Playing to the Gallery by Grayson Perry.
I have been following the career of Grayson Perry since the very moment I saw him on television in the early nineties. I was a schoolgirl, attending a convent school in a Cheshire village and contemporary art was not part of my life.
I saw Grayson Perry, as Claire, accepting the Turner Prize (of which I had never heard) and a different side of what might be sensible appeared to me. It wasn't a conscious decision to follow Mr Perry and it is only in recent years that I have gone out of my way to seek out his work, his exhibitions, but whenever he was mentioned I was interested.
He is a fascinating man. He has the confident authority of most successful artists, but he always seems to be lacking the arrogance of many of his peers. He might be odd, he might be married to his psychoanalyst, he might be many things, but I believe that he is a fascinating and humorous man ans I was was delighted when I heard he would be giving this year's series of Reith Lectures.
The following is not a transcript of the lectures but a summary of what I gain from listening to them.
1. Democracy has bad taste.
Grayson Perry inhabits the Art World. As an artist and lecturer and commentator on contemporary arts, he does not consider himself an expert but must indeed be a close approximation.
As an insider of the this rarefied world and in giving these lectures he tries to encourage people to engage with physical places where art is to be to found and to be comfortable.
Speaking primarily with regard to the visual arts, Grayson Perry considers museums, commercial galleries and the more introspective, historical artist-dealer-collector relationship. He dissects the 5.3million visitors per annum to the Tate Modern, one of the U.K.s most popular tourist destinations. These visitors have been split into categories, some of whom, Grayson argues, would be impossible to keep away and these include the 'Urban Arts Eclectic' and the 'Mature Explorers', but he addresses himself to the 36% of visitors categorised as 'Dinner and a Show' or 'Fun, Fashion and Friends'.
During the discourse, Insider, Mr Perry, recognises the intimidating nature of the gallery environment and tries to address this by providing the imagined visitor with a methodology of approaching the art to which they will be exposed and how to judge it on an alien scale of merit.
The issues of judging art and of deciding upon its quality are addressed as one and the same things, in most respects. For example the popularity of a piece of art does not mean it is of quality but an historically significant piece or one of aesthetic sophistication may become very popular and therefore valuable and will inevitably be of quality.
As humans looking at art we will all have many similar responses and many of these can be cultural. Several Russian artists surveyed the preferences of the public, across several countries, as regards contemporary art and discovered that most people prefer the colour blue. This is of course of no help to anyone but it is interesting nevertheless.
There is a language which surrounds the discussion of art which may be alienating to the general public and also unhelpful to artists themselves. An analysis of the website of art gallery press releases E Flux showed it contained very few nouns; Art English. This is a In the hundred years leading up to the 1970s, Grayson Perry argued, art became very self-conscious. This could prove debilitating to artists and being such a subjective problem it has led to the search for an empirical way to prove Quality in art (such as The Venetian Secret Hoax).
Clement Greenberg stated that art is always tied to money, as a luxury item this is hard to dispute. The more expensive a work of art, the more renowned it becomes and therefore the more influential. Strangely, Perry notes, that in the gallery situation, pieces are often priced according to their size, although this factor is removed by the time the work reaches the secondary market.
So, if the value of a work of art is an unreliable indicator of its quality, what remains?
Here Perry raises the important issue of Validation. As a scientific paper undergoes peer review before journal publication, so a work of art is first validated by peer review before being placed in a gallery. The status of this gallery is of great importance and is enhanced by Validation from serious critics and then collectors and dealers, dealers themselves being one of the important factors in this process as their reputation dictates the placing of the work for sale and the likelihood of it being picked up by a serious collector, thus adding kudos to the work of the artist.
Finally the public have the chance to Validate the work. Numbers of visitors to a show are measurable and an important source of information available to curators, perhaps one of the single most important. Gallery and museum curators decide what goes onto display to the general public and this over time should help to stabilise the prices for an artist, thus giving collectors more confidence in their investments. With humour, Perry notes that bank vaults are stuffed with Silver, Wine, Art and Gold (S.W.A.G.).
To finish this study of quality and validation, Grayson Perry, notes that Political Art is largely outside of this process. If the message is agreed with by enough people, they will enjoy the message of the art. It is interesting to consider how many artists keep their political and artistic endeavours entirely separate. He ends this first lecture with a quote from Alan Bennett "you don't have to like it all".
