BA7 Journal

21/08/13

Concerns I have noted that are beginning to come together in my work

- THE HOME

- CONSUMERISM

- ABUSE

All of these subjects are relevant to my childhood and upbringing, therefore commit to my identity. Which is something I have been viscerally exploring through my summer "sketchbook". 

Here is a short animation of my sketchbook

I re-realised my fascination with the domestic space after visiting James Franco's "Psycho Nacirema", in which he re-created the set of the Bates Hotel, and defaced it with paint, juxtaposing the original story of "Psycho" with a whole new, albeit, more personal narrative. 

I am still very much intrigued by a specific use of space as an installation in a gallery setting. For example, taking a gallery space and transforming it into something completely different, so that there is even a feeling of disorientation in the viewer who is experiencing the piece. 

Franco definitely achieved this, particularly through the final conclusive room in the Pace gallery, where he made a cinematic installation setting. An old rusted bed instructing you to sit on it rests in the centre of the room, then the walls are covered in projections of a film recreating the Fatty Arbuckle murder case of 1920. In this room, the viewer is forced to become part of the narrative, and is faced with graphic images or murder, sex and rape. 

I think this exhibition is actor James Franco's way of communicating a darker side to the glamour of the silver screen. He is also commenting on the contrast between fiction and fact, with Psycho being an entirely written and made up film by Hitchcock, and the Fatty Arbuckle scandal being something that happened, although completely reputed and left unresolved. Franco here explores the blurred lines between fact and fiction, the real horror seen in crime. 

Franco appeals to and investigates the psychological side of Hitchcock's work, exploring the medium of cinema as an entrenchment of the collective consciousness.

In response to the Mise en scene seen in Psycho Nacirema, I recreated my own domestic, and trepidatious scene of potential horror or fear in a dolls house. Dolls houses have always been special to me, I loved making up my own mini-dramas and narratives in them when I was a child, and I think the same thing is achieved through film and writing fiction. You can let the imagination run free and create personas, characters and situations. 

I definitely see an influence in these photographs from Richard Billingham, through the flashlight-esque lighting, and dark corners in the scene. Not only that, but the emotional content, as we see figures collapsed on the ground, and the overall grotty and messy mood seen in my images. 

In a symbolic and aesthetic way, I have been drawing spiders webs. As they are obviously the home setting for spiders, they are also a trap. Which I feel a home setting can be sometimes. The domestic, although meant to be a safe place, can often end up a space of conflict and claustrophobia. I have experience of this in the past, and this is why I am maybe deciding to explore it through my practice.

I admire the linear qualities of a spiders web. I made nets a lot in first year, and I love the textile qualities seen in the delicate yet strong nature of a web. Not only that, I enjoyed making nets. So I may return to that as a materialistic area of enquiry. 

Obviously this lead me to look at Louise Bourgeois, whose work also contained symbolism with arachnids. The spider was commonly known in her practice as a maternal figure. And her practice also accentuated a lot on her childhood attributing to her adulthood neuroses. 

A big theme of her work is the dual nature of domestic comfort and confinement – the safety of the womb (and maybe also of the somewhat reclusive and artificial world of the artist– art is, after all, a form of domesticity – the safe space of the studio similar to a womb – a quiet place of creation) and the desire to break free of the oppression of the comforts of home and nurturance that can sometimes stifle, also necessary for creation and individual expression.

12/09/13

   Tomorrow I am doing a galleries visit in London, and over Saturday as well. I have researched some relevant artist's to look at. But my main objective for the weekend's trip is to analyse the use of the gallery space as a vehicle for an artist's representation. 
   Recently I attended Meschac Gaba's "Museum of Contemporary African Art" which is a transmutation of the contemporary gallery space into something more fundamental and precise. He compartmentalises the space into different rooms and genres such as Religion, money and knowledge in a church space, a salon and a library. 
   Through this project Gaba is questioning the gallery space's relation to the artist and their work and creating a more narrative mise en scene, rather like James Franco's "Psycho Nacirema" exhibition I visited a few months ago.
   These exhibitions I have seen really have made me ponder on the use of a gallery space, and ask if the gallery space is actually relevant any more? Is the gallery just a marketing tactic for the Fine Art industry? 
   Did James Franco and Gaba want their art to be more relatable? 
   Gaba's exhibition definitely had an element of interactivity in it, encouraging visitors to directly engage physically with some of the art work.

