the Tate Modern now in order to view this personally, and consider some other elements that make up a good exhibition. I will take my notebook and examine the space and elements of the exhibition space i.e. light, wall space, shelving, pinning.
So maybe I should create my final piece in the space the day before exhibiting?
I can only know this once I have made prototypes and development for my final piece. So I need to get cracking, really.
16/04/12
GROUP MEETING 3
This was the preliminary meeting we decided to hold the day before we returned to uni with our statements of intent, risk assessment and group proposal forms. We are still going strong with the moodboard/"difference of opinions" ideas for our exhibition and pushing them forward until the day of our set up, Monday 23rd.
We want to create a somewhat "anti-exhibition" by having our work chaotically rammed together on one wall, to almost make one large piece. It's going to be informal, clashing and juxstaposed; hence "difference of opinions". Especially highlighted by the fact the pieces will be easily compared to one another, as they are all so close together in hanging and presentation. Unlike a more formal exhibition, which usually sees a piece hung in a blank space, provising more emphasis on the work.
This was the largest meeting we have had to date, with nearly all of us, bar one, showing up. This is a major concern for us, we have planned almost everything, we all know what pieces were using and we are going ahead with the moodboard idea. We're concerned once all of us are here on the Monday there will be disagreements, especially for the people who rarely attend, so are somewhat out of the loop. However, this funnily enough, ties in with our theme of difference of opinions.
Anyway, we have our proposal down now:
16/04/12
GROUP MEETING 3
This was the preliminary meeting we decided to hold the day before we returned to uni with our statements of intent, risk assessment and group proposal forms. We are still going strong with the moodboard/"difference of opinions" ideas for our exhibition and pushing them forward until the day of our set up, Monday 23rd.
We want to create a somewhat "anti-exhibition" by having our work chaotically rammed together on one wall, to almost make one large piece. It's going to be informal, clashing and juxstaposed; hence "difference of opinions". Especially highlighted by the fact the pieces will be easily compared to one another, as they are all so close together in hanging and presentation. Unlike a more formal exhibition, which usually sees a piece hung in a blank space, provising more emphasis on the work.
This was the largest meeting we have had to date, with nearly all of us, bar one, showing up. This is a major concern for us, we have planned almost everything, we all know what pieces were using and we are going ahead with the moodboard idea. We're concerned once all of us are here on the Monday there will be disagreements, especially for the people who rarely attend, so are somewhat out of the loop. However, this funnily enough, ties in with our theme of difference of opinions.
Anyway, we have our proposal down now:
"Our themes look at the individuality of mankind. Whether we choose to depict human nature in our work or the outcome of what we produce is the act of our individuality, it will all, in some way or another, share these themes and when displayed together. In a way, this is collaboration. We have been discussing a ‘moodboard’ style of display to abolish the formality of gallery spaces. We feel that this will show the real act of human nature, to explore how each of our works, when displayed in an informal way, can have baring on how the others’ is perceived or viewed."
19/04/12
GROUP MEETING 4
A much more successful meeting today than the other day, everyone seemed to gel together that bit better. We discussed our presentation, and how we could make it interesting, which was something we focused on quite a bit. We said how it is important that the presentation should really keep the viewers attention, and how we have all had experience in the past with boring, run of the mill, powerpoint click click presentations. So we now have lots of plans to involve viewer interaction with our presentation.
We also established a structure for the verbal part of the presentation, including an introduction (viewer activity), explanation of our theme, how our theme came about, our individual practices coming together as one, how this affects our display method and the conclusion (how it worked, how it didn't work).
Now I just need to work on my individual powerpoint, which includes me discussing and explaining my work and my influences.
As for my current practice, I still have no idea. I feel sort of demotivated, and stuck. Things will come together again at some point, but for now I plan to continue with the themes and materials I used in BA2.
Telling people that my current work is about the state of our planets oceans and marine life isn't enough for some reason. I need to research into what element of this I am interested in, but then again I dont see why I have to. I bleat again, I just want my work to have a purpose. With a medium as powerful and emotive as Fine Art, it seems to be wasted on certain ideologies such as "the gravity" or "the pressure" of "the ocean".