Tuesday, 29 October 2013
Saturday, 26 October 2013
Frieze Art Fair London 2013
Frieze Art Fair London 2013
Although completely overwhelming, the enormous tent that is Frieze contains many wonders of the world. Somethings stop you in your tracks by virtue of surprise, amazement or bewilderment. My personal low point consisted of four people standing beneath a black sheet; they had head holes but I spent more time contemplating my very reasonably priced sandwich (it's the drinks that hammer one's pocket). My high point was a series of miniature sculptures made of cardboard and plastic. Other people will have very different opinions and that is the joy of the sheer vastness and variety that is Frieze. Also, Frieze cannot be done in a day and I was there for around four hours so I can only present very edited highlights.
Sou Fujimoto, a Japanese architect (born 1971) designed the temporary Serpentine gallery Pavilion in London. His miniature models of architectural space were fascinating, drawing the viewer in close and having an almost weightless quality.
An amazing explosion of colour and skill was demonstrated by an artist selected by the Tina Kim Gallery, New York. This eye catching North Korean hand embroidery on silk by KyungA Ham (b. 1971) had many passers by stop.
Entitled Greed is Good, the pattern was so dynamic that it took a closer inspection to believe it was a hand embroidery.
The Egyptian born artist, Wael Shawky (b.1971) and represented by the Sfeir-Semler Gallery of Hamburg and Beirut, is mostly known for his videos of mythical journeys, featuring some animation and puppetry. Two of the marionettes from his Cabaret Crusades to Cairo were displayed. Made of ceramic, wood and paint, the two characters were very charismatic and, in their glass cabinet, invoked the activity of their journey.
The Johan Berggren Gallery displayed the "creative debris" of artist Ryan Siegan-Smith (b. 1982) who has worked under various names, including Leeroy the Duck and Allen Mothchart. He works by accumulating visual aide-memoirs in order to recall number sequences using mnemonic techniques. Although the numerical sequence itself seems somewhat irrelevant, it is the celebration of the techniques of the type of mind which wants to learn such sequences wherein lies the interest. There is no way of discerning which visual clues relate to which numbers, but the very fact that they have working significance to an individual encourages contemplation.
Johanna Calle (b. 1965) selected by Casas Riegner produces works based on her native Colombia and the fragility of the environments. The series Conflicted Land is composed of pictures of trees native to Colombia, the photos being cut out from aerial photos which are taken to police the growth and illegal felling of these precious resources. The images are simple and engaging but it is not too far a stretch to relate to the social and political issues she tries to emphasise.
Working in film and photography, one of the most arresting displays was that of Marcus Coates (b.1968), selected by Kate MacGarry. His very high resolution prints onto rice paper of animals were superb. What raised then above the standard of fascinating photography or animal portraiture was the way in which they had been made three dimensional. Not only was there a fantastic depth to the photos and the colours themselves, but the paper had been creased and crinkled into sculptural forms which emphasised the shape of the subject matter. Thus a photo of an ostrich became a 3D sculpture of a picture of an ostrich, an effect which continued whilst looking down the side of the print.
Korean artist Yeesookyung (b. 1963) has many varied pieces in the Saatchi Gallery all following the theme of the Translated Vase. By using broken ceramics and reassembling them into a completely different form, she draws on the Japanese tradition of 'fixing' broken ceramics, using precious metals, so that the vessel is not only made stronger but so that the repair becomes part of the history of the vessel. I didn't find that Yeesookyung quite achieved this resonance. The parts of the vessel were too obviously broken to create a matching set (colour, design, size) and they were cemented together, the join then being over-painted by 24kt gold. This was imprecisely done and highlighted to me the gulf between Yeesookyung's work and the fine craftsmanship of the traditional inspiration.
Li Songsong (b. 1973) selected by Pace, has a fascinating collage, multi-canvas style. It invites inquiry. It is a whole made of harmonious and yet overlapping components. The colours are wrong, the style is coarse and there is an element of the random thrown in, but the whole resolves into an almost photographic image. When he paints a person, the result is portrait like, even if each thickly painted canvas is difficult to resolve.
There were some standard favorites represented at Frieze, including Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami, which were great fun to see, although already familiar and recognisable at twenty paces. New to me was the work of Tony Cragg (b. 1949) the 1988 Turner Prize winner. I was enchanted by his sandstone-esque sculpture, made from metal and seemingly beyond scale. He is an artist I will enjoy investigating further.