"The desire, in the artist’s words, ‘to share my fantasy’ continues throughout many of the twelve rooms. In the Salon visitors are invited to play the Adji computer game, an adaptation of the traditional African game Awélé. In the Architecture Room the public can build their own imaginary museum using wooden blocks, and in the Game Room gallery goers are able to play with sliding puzzle tables, reconfiguring the flags of Chad, Angola, Algeria, Senegal, Seychelles and Morocco.

While interactivity is a crucial part of this project, collaboration is equally so. Other artists have contributed objects to the Museum Shop, and have prepared and hosted dinners in the Museum Restaurant; the role of curators is enshrined in theLibrary with a ‘curators’ table’, and in the Architecture Room there is a ladder with colourful plexiglass treads inscribed with the names of the institutions and organisers who have presented Gaba’s project." - http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/meschac-gaba-museum-contemporary-african-art

   "Psycho Nacirema" had an element of this interactivity in this as well, except maybe not physically as much. Touching was permitted, except only in the final room in which you were allowed to sit on the bed to watch the film. 

   "Pyscho Nacirema" interested me more in the sense that it was a claustrophobically domestic space, which is something I am interested in and working through in my artistic practice right now. Gaba's exhibition at the Tate Modern also held this, except his work contained more frivolity, echoed through the bright colours and childish arranging of objects. 

The Art and Religion "room" at Gaba's Museum of Contemporary African Art.

   This is noted in the Art and Religion section of the exhibition, which is a cross shaped structure made out of Plywood, it is cage like, which interested me, is this metaphorical? Does it suggest the trap we can be often left in through religion? How if we are born a certain religion, it's not usual to stray to another religion? 

  I digress, the Art and Religion was shelved, and on these little shelves, sat various religious icons. This part was probably my favourite part of this exhibition. It reminded me of how there is only one God, but  religions translate him as another figure. The icons were spangly and colourful, particularly one Hindu Ganesha which was even adorned with fairy lights. This brightness seemed juvenile to me.

   Conclusively, these two exhibitions both re-write the gallery format of an exhibition. And I intend to explore this idea of the exhibition space further tomorrow. Especially with shows such as "Open Cube" at the White Cube Gallery, which is Adriano Pedrosa challenging the atypical White Cube organisation, spatially and conceptually. 

   This idea excites and intrigues me, as a believer in that Fine Art should be shared with everyone, instead of sitting in a white cube on the highest shelf.

"Taking his cue from Brian O'Doherty's seminal book Inside the White Cube, the Ideology of the Gallery Space (1976), Pedrosa's exhibition challenges the identity of White Cube as an organisation, as a physical space and as a concept, questioning the complex relationships between existent notions of 'inside' and 'outside', value and economics. By opening up the curatorial selection process beyond his own networks and meeting with artists who were previously unknown to him, Pedrosa confronts what he perceives to be the standard gallery practice of seemingly closed systems that exist in the criteria for staging exhibitions." - http://whitecube.com/exhibitions/open_cube_masons_yard_2013/

   Not only thematically does the physical marginalisation of art interest me, I have looked at the conceptual marginalisation. In the sense of, which artist was involved, where did they go to art school, who bought their work. I want to look at the artist and their background too. And I did earlier on this summer when I explored more into the idea of the outsider artist, and I visited the Souzou exhibition at the Wellcome Collection. 

   In order to be a well known artist in the contemporary art industry, do you need to tick the required fields? Formal training, colleagues and associates, marketed art work?