I find environmentalism more important than Fine Art in general. My priorities in my work are different to other Artists, I am learning this now.
23/04/12
EXHIBITION SET UP DAY
Today was surprisingly, quite relaxed when it came to putting our work up and working as a team. Contrasting to all the other exhibitions I have partaken in and have contained a certain amount of stress due to there not being enough time, but in this case we had from 9-5 to get everything in order.
We began the day by laying all our work out on the floor as a mock-wall and establishing the structure and formation of the work to eachother, and the wall. We still wanted to create a chaotic, moodboard-style effect with the cluttered layout of our work, an abolishment to the usual gallery format which drowns a piece in white space.
Once
all our work was up we decided to add some last minute promotion materials, so we
printed off some posters we had made earlier on that week. We also added name
tags to sit underneath our work. We located these posters in the space (so to
allow viewers an explanation and information of our exhibition space) and at
the end of the corridor’s door, so to guide viewers down to the end of the
corridor, in which our work was located
Looking at the rest of the exhibition and everyone elses work, I realised how I miss drawing, and creating a texture on page out of fine line. I might introduce drawing back into this project. Someone next to our space had created these tiny webs out of silver string, that were concealed almost by their small size, and their location, which was on a window and in a corner, they were so tiny they were practically unnoticeable. I like this because it means the viewer has to get up close and interact with the piece, and it can be bypassed accidentally. I was asked why my work is on a small scale in my presentation today and I replied with my above point about viewer interaction.
These webs got me thinking again about mimicking a natural object with man made material. But what makes a man made material "man made"? Maybe this is the direction for my practice, to look into this idea of process and reaction more. Who knows.
23/04/12
EXHIBITION SET UP DAY
Today was surprisingly, quite relaxed when it came to putting our work up and working as a team. Contrasting to all the other exhibitions I have partaken in and have contained a certain amount of stress due to there not being enough time, but in this case we had from 9-5 to get everything in order.
We began the day by laying all our work out on the floor as a mock-wall and establishing the structure and formation of the work to eachother, and the wall. We still wanted to create a chaotic, moodboard-style effect with the cluttered layout of our work, an abolishment to the usual gallery format which drowns a piece in white space.
Factors we considered in the placement of our
work was how the work hung and interesting ways in which the work could be
compared and contrasted next to eachother in the moodboard style. We looked at
colours, we noticed a theme of whites, blues and rusts, which was mostly
planned (by people who attended the meetings anyway) but serendipitously
harmonized. We were interested in and pleased about this. We also looked at
themes, Sophie and Helen’s portraiture and feature of the human face, which
lead for their work to be positioned next to eachother. There was an element of
the organic, especially in the floral with Rachael’s digital drawing of a bursting
floral design, and Chris’ jars containing roses. My worked laced into this
slightly, with its suggestions of the organic and the visceral, but mostly partnered
with Maria’s record sleeves that had been altered by painting over with animal
blood, and rusting spray can. It was interesting to see how all our work
almost, partnered with eachothers.
After we had structured the positioning of our work it was
time to consider the technical aspects of our work i.e. how were we going to
hang it, what equipment was required. Nails, pins and double sided tape was
needed, along with drills and hammers. We chose the way to hang the work and
with what equipment in context with what the work was. For example, I thought
my “coral” pieces (photo above, lower right piece) would speak better with no
nails or pins attached, so I mounted it in a grid shape with foam tape. With
pins or nails attached, there would have been too much going on, with the coral
shapes already protruding from it, and it would have been hard to hang them
flat onto the wall. I pinned the net up with two small, white drawing pins
(white and small to not distract from work), and the canvas piece was slung
onto one nail. Other technical issues we faced was the state of the space and
the wall, holes had been left on the wall from previous exhibitions and old
nails too. So we had to patch these things up a bit.
It was difficult getting everyone together to place their
work on the wall, as members of the group would wander off. We were one of the
last groups to finish in the building, sadly only about four or five out of the
seven of us stayed in contact through the entire planning of our exhibition,
and communicated well. And even more disappointingly, the day of our exhibition
set up was the first day every single member of our group attended a meeting.