Although completely overwhelming, the enormous tent that is Frieze contains many wonders of the world. Somethings stop you in your tracks by virtue of surprise, amazement or bewilderment. My personal low point consisted of four people standing beneath a black sheet; they had head holes but I spent more time contemplating my very reasonably priced sandwich (it's the drinks that hammer one's pocket). My high point was a series of miniature sculptures made of cardboard and plastic. Other people will have very different opinions and that is the joy of the sheer vastness and variety that is Frieze. Also, Frieze cannot be done in a day and I was there for around four hours so I can only present very edited highlights.
Sou Fujimoto, a Japanese architect (born 1971) designed the temporary Serpentine gallery Pavilion in London. His miniature models of architectural space were fascinating, drawing the viewer in close and having an almost weightless quality.
The Johan Berggren Gallery displayed the "creative debris" of artist Ryan Siegan-Smith (b. 1982) who has worked under various names, including Leeroy the Duck and Allen Mothchart. He works by accumulating visual aide-memoirs in order to recall number sequences using mnemonic techniques. Although the numerical sequence itself seems somewhat irrelevant, it is the celebration of the techniques of the type of mind which wants to learn such sequences wherein lies the interest. There is no way of discerning which visual clues relate to which numbers, but the very fact that they have working significance to an individual encourages contemplation.
The work of Elaine Sturtevant (b. 1930), selected by Gavin Brown's enterprise, was interesting as it was unlike anything else I encountered. It was understated and simple and did not seem to be 'trying'. The basis of Sturtevant's work is repetition but subtle changes she applies to her work mean each piece is unrepeatable, for example, her hand-pulled black and white photography.
What is art? A question without a sensible answer.
What is art? When does it differ from design? Everyone is entitled to a completely different point of view and that helps the world to go round.
There are, however, a few constants. Art usually provokes a reaction and is a sensory stimulus or sensory deprivation. Polish artist Miroslaw Balka's 'How It Is' (after Samuel Beckett's 1961 writing) a light less steel chamber, the tenth commission for the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, forces the spectator to wander into a black void, an unusual experience especially considering the awkward social interactions (and intimacies) it forces.
Art can also be a means of conveying information. Most early art was figurative and educational and produced at the behest of the very wealthy. This was the case, in the Western world, up until the Industrial Revolution when wealth began to slowly filter through society, craftspeople were re-occupied with artisanship and the increased literacy rates among society meant that Religious art was not as important a tool as it had been.
For the artist, or the author of the piece, whether working freely or to a commission, the act of creativity can encompass many things. Artistic endeavor can allow for the expression of opinions and emotions; a form of self-help in several ways. For the artist and the viewer alike, art can allow for the experience of an altered or alternate reality. The mundane, placed out of context, changes one's perception of it and this can inform other situations. An improved or idealised reality can be a form of escapism or it can be a commentary on why the reality with which we are familiar needs to be improved. This is how I interpret the phrase 'to hold a mirror up to reality'.
I have never heard anyone say that art is not a subjective or divisive experience; even if it is simply the financial bubble in which art exists. This is mainly due to the baggage which all people carry about with themselves and rummage through when they are forming a judgement on something new. This links into the opinions of German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) for whom the concepts and categories of the human experience are a product of the structure of the human brain/mind with again is shaped through learning and society. He argued that a fundamental to all humans is freedom and this is evidenced by the variety of opinions and views which individuals are able to form. French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) formulated the concept of Descartes Theatre, an imaginary locale in the brain where all sensory inputs are brought together to provide the 'viewer' or self with an illusion that they are viewing a real-time version of that which surrounds us, rather than a delayed synthesis of differently timed nervous impulses. A lot of the experience of art is very context dependent.
Art is staged. This gives it context, whether intentionally or not, and this determines the footfall past the piece. In a gallery, the clientele are likely to have sought out the location, possibly researched the exhibited works and to be people with an interest in art. Public works, whether council commissioned or graffiti, will probably reach a larger and more varied audience, but the most vociferous of these will be those to whom the work has caused offense or those who simply dislike it.
What is Art? A question without a sensible answer.