‘Outsider Art’ has since become an internationally recognised term, commonly used to describe work made by artists who have received little or no tuition but produce work for the sake of creation alone, without an audience in mind, and who are perceived to inhabit the margins of mainstream society." - http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/souzou/introduction.aspx

   The souzou exhibiton at the Wellcome Collection used work by residents or day attendees of specialist care institutions. A lot of the artists featured in the Souzou exhibition have been diagnosed with a variety of different cognitive, behavioural and developmental disorders or mental illnesses. 

07/10/13

I feel like I have enquired into decay and time’s effect on the object more at the beginning of BA7. Even through the bare aesthetic of my progress, which is documented in a sixty year-old book. Last year I explored decay at BA5, by investigating into St. Andrew’s mental institute, which I feel combined my dual interest in psychotherapy and nostalgia.

   Nostalgia definitely holds a place in my current practice, which manifests itself in an exploration of my childhood, in particular, my childhood home.

   I am looking at the spider web as a symbol of domestic oppression and insecurity. Which is a theme that has affected my current psyche and the way I fundamentally view the world.

   Although “Ruins” is more a publication investigating socio-political and economic effects in history that can be inflicted on an architectural structure, from world war II to the preserved ruins of the Roman era, I still insist on sifling through to see if I can discover something that can hold some coherence to my own work. I wish to reach an area of this book that focuses on a domestic space. So I read more about Rachel Whiteread’s “House”.

   “House” has its own section in this publication, which is plucked from a book by Iain Sinclair titled “Lights Out for the Territory”,  a book narrating a psychogeographical route of London, documented and executed by Sinclair. This section of the book, chosen for Ruins, mainly emphasises on the process of making the sculpture, which was expected to have its obstacles. As the house used for Whiteread’s sculpture was in fact a preserved area.

   The model house for “House” was actually a home to someone, there was a sitting tenant inhabiting the property at the time of construction. It also belonged to the Gale family, through right of long occupation.

   Whiteread describes “House”’s intentions as “a mute memorial to everyday existence and the pathos of remembering”. And I feel as though this is a concisely accurate summary, as even the sculpture’s aesthetic reminds me of the cool white stone of a war memorial statue. The plaster poured into all the house’s empty space hardens, then casts, in a suffocating way, like it is being silenced forever. Which it quite literally is, as obviously with no air space due to the filling in of the gap, there is no reverberation, therefore no sound. Whiteread’s reflection on her work is highly accurate, she has literally muted the space.

Notable References

Sinclair, I. (2003) Lights Out for the Territory. London: Penguin

Whitechapel Art Gallery. and Dillon, B. (2011) Ruins. London: Whitechapel Gallery. (Documents of contemporary art).

11/10/13

      I used the interpretation of this image as a starting point for BA7, as I am reflecting on my childhood and relying on memories for this unit. My interpretation of a photograph of me as a child. Ink and bleach on cartridge paper. The face paint signifying an animal and I wanted to re-interpret that image and make it look more tribal, primal and more figurative and less obvious. Like an ambiguous cat-like being, as opposed to a small child with party face paint on. Transfiguring the juvenile joviality of the photo to the darker, less spoken about area of my young life. I just think every family has problems and I wanted to present that shameful taboo attached to that concept.

   Painting this piece was cathartic for me, I was feeling reflective on my childhood domestic situation affecting my personality. I wanted that to come across. 

Original photograph.

First attempt at painting, bleach did not negative the colour of the red ink.

Second attempt. Bleach worked and ran through the ink.

16/10/13

   I feel as though I have really hit the ground running this term through the manifestation of material experimentations I have executed in my studio space. I see myself truly thinking through making, which I have realised is a method that suits me perfectly. If I base too much of my practice on ideas and concepts I don't produce as much work as I would like to, nor does the concept translate through enough due to lack of trial and error. 