Our group was definitely mixed, a couple of seemed to have
their own agenda and followed what they wanted to do. But in my opinion, this
works well with our theme of the human condition and difference of opinions.
Once
all our work was up we decided to add some last minute promotion materials, so we
printed off some posters we had made earlier on that week. We also added name
tags to sit underneath our work. We located these posters in the space (so to
allow viewers an explanation and information of our exhibition space) and at
the end of the corridor’s door, so to guide viewers down to the end of the
corridor, in which our work was located
And then our exhibition space was ready for the public, we
cleaned up and made the space presentable by removing leftover materials (i.e.
nails, masking tape).
On the whole, I approved of the presentation of the chosen
work in our exhibition space. The work flowed and you could look from left to
right of the wall and see correlations in colour, theme and media. However, I
do wish we had digressed more and narrowed down our theme of the human
condition. The human condition is an extremely broad concept, it essentially
means what it is to be a human. And anything could fit under that. But our
group were too disorganized, and it was hard to debate and think of another
theme when over half of our group were not there. This could not have been
helped, but this experience definitely taught me how to deal with people a bit
more, especially in a creative environment, and how to have more tolerance. And highlighted to myself that I am in fact quite a realible person who can work
well in a group. Working in a group appears to suit me better than working on
my own. At this period in my work anyway.
24/04/12
Today was our group and individual presentations. I hope they went well, I feel as though I spoke clearly about my own work, I covered all areas, including how I began my love affair with industrial materials, last year on art foundation, the natural elements influence on my work and how process art and artists inspired me. I was concise on everything just not my current work- which i still feel confused about, unfortunately.
Our group presentation went smoothly, it was mostly like a discussion, as we had no access to a computer and projector, and only one year 0 student showed up so we couldnt do the introduction we planned to do. We structured the presentation like an discussion amongst us, and we all said something about the exhibition, the pros and cons of it. 24/04/12
Today was our group and individual presentations. I hope they went well, I feel as though I spoke clearly about my own work, I covered all areas, including how I began my love affair with industrial materials, last year on art foundation, the natural elements influence on my work and how process art and artists inspired me. I was concise on everything just not my current work- which i still feel confused about, unfortunately.
Looking at the rest of the exhibition and everyone elses work, I realised how I miss drawing, and creating a texture on page out of fine line. I might introduce drawing back into this project. Someone next to our space had created these tiny webs out of silver string, that were concealed almost by their small size, and their location, which was on a window and in a corner, they were so tiny they were practically unnoticeable. I like this because it means the viewer has to get up close and interact with the piece, and it can be bypassed accidentally. I was asked why my work is on a small scale in my presentation today and I replied with my above point about viewer interaction.
These webs got me thinking again about mimicking a natural object with man made material. But what makes a man made material "man made"? Maybe this is the direction for my practice, to look into this idea of process and reaction more. Who knows.
01/05/12
I vowed to
myself to leave my work for a while, to stop making material sketches, in an
almost hiatus way, to discover to myself what it was about marine life, the
ocean and conservation that interested me so. To me its quite indescribable,
almost nostalgic. But I have to articulate this in order for my work to make
sense to my audience.
The ocean
is very nostalgic to me, it reminds me of childhood holidays, and being
on my own in the ocean with my thoughts. To me, the sea was like an entire
other planet, totally alien. Everything was blue. There was no gravity down there, and
I fascinated by the way life hovered around in such a graceful way. Now, the look of the tendrilous jellyfish interests
me aesthetically, and is relevant to this theme of gravity, and I can see
patterns in its tentacles to my work of BA2 which was rather tendrilly as well.
This lack
of gravity links into my work, with my hanging sculptures, and makes me
possibly wonder if this is why I have moved onto the sea as a topic. Gravity
and the natural elements have been recently influencing my work, I like letting
things decay (DAISIES IN BOX), things hang (SCULPTURES) and things dry and
react (LATEX), to have an organic process. And the ocean has all the natural
processes you need. This means I can look at process art and newly, mono-ha as
contextual work. And in a way this might inspire me in my practice, as i still
feel quite dumbfounded as to what to create.