It has been suggested that Damien Hirst (1965 - ), a former Young British Artist , in many of his works, although primarily about death, has attempted to remove the stimulating sense of art. In his piece The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, Hirst displays pure biology and invites the viewer to observe the work of nature and the skill of the preserver. However in his piece The Golden Calf he adds gold horns and hooves to a cow in formaldehyde, he intentionally embellishes nature with something (gold) which has a long history of being attractive to the human eye and of association of value. This seems to go against the idea removing stimuli.
This leads to a further question as to what is modern art. Historically classified by the French Academy into genre, landscape, portrait and also ranked in importance, art before photography was a simpler affair. Modern art might be something new to a particular culture, but if it ancient elsewhere, in our global community, it is unlikely to be classed as such. There are very blurred time constraints when defining modern art; something produced half a century ago may be considered just as modern as something produced ten minutes ago. Money is driving force in today's market and the buyers and galleries are the ones with the power to force categorisation. Money drives hype and marketing and the current market is controlled by these things, leading to the production of Shock Art of very little consequence.
For the most recently produced and least influenced art being produced it might be useful to look to art of the streets. Graffiti, although heavily stylised by the 1990's New York Hip-Hop music scene, it is largely anonymous and not-for-profit and therefore egalitarian, even if not widely welcomed. However, in recent years, in the wake of American Keith Haring (1958 - 1990) whose work is so commercial it decorates ceramics by Villeroy and Bosch, the interiors of Japanese shops and t-shirts, and Banksy, whose stencil style social commentary graffiti has become internationally recognised and valuable, graffiti may be changing too.
There are no answers to what is art, just more questions.
There are, however, a few constants. Art usually provokes a reaction and is a sensory stimulus or sensory deprivation. Polish artist Miroslaw Balka's 'How It Is' (after Samuel Beckett's 1961 writing) a light less steel chamber, the tenth commission for the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, forces the spectator to wander into a black void, an unusual experience especially considering the awkward social interactions (and intimacies) it forces.
Art can also be a means of conveying information. Most early art was figurative and educational and produced at the behest of the very wealthy. This was the case, in the Western world, up until the Industrial Revolution when wealth began to slowly filter through society, craftspeople were re-occupied with artisanship and the increased literacy rates among society meant that Religious art was not as important a tool as it had been.
For the artist, or the author of the piece, whether working freely or to a commission, the act of creativity can encompass many things. Artistic endeavor can allow for the expression of opinions and emotions; a form of self-help in several ways. For the artist and the viewer alike, art can allow for the experience of an altered or alternate reality. The mundane, placed out of context, changes one's perception of it and this can inform other situations. An improved or idealised reality can be a form of escapism or it can be a commentary on why the reality with which we are familiar needs to be improved. This is how I interpret the phrase 'to hold a mirror up to reality'.
I have never heard anyone say that art is not a subjective or divisive experience; even if it is simply the financial bubble in which art exists. This is mainly due to the baggage which all people carry about with themselves and rummage through when they are forming a judgement on something new. This links into the opinions of German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) for whom the concepts and categories of the human experience are a product of the structure of the human brain/mind with again is shaped through learning and society. He argued that a fundamental to all humans is freedom and this is evidenced by the variety of opinions and views which individuals are able to form. French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) formulated the concept of Descartes Theatre, an imaginary locale in the brain where all sensory inputs are brought together to provide the 'viewer' or self with an illusion that they are viewing a real-time version of that which surrounds us, rather than a delayed synthesis of differently timed nervous impulses. A lot of the experience of art is very context dependent.
Art is staged. This gives it context, whether intentionally or not, and this determines the footfall past the piece. In a gallery, the clientele are likely to have sought out the location, possibly researched the exhibited works and to be people with an interest in art. Public works, whether council commissioned or graffiti, will probably reach a larger and more varied audience, but the most vociferous of these will be those to whom the work has caused offense or those who simply dislike it.
What is Art? A question without a sensible answer.
It has been suggested that Damien Hirst (1965 - ), a former Young British Artist , in many of his works, although primarily about death, has attempted to remove the stimulating sense of art. In his piece The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, Hirst displays pure biology and invites the viewer to observe the work of nature and the skill of the preserver. However in his piece The Golden Calf he adds gold horns and hooves to a cow in formaldehyde, he intentionally embellishes nature with something (gold) which has a long history of being attractive to the human eye and of association of value. This seems to go against the idea removing stimuli.