   I am looking at creating more figurative forms with my work, and instead of directly representing a form, i.e. a person, I intend to make work that more suggests at a fictional or fantasy form. I am studying work by Sarah Lucas and Paula Rego, that hints at the primal and animalistic, yet is made up of humanistic elements. Then again, humans can be primal too. And it's that subconscious primal drive that I have experienced recently in my personal life that I would like to explore through my work. Anxiety, desire, jealousy and sex can all be alluded to by an abstract form that is open to the viewer's interpretation. Now I just must perfect these formations so what I am trying to portray becomes more coherent. 

   Here I have been using my favourite media of the moment which is plaster of paris. I researched it with Rachel Whiteread and I revere it's muting qualities and sterile colour. There's something sort of eerie about it, possibly to do with how it sets quickly and dangerously if it is contact with skins or membranes. 

   At present these forms do not allude to any specific living organism to my eye. I can observe a tentacle like aesthetic, the string tendrils allude to possibly jellyfish or other marine animals. I particularly see this with the pieces I have made with the globular balloon and the latex bubbles which remind various viewers who have popped over to have a look, of seaweed. 
   But the last two images display the rabbit-like forms I worked with to allude to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that I am exploring in my research. 

23/10/13

   After a tutorial with Jenny I have realised the need for me to set small deadlines for myself to create work efficiently. I also see the requirement to use trial and error in my work to gauge which outcomes are successful or otherwise, I have created a small body of work now but I realise the need to create more higher quality work over quantity. I am enjoying owning my own collection of samples and sculptures, it is now time to upscale, to commence working towards the final degree show and presentation for BA7 assessment.  

   Theoretically I have discovered Sigmund Freud's theories on abreactive therapies, especially in young children's play. The methodology of reworking through traumatic experiences in order to purge it of it's emotional excesses, I am now looking at artists who do so, and trying to apply it to my own work.

'String' piece

'Ribcage' piece

   I am still working through the idea of the anthropomorphic but I am trying to relate this practical work back to a traumatic past event. I think the colour and form can especially allude to moments of childhood distress, and my next aim is to try and incorporate my family's past history with drug and alcohol abuse into my 3D works. I do not want to be so blatant with a representation as such, but more to suggest it. I feel as though I am already touching on that with my use of stark white colour (a certain purity, cocaine-like), and almost bodily forms that seem to be emerging in my above photographs, especially the ribcage sculpture (lungs, brains and entrails). 

   The next steps are to recreate the above works except on a larger scale. 

28/10/13

   As the first small scale globular sculpture I made came out so well, I have decided to recreate it larger, I began the process today, beginning with modelling wire to make a skeletal structure, then lacing the string into it. 

   

I am glad to see that this piece already reminds me and others of spiders or spiders webs, and I see that correlation between my work and Louise Bourgeois', which also contains that same element of catharsis and self-reflection that my practice has. I also note the vaguely anthropomorphic form which I wanted to portray in my work as a abreaction of my vivid childhood imagination and escapism. 

01/11/13

   Still working on the previous cage-like sculpture and receiving some interesting perspectives on it. After someone saying it reminded them of a lampshade I now can't get the idea of that out of my head, and all concept and aesthetic to it is diminished by the decorative.

   I am trying to figure out how my work is abreactive, how I am working through a childhood or previous trauma through my work. In a way I see that through the spidery look of my work, that the web reminds me of the confinements and fear that I often associate with my pre-pubescent home. The web to a spider is it's home, but webs are also a place of entrapment for the enemy. And there was a lot of conflict and chaos in my childhood domestic situation. 

   Looking at Alice Anderson who also deals with childhood but mainly abreactive childhood rituals. Her ritual was to wrap items in hair and unravel thread when she was anxious when her mother was absent. Also her use of linear structure wrapped around an architectural space in a suffocating and abundant technique reminds me of the way I am making my string sculptures. She mummifies objects, which I have claimed I do myself in my sculptural practice. 

'Cocoon', 2011, mixed media

'Synapses', 2010, red fibre

'Cameras', Bauer Super 8 Camera, Canon camera, copper threads

                     

'Crossing', 50 000m red fibre, 2011

'Childhood Rituals' red fibre wrapped around the Freud museum in London

Here is a good selection of Anderson's work. 