This leads
me onto conservation and the fragility of the sea life that
fascinates me, especially in the coral life of the great barrier reef. Coral
can often get under “thermal stress” when temperatures rise due to high
CO2 emission, causing them to bleach and lose all pigmentation, making them
turn a ghostly white colour. This colour is very white and sterile, I find it
somewhat sad and in a way, poetic. This interests me aesthetically as well as
morally. And that people usually forget coral is actually a living
organism.
In
accordance to this, I plan to look at Land Art, especially this sculptureby Jason Decaires Taylor, that features stone statues of people standing on the
ocean floor. Agian this could prortray the coexistence of man and sea life
and how they influence eachother. I also want to look at Anthony Gormley’s
“Another Place”, Which to me represents the
dreamy, serene and introverted relationship man can often have with water and
the beach.
 |
| Detail from Anthony Gormley's "Another Place" |
There is a
certain fragility in the ocean, with the silence, lack of gravity and
fluctuating well being of marine life, that fluctuates with the lives of the
humans on the surface. And this united
fragility and strength is what I want to portray aesthetically through my
work.
SO BASICALLY:
- the colour blue/ultramarine= a colour I have been very revolved round recently anyway
- lack of gravity
- the sea as a place of quiet reflection and serenity
- fragility and strength in natural world (gravity, air, coral)
- my childhood
- conservation
(- chemical reaction and process)
CONTEXTUAL THINGS:
- Anthony Gormley
- land art
- mono ha
- process art
WHAT I PLAN TO DO:
- try and mimic these feelings and thoughts through material
- i.e. make chemical reactions, items that mimic these thoughts i.e. coral, sea life, process
- visit a Norfolk beach to experience this feeling of introversion, collect objects and find an appropriate way to portray the above thoughts
02/05/12
Today I began experimenting with new materials to create a chemical reaction, it was quite a free and serendipitous process, which involved me spraying spray paint onto polystyrene, in which the polystyrene melted and bubbled. I decided to look into what caused this process and after research I have found that the polystyrene is petroleum based and so is polystyrene, and the solvents act immediately to break down the chemical bondsin the polystyrene, causing the polystyrene to melt, blister and bubble.I used a coral shade of pink as a play on words, and tried to create a geological and coral looking form, in the end it did not look like a coral or another sea based form, but i have decided to continue this process further as trial and error.
I also decided, after the exhibition when many questions included in my viewer feedback were "why is your work so white?", to dye some of my common materials in my practice. I dyed some of the coral pieces and my familiar string, in a way I prefer them white, they look more interesting and sterile, and I find that the colour distracts from the form.
So I have decided to get more neutral inks (oranges, browns) for next time, which leads me onto my next material endeavour. Something that came around, again, quite serendipitously, was the act of throwing the material onto the canvas. I began throwing scrunched up, dyed tissue onto a canvas, which then led me to making a mechanism that let the tissue just drop onto the canvas with the influence of gravity. It was very process based, and ended up becoming a performance piece, that I recorded:
Again, the colours were too garish looking, and to me, felt quite tacky and gimicky. So again, I plan to get more neutral coloured inks and try this process again.
03/05/12
Journeys & Mementos
With the beach as a place of serenity I decided to go to the library to look into the idea of a sense of place. I found "Silent Spaces" by Chris Drury, an environmental artist who walks wild landscapes of the world and creates sculptures in context and response to that natural environment. My favourite piece of his is "Medicine Wheel" a piece in which Drury collected an item on an afternoon walk in Sussex every day for a year, creating an object calendar.
When I think about it, the experience of making small sculptures is turning too trivial and external for me. These works are pulled from my imagination, and i dont know if that's enough any more. The idea of using an experience of travel as art sounds more raw and real to me. I have recorded "journeys" before on Art Foundation and as a brief I really enjoyed it.
Maybe the idea of a journey as a starting point for my art will really get me going, creatively.