This leads to a further question as to what is modern art. Historically classified by the French Academy into genre, landscape, portrait and also ranked in importance, art before photography was a simpler affair. Modern art might be something new to a particular culture, but if it ancient elsewhere, in our global community, it is unlikely to be classed as such. There are very blurred time constraints when defining modern art; something produced half a century ago may be considered just as modern as something produced ten minutes ago. Money is driving force in today's market and the buyers and galleries are the ones with the power to force categorisation. Money drives hype and marketing and the current market is controlled by these things, leading to the production of Shock Art of very little consequence.
For the most recently produced and least influenced art being produced it might be useful to look to art of the streets. Graffiti, although heavily stylised by the 1990's New York Hip-Hop music scene, it is largely anonymous and not-for-profit and therefore egalitarian, even if not widely welcomed. However, in recent years, in the wake of American Keith Haring (1958 - 1990) whose work is so commercial it decorates ceramics by Villeroy and Bosch, the interiors of Japanese shops and t-shirts, and Banksy, whose stencil style social commentary graffiti has become internationally recognised and valuable, graffiti may be changing too.
There are no answers to what is art, just more questions.
Sir Anthony Caro
Sir Anthony Caro
One of the 20th century's most influential British sculptors has died of a heart attack as he approached his ninetieth birthday.
Likened by many to Henry Moore, a generation before him, for his worldwide influence, Caro first came to the art world's attention in 1963 at the Whitechapel Gallery His 1963 sculpture Early One Morning was an abstract, brightly coloured sculpture which showed Caro's background in engineering and put forward a new movement in how sculpture was presented.
Sir Anthony Caro was the recipient of many prizes, including the Lifetime Achievement Award in sculpture. He was knighted and given the Order of Merit and was the subject of a 2005 Tate Britain Retrospective.
Interestingly, he was also one third of the design team behind London's Millennium Bridge.
One of the 20th century's most influential British sculptors has died of a heart attack as he approached his ninetieth birthday.
Likened by many to Henry Moore, a generation before him, for his worldwide influence, Caro first came to the art world's attention in 1963 at the Whitechapel Gallery His 1963 sculpture Early One Morning was an abstract, brightly coloured sculpture which showed Caro's background in engineering and put forward a new movement in how sculpture was presented.
Sir Anthony Caro was the recipient of many prizes, including the Lifetime Achievement Award in sculpture. He was knighted and given the Order of Merit and was the subject of a 2005 Tate Britain Retrospective.
Interestingly, he was also one third of the design team behind London's Millennium Bridge.
Paper Wink (1999/2002)
handmade paper, aluminum and wood
Thursday, 24 October 2013
Drawing 'Journey'
Drawing.
Journey.
Before photography, drawing and painting were the only means of recording a scene or an image accurately. For this purpose drawing can be extrapolated to include the processes leading up to the production of prints in earlier times.
Now, with the benefit of the photographic discipline, drawing has expanded its application.
It is still of the utmost importance to have a grasp of the fundamentals of good drawing practice, through life drawing and still-life, as this skill underpins much of the creative processes of sculpture and design; however, drawing can be free from the constraints of gravity and so has, some could argue, a more liberated approach to creativity. It also informs the artist as to what they are distorting from reality as it is an education in perspective and correct proportion.
Selected Life Drawings by K Moores. Charcoal and paper 2013.
The concept of Journey as a drawing project is very broad.
The artist Mark Bauer (1975) uses the traditional black and white look of photography to record his journeys to different places, for example, a Sanatorium.
HB Sanatorium Kreuzlingen Schloss Bellevue 1988 Mark Bauer
It is still of the utmost importance to have a grasp of the fundamentals of good drawing practice, through life drawing and still-life, as this skill underpins much of the creative processes of sculpture and design; however, drawing can be free from the constraints of gravity and so has, some could argue, a more liberated approach to creativity. It also informs the artist as to what they are distorting from reality as it is an education in perspective and correct proportion.
The concept of Journey as a drawing project is very broad.
The artist Mark Bauer (1975) uses the traditional black and white look of photography to record his journeys to different places, for example, a Sanatorium.
pencil and paper
I cannot view the destination of a journey as being the same as a journey; this being a necessity for any human wishing to visit anywhere. In the past I have traveled with an unusual companion, a toy of my daughter's, in order that she might feel connected to my having traveled. These inanimate teddy bears took on a superb preciousness whilst traveling, such was my concern at losing them, and their appearance in souvenir photographs lend a particular sense of the personal to otherwise generic scenes.