08/11/13 

   After looking at Alice Anderson's usage of the childhood ritual that can be transitional of a traumatic event, and DW Winnicott's 'string' case study I have been trying to uncover some nervous habits and rituals I possess. 

   One I have realised is the way I twiddle with my hair when I feel awkward or shy, I have observed my doing of this when in social situations, and how interestingly, it can be misinterpreted as me being flirtatious. 

   Another is my playing and kneading of blu tac when trying to think at university, whilst stood in the studio and trying to focus on what to do next. 

   An early childhood behaviour was a certain playing with my navel when tired. Which was often as I had an aversion to sleeping in childhood. Both of these things haven't really changed, and I still sometimes catch myself playing with my own belly button when I'm lethargic. 

   I have began to allude to DW Winnicott's 'string' case through my own utilisation of string in my practice. I have manifested this case by Winnicott because it holds relevance to my current area of interest which is learned behavioural catharsis in psychodevelopment which is then bought into adulthood. 

  I am also working through my father's drug addiction which dominated my late childhood (aged 10-16), by using stark white shades and linear shapes to abreact some of the traumatic times I had when I was younger and dealing with my dad's mental health and cocaine addiction at home. 

Overview of 'Large Ribcage' and 'Large String' 

'Large Lines' detail

Materials needed to make 'Large Lines', string, plaster of Paris, wire cutters, water, bucket, trowels

'Large Ribcage' overview and detail

11/11/13

   I have now made a wall piece to coincide with my nervous habit of kneading blu tac. The process of making it included playing with it in the same technique in which I would play nervously with it anyway. Through the process of stretching it to it's thinnest limit, then placing it on the wall in a single-line arrangement. 

   This piece I feel has a certain aesthetic pleasure to it, it looks tactile and playful and reminds people of chewing gum. I may extend this piece on a larger scale also. 

   

I am still yet to make a piece with hair. I am trying to think of how the twisting, twirling motion and gesticulation (of the nervous action) can be part of the process of making a piece. It should be integral. 

I now aim to spend the rest of this week focusing on what I truly want my practice to say, and how I want it to communicate that to the audience. I have already began to brainstorm..

A (sort of) artist's statement.

'My current practice is me trying to uncover traumatic childhood events, particularly domestic situations, through a cathartic manifestation of material that expresses a certain linear yet anxious quality. Linear through use of thin string, and anxious through the chaotic and tangled assemblage. My work always responds to and cohabits the space it is in when constructed. I have recently discovered how the location of creation plays an integral role in the end product and making process. 

I feel as though these sculptures are an extension of myself. They are tendrils and tendons from my body figuratively, but they are brain cells and thoughts literally from my head. I am trying to think through making.'

So now I have uncovered what my work means, it's confessional, it comes straight from my perspective. But now I need to communicate that to the audience, this is the tricky bit. What do I want the work to do? 

13/11/13

Me observing the links between spiritual and psychological catharsis and that relation to my work, as a person who was bought up as a catholic. Catholicism is part of my identity. I have extensive enquiry into cathartic therapies in my research file in the 'Psychoanalysis' section. 

Trying to write another mini-statement and get the concepts of my work out there on paper. (L) Reflecting on the catholic confessional side of my work and how that ties into catharsis (R)

 Me reflecting on the beginning of BA7 and establishing the physical practice I am continuing today. Here I analyse the processes I use to progress and push my work forwards. Mainly evaluative techniques such as photographing my work and then approaching the aesthetic of the piece in a subjective way asking questions such as do I like it? And does it communicate the concept successfully? Which is another area I take a lot of time considering; concept. Am I saying what I want to say? Is the appropriate intention of the work emerging through aesthetic? 