If I had the resources and time I would lose myself in somewhere wild, like the Yorkshire moors for example, with a companion, or maybe even on my own, with some living supplies. And I would record the entire thing as an experience of travel.
When I think about it, recently I've become interested in the idea of documenting a memory or a place, whether it be through photography, sketches, mapping (i.e. facebook check-ins) and collecting items as a memento.
Sometimes I do wonder, is it the travelling I so enjoy, or the documenting of the travelling?
What I plan to do next is go to the beach as a journey, and record this, and to continue my current practice of process and sculpture to see if that can cohere with my ideas of Journey & Mementos. I think visiting a beach is a good idea as it combines my two current concerns in my practice of a sense of journey and place and the ocean.
05/05/12
Sheringham beach, 05/05/12. What struck me the most about this part of Norfolk was the immense amount of silence. Walking through the town there were quite a lot of people but it was very quiet, the loudest noise was the clacking of my cowboy boots, and the quite drone rustling of coat or bag. The beach was just as serene. I was comfortable in this silence and found it refreshing, but my flatmate said it "freaked" her out. I saw the contrast later when the tide came in and noisily roared over the rocks. I wish there was a way to portray this through my work, I'll try with the materials I have collected.
06/05/12
By looking at "Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook" I have extrapolated and researched into the conceptual concerns of my work, which is a combination of environmentalism and process. Now practically, I look into Land Art, which falls into an energy and process umbrella of contextualization, like which I saw at the Tate Modern. These two phenomenons are described as two key elements to this book I'm referring to (see above) (no wonder I was drawn to read it so much!)
""Land Art" belongs to a movement during which... art practice seemed to take unprecedented forms and directions, broadcasted itself on new creative frequencies and becoming increasingly concerned with, for example, process and language... As practice took an informational or documentary idioms and was manifested in multifarious situations and contexts beyond the gallery. Within this, what is often called Land art- overlapping with a range of terms such a "earthworks" or "organic matter art" saw artists working directly into the landscape and with natural materials."
- "Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook", pg.18, paragraph 1, Max Andrews
And so I did this yesterday, I made sculptures in context with the space.
I used old fishermans rope to tie to an old rusting boat hook, still displaying my interest in gravity's influence on matter. I like the way the rope surely attaches to the hook, grasping on. This piece reflected the traditional fishing industry in the small town of Sheringham, and portrayed my interest in mans reliance on the earth's resources and how, written by Lucy Lippard in "Land, Art", the land is one being combined with man and history and how the earth and man have to be at a sustainable balance in order to keep eachother alive.
I took this piece into a domestic context too:
(ROPE PEICE IN METRO)
The next land based piece I made was with some old fish egg cases I found washed up on the beach, I took them over to grass and formatted them.I thought them on the sand would be too obvious they are marine and too gimicky. I love the globular shape and intricate detail of the small pods that have been forced open by the tiny fishes birth (noticeably observed by the little openings in the pods). There's something very delicate and poetic about them.
I collected other items to record the journey with (as previously explained, Chris Drury style) including: fish and chips paper, seaweeds, old plastic rope, fish eggs, driftwood and a crabs leg. I intend to create more sketches with them through process tomorrow.
07/05/12
Looking at artist, Alfredo Jarr, reknowned for creating socio-political and war orientated works, I thought to myself about something in the world I'd want to change. Something close to me. I thought a bit literally, and my home town came to mind. I thought of the countryside views there, and then it hit me. The HS2 line. Something that has angered me for a while now, known for being heavily opposed to. It has no business case, and it is bease on unrealistic assumptions, the environmental impact has not been assessed, it is not green and thre "money could be spent on better things". Of course what angers me the most is how the line is set to cut through a national heritage site of Buckinghamshire destroying wildlife habitats for various organisms. This is somewhat irrelevant to my current project, even if the same sentiment is there, but I plan to look into this over independent study period.