Patch the Teddy in the Florian Coffee Shop, St Mark's Square, Venice. April 2013.
Green Bear on the Isle of Wight Ferry for Cowes week 2013
Another way of approaching this concept of taking items for a journey is in the most basic; what do we normally take on a journey but our suitcase? The personal items are contained within the suitcase (unless they are as precious as the above and must be kept in hand luggage all the time).
Komi Tanaka took a suitcase on a journey to Rome and photographed the suitcase in various locales. These pictures, referenced to a tourist map, and displayed alongside the adventurous suitcase, formed an installation at Frieze 2013.
Komi Tanaka We Found Something When We Lost Other Things 2012 unannounced action
The return address on the suitcase as it was left on corners in Rome was always the gallery where Komi Tanaka was exhibiting, hence it was also advertising for his show and a commercial endeavour. I would have been interested in the record of interactions of the public with this 'abandoned' suitcase in these days of terror alerts and fears of abandoned bags. This is why I prefer to travel with a teddy bear.
Drawing can always, an this is the most important factor besides recording things for posterity, enter the realms of the unreal. The abstract, the multi-coloured, the distorted; all of these are the everyday of contemporary drawing. Colour is the main feature in the works of Chadwick Rantanen (American 1981), for example, whether he is working in sculpture, installation or drawing.
Multicoloured drawing by Chadwick Rantanen above carbon fibre Loop. Frieze 2013.
Drawings from the imagination appeal to my aesthetic as photo quality reproductions of a scene seem to be outdated.
An imagined journey, with similarities to the disbelieved journey of the Venetian Marco Polo (1254 - 1324) who introduced the Europeans to the cultures of Asia and China and was widely discredited as preposterous, seems a likely drawing project. Even today, with his inclusion of some facts (paper money) and the omission of others (Chinese foot binding practice) there is no consensus as to whether Polo ventured on his journey or simply compiled his narrative from hearsay.
The act of traveling on a journey gives a sense of movement which might be interestingly caught by the discipline of drawing. The blurred exterior passing by the high speed train carriage window, where the train is given a sense of immobility and all motion is external. The characters in the carriage also become important, absorbed in their own journeys and making it a solitary and yet communal undertaking. .
Another way of approaching this concept of taking items for a journey is in the most basic; what do we normally take on a journey but our suitcase? The personal items are contained within the suitcase (unless they are as precious as the above and must be kept in hand luggage all the time).
Komi Tanaka took a suitcase on a journey to Rome and photographed the suitcase in various locales. These pictures, referenced to a tourist map, and displayed alongside the adventurous suitcase, formed an installation at Frieze 2013.
Drawing can always, an this is the most important factor besides recording things for posterity, enter the realms of the unreal. The abstract, the multi-coloured, the distorted; all of these are the everyday of contemporary drawing. Colour is the main feature in the works of Chadwick Rantanen (American 1981), for example, whether he is working in sculpture, installation or drawing.
Drawings from the imagination appeal to my aesthetic as photo quality reproductions of a scene seem to be outdated.
An imagined journey, with similarities to the disbelieved journey of the Venetian Marco Polo (1254 - 1324) who introduced the Europeans to the cultures of Asia and China and was widely discredited as preposterous, seems a likely drawing project. Even today, with his inclusion of some facts (paper money) and the omission of others (Chinese foot binding practice) there is no consensus as to whether Polo ventured on his journey or simply compiled his narrative from hearsay.
The act of traveling on a journey gives a sense of movement which might be interestingly caught by the discipline of drawing. The blurred exterior passing by the high speed train carriage window, where the train is given a sense of immobility and all motion is external. The characters in the carriage also become important, absorbed in their own journeys and making it a solitary and yet communal undertaking. .
Printmaking 'Accumulate and Disperse'
If Print is the marrying of two surface, resulting in a permanent or semi-permanent mark, monoprinting is the ultimate basic of this. There are no controls for reproducibility and therefore no limitations, so long as a mark is made and not in too painterly a way.
My influences include Peter Liversidge (British 1973), who co-opts everyday materials into his work and who uses the postal system to give an unpredictability to the turn out of his final pieces, like the postcard works of On Kawara (Japanese 1933). He has used embossing in printmaking mainly.