Here the concept of my 'Ribcage' pieces finally came to me, as if unearthed from the subconscious. I realised 'Ribcage' in a way represents a brain, and how it looks like a cage, it alludes to a sense of self-entrapment and angst. Of the sensation of 'being trapped in your own mind', I feel myself re-visiting an area I visited in BA5, which consulted perception and apperception, or the subjective or objective viewing of the exterior world. Sometimes I feel like I am viewing the world and it is so tinted by my own emotions and opinions, like I am looking out through bars. And 'Ribcage' is a physical representation of that sensation. It's a cathartic process, and somewhat abreactive of past depression.

DW Winnicott has been a staple part of my theoretical enquiry surrounding my practice, and this quote sums up what I am trying to say through 'Ribcage' rather aptly;

'Of every individual who has reached to the stage of being a unit with a limiting membrane and an outside and an-inside, it can be said that there is an inner reality to that individual, an inner world that can be rich or poor and can be at peace or in a state of war. This helps, but is it enough?' (Winnicott, 1971: pg. 2)

Informal review of 'Ribcage' and it's relation to Psychoanalysis. Also notes on isolation and perception.

Art as therapy, another area of enquiry I am working on. 

19/11/13

   I have continued working on the blu tac piece, I want it to expand in size and I have been paying particular attention to the hands-on process and ways in which to influence the material. I feel as though this piece clearly communicates my theoretical concerns of therapies, catharsis and DW Winnicott's 'String' case study, which displayed a young boy working through his emotional turmoil by tying things together obsessively.

22/11/13

   So after studying some therapies and nervous behaviours I have began applying these methods more to my practice, and considering how these processes can transfer over to the viewer's awareness. 

   I have tried to make the hair twirling/twisting habit known, and merging that with my want to make anthropomorphic forms and my recent influences (and reading for my research report) from the White Rabbit in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, I created the following small sculptures. 

   Here I wanted to use a material that resembles my hair, I even used my own hair (above) as a physical reference point, but I didn't want it to be obviously real or fake hair, like the style of Alice Anderson. I used a binding and weaving technique and wanted to layer the string round.

25/11/13

   I have been altering the previous sculptures I made which were originally hung up and decided to translate their form into something different. The effect and look of these small sculptures have now been completely transmuted. 

   I also wanted to light the sculptures with a flashlight to see the stark and eerie looking shadows that can be made. I executed this in the project room of my studio. However the results were not as effective as I thought they would be. Next time I intend to get a more powerful spotlight. 

   I found that the outcomes looked very marine like and like the photographs could have been taken in water. So my aim to create sculptures that look anthropomorphic has been succeeded. They reminded me of spider crabs, which is interesting as my beginning visual reference point was spiders and spider webs. 

28/11/13

   As BA7 draws to a close I feel my work is inconclusive but it is definitely making process. I have learnt crucial aspects of the Fine Art practice that apply to the audience, and am figuring out what affect and emotional reaction I want my work to make on the viewer. After looking at artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Mark Rothko and reading 'Hold It Against Me' I am beginning to embark on an area of emotional richness. I have realised a lot of my material is based on memories, albeit painful ones. I want my work to communicate in a space, especially one that can instil unease in the viewer. So for my degree show I now contemplate installation, and want to explore that in BA8. Installation makes an art piece an experience, it makes it interactive and immersive, and if that is the closest thing to an emotional reaction I can get, I will work in installation. 

Mark Rothko's 'Seagram Murals', now exhibited at the Tate Modern permanently, Rothko's main aim for these works was to enable a sense of claustrophobic entrapment, and for the viewer to really have to contemplate the work. Originally commissioned for the classy Four Seasons Restaurant in New York,  Rothko vowed his painting would make the restaurant's patrons "feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall."

'Articulated Lair' by Louise Bourgeois. Child size stool surrounded by folded walls and the name 'Lair' suggests a childhood narrative of monsters and nasties settled in a space. This space's trapped and claustrophobic ambience is what Bourgeois aspired for this piece, it was to represent the trapped feeling of her childhood home life. The black shapes on the wall looking back at you, there are only two exits in the space, one at one end and one at the other, from a smooth transition from start to finish.