10/05/12
SO BASICALLY:
- the colour blue/ultramarine= a colour I have been very revolved round recently anyway
- lack of gravity
- the sea as a place of quiet reflection and serenity
- fragility and strength in natural world (gravity, air, coral)
- my childhood
- conservation
(- chemical reaction and process)
CONTEXTUAL THINGS:
- Anthony Gormley
- land art
- mono ha
- process art
WHAT I PLAN TO DO:
- try and mimic these feelings and thoughts through material
- i.e. make chemical reactions, items that mimic these thoughts i.e. coral, sea life, process
- visit a Norfolk beach to experience this feeling of introversion, collect objects and find an appropriate way to portray the above thoughts
02/05/12
Today I began experimenting with new materials to create a chemical reaction, it was quite a free and serendipitous process, which involved me spraying spray paint onto polystyrene, in which the polystyrene melted and bubbled. I decided to look into what caused this process and after research I have found that the polystyrene is petroleum based and so is polystyrene, and the solvents act immediately to break down the chemical bondsin the polystyrene, causing the polystyrene to melt, blister and bubble.I used a coral shade of pink as a play on words, and tried to create a geological and coral looking form, in the end it did not look like a coral or another sea based form, but i have decided to continue this process further as trial and error.
I also decided, after the exhibition when many questions included in my viewer feedback were "why is your work so white?", to dye some of my common materials in my practice. I dyed some of the coral pieces and my familiar string, in a way I prefer them white, they look more interesting and sterile, and I find that the colour distracts from the form.
So I have decided to get more neutral inks (oranges, browns) for next time, which leads me onto my next material endeavour. Something that came around, again, quite serendipitously, was the act of throwing the material onto the canvas. I began throwing scrunched up, dyed tissue onto a canvas, which then led me to making a mechanism that let the tissue just drop onto the canvas with the influence of gravity. It was very process based, and ended up becoming a performance piece, that I recorded:
Again, the colours were too garish looking, and to me, felt quite tacky and gimicky. So again, I plan to get more neutral coloured inks and try this process again.
03/05/12
Journeys & Mementos
"I wanted to see the world with openness, not from a fixed point of view. So I began using the very stuff of the world." -Chris Drury, environmental artist.
With the beach as a place of serenity I decided to go to the library to look into the idea of a sense of place. I found "Silent Spaces" by Chris Drury, an environmental artist who walks wild landscapes of the world and creates sculptures in context and response to that natural environment. My favourite piece of his is "Medicine Wheel" a piece in which Drury collected an item on an afternoon walk in Sussex every day for a year, creating an object calendar.
When I think about it, the experience of making small sculptures is turning too trivial and external for me. These works are pulled from my imagination, and i dont know if that's enough any more. The idea of using an experience of travel as art sounds more raw and real to me. I have recorded "journeys" before on Art Foundation and as a brief I really enjoyed it.
Maybe the idea of a journey as a starting point for my art will really get me going, creatively.
If I had the resources and time I would lose myself in somewhere wild, like the Yorkshire moors for example, with a companion, or maybe even on my own, with some living supplies. And I would record the entire thing as an experience of travel.
When I think about it, recently I've become interested in the idea of documenting a memory or a place, whether it be through photography, sketches, mapping (i.e. facebook check-ins) and collecting items as a memento.
Sometimes I do wonder, is it the travelling I so enjoy, or the documenting of the travelling?
What I plan to do next is go to the beach as a journey, and record this, and to continue my current practice of process and sculpture to see if that can cohere with my ideas of Journey & Mementos. I think visiting a beach is a good idea as it combines my two current concerns in my practice of a sense of journey and place and the ocean.
05/05/12
Sheringham beach, 05/05/12. What struck me the most about this part of Norfolk was the immense amount of silence. Walking through the town there were quite a lot of people but it was very quiet, the loudest noise was the clacking of my cowboy boots, and the quite drone rustling of coat or bag. The beach was just as serene. I was comfortable in this silence and found it refreshing, but my flatmate said it "freaked" her out. I saw the contrast later when the tide came in and noisily roared over the rocks. I wish there was a way to portray this through my work, I'll try with the materials I have collected.
06/05/12
By looking at "Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook" I have extrapolated and researched into the conceptual concerns of my work, which is a combination of environmentalism and process. Now practically, I look into Land Art, which falls into an energy and process umbrella of contextualization, like which I saw at the Tate Modern. These two phenomenons are described as two key elements to this book I'm referring to (see above) (no wonder I was drawn to read it so much!)
""Land Art" belongs to a movement during which... art practice seemed to take unprecedented forms and directions, broadcasted itself on new creative frequencies and becoming increasingly concerned with, for example, process and language... As practice took an informational or documentary idioms and was manifested in multifarious situations and contexts beyond the gallery. Within this, what is often called Land art- overlapping with a range of terms such a "earthworks" or "organic matter art" saw artists working directly into the landscape and with natural materials."
- "Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook", pg.18, paragraph 1, Max Andrews
And so I did this yesterday, I made sculptures in context with the space.
I used old fishermans rope to tie to an old rusting boat hook, still displaying my interest in gravity's influence on matter. I like the way the rope surely attaches to the hook, grasping on. This piece reflected the traditional fishing industry in the small town of Sheringham, and portrayed my interest in mans reliance on the earth's resources and how, written by Lucy Lippard in "Land, Art", the land is one being combined with man and history and how the earth and man have to be at a sustainable balance in order to keep eachother alive.
I took this piece into a domestic context too:
The next land based piece I made was with some old fish egg cases I found washed up on the beach, I took them over to grass and formatted them.I thought them on the sand would be too obvious they are marine and too gimicky. I love the globular shape and intricate detail of the small pods that have been forced open by the tiny fishes birth (noticeably observed by the little openings in the pods). There's something very delicate and poetic about them.
I collected other items to record the journey with (as previously explained, Chris Drury style) including: fish and chips paper, seaweeds, old plastic rope, fish eggs, driftwood and a crabs leg. I intend to create more sketches with them through process tomorrow.
07/05/12
Looking at artist, Alfredo Jarr, reknowned for creating socio-political and war orientated works, I thought to myself about something in the world I'd want to change. Something close to me. I thought a bit literally, and my home town came to mind. I thought of the countryside views there, and then it hit me. The HS2 line. Something that has angered me for a while now, known for being heavily opposed to. It has no business case, and it is bease on unrealistic assumptions, the environmental impact has not been assessed, it is not green and thre "money could be spent on better things". Of course what angers me the most is how the line is set to cut through a national heritage site of Buckinghamshire destroying wildlife habitats for various organisms. This is somewhat irrelevant to my current project, even if the same sentiment is there, but I plan to look into this over independent study period.
10/05/12
I was fascinated with the minute detail seen in some of the
samples I collected, I loved how small and delicate they were and how you could
see other particles that make up these forms when you look closer. In a way,
this last piece I made was quite anatomical and almost scientific. I framed
these samples to box them in, to give them an idea of scale and boundary. After
looking at artists like Joseph Cornell, I grew interested in collecting and
storing interesting curio in a fascinating way. I have noticed this about my
practice in BA3, I enjoy gridding my work, maybe it is me trying to pin down
something that inspires me in a concise way. Like taming and pinning down
something wild, especially seen with this piece. I have realized during this
unit that I enjoy creating pieces on a small scale; I like the viewer to have
to scrutinize. But next year I do plan to begin to expand the scale in which I
work on, to give the work more room to breathe. I am here to explore methods
and techniques artistically, and this means getting out of my comfort zone.
The work seen previously here is what I ended up showcasing in a
small solo exhibition in my university halls (see page 35), I changed the
contents of the frames, and made them half material created by a human and half
completely organic matter.
I have meddled through many different concepts and materials
this term, ecology, journeys, mementos, process. But I thought this piece
reflected my concerns with how on earth man and nature balance themselves out
in order to survive, a theme that has construed itself my entire first year
here. Seen especially earlier with my trip to the beach, in which the power of
nature was displayed through the massive ocean waves. Like Lucy Lippard said
“more and more people are beginning to get the message that nature may not give
a damn about us, but we’d sure better give a damn about nature.”