William Kentridge (South African 1955) who places prints upon prints is also important to me as this above example of his work illustrates, it often dissolves on close inspection but gives a dramatic scene with depth at a distance. He also calls upon nature frequently as a theme which I am inclined to do.
Prints from nature...
The dispersal (around the garden) and accumulation (by me) of feathers.
Print made using metallic spray paint onto feathers, then pressing paper on top.
Monoprint.
Monoprint.
Defrosting fish heads. Fish blood monoprint onto paper.
By layering a stack of paper beneath the defrosting heads, a series of prints was created, each unique and following on from the piece of paper above it.
Accumulated mushrooms, dispersing their spores onto the paper as they degrade over a few days. Monoprint.
The arrangement of the mushroom caps into a spiral arrangement is attempting to evoke a mechanical feel, like cogs within a mechanism or complex arrangement.
Small feature of a different mushroom monoprint.
Just as Nature is important in my printmaking work, the concept of communication of ideas or Memes (see Richard Dawkin's work) which are culturally shared and altered through basic pictorial or symbolic means. The most obvious case of this is Religion, with some symbols being particular to one faith and others being shared by many, not only faiths but political and social regimes.
The idea of the ancient icon was produced for this monoprint, first by using wax-resist and watercolour and secondly by using the idea of a Saint appearing in an unexpected way, classically on a piece of toast.
The religious and iconographic ideas are easily incorporated into collograph work. The collograph Angel and the Monument to a Soldier are examples.
Collograph plates
The above is a detail from the face of the print.
The above shows the reverse of the print on the left hand side and the frontal print on the right hand side. The spine can be seen left-centre and the two differently coloured thighs can be picked out slightly diagonally on the right hand side of the print.
The painted nude from which the print was taken.
Collograph plates
The Collograph Angel
It was my attempt at furthering the idea of the religious print which led me to produce a full body print, inspired by the famous but controversial Shroud of Turin. I began by mixing acrylic paint with a body lotion to prevent it from drying out. I then prepared a sheet with which to cover myself and applied to body paint and some make up to accentuate facial features. The results were varied as the photos show but I believe this is worthy of repetition.
Drypoint Printing allows for the repetition of prints being produced from a single plate. Some examples are as follows. These can be overlapped, over-inked, re-printed and so on to produce monoprints.
Tuesday, 22 October 2013
sculpture
Going from a premise whereby an object which has 'meaning' to an individual can inspire a sculpture.
Keys became a recurring theme with many individuals. Some, who had recently left home, saw keys as liberation. Others saw keys as a way to let themselves in to a place of sanctuary, or as a means to travel (car keys). After a spell of drawing keys with keyings attached, I was reminded of how a pair of keys could look like a pair of legs and my Key Angel was produced. This had some similarities to the work of the artist Claire Murray Adams. Especially as I developed a strong rib cage on my sculpture.
Claire Murray Adams
The materials available to use would only be partially limited by those being available at the studio or easily obtained with respect to the four week deadline for exhibition.
My first Key Angel, made from cardboard, plastic carrier bags, tape and polystyrene. This shows the keys as legs and the strong rib cage form.
Key Angel (35cm height)
The symmetry and the anatomical look of the above sculpture is somewhat reminiscent of the work of Cathy DE Monchaux (Britain 1960), being wall mounted and intricate but bordering on the grotesque. It does lack the sexuality of her work although I strongly identify with her fascination with Saintly Relics, something I explored whilst visiting the Basillica of Saint Mark in Venice.
Various Saintly relics (or arm bones) including Saint George from the Treasury of Saint Mark's, Venice.
I was further inspired by the work of Petra Feriancova (Slovakia 1977) whose work, the seires, Intrigues of the Gods are Behind Everything.
These pieces, displayed at Frieze 2013, seemed to united my fascination with the anatomical, the gruesome and the otherworldly (cf religious relics).
Petra Feriancova The Cave (installation plaster casts of elephant tusks) 2013
The materials I selected to begin working with were clay, metal, insulation foam and cable ties.
Knowing that a cage form, rather than Feriancova's 'Cave' in which the rib/tooth like projections were more similar to stalagmites or other natural phenomena, I found the suggestion of a cage being created out of human parts, using ribs and bones (strong and yet delicate) more striking and connected to my fascination with religious ideology. The contents of the cage could therefore be more varied and a juxtaposition to the biological form I would imitate.
First the construction of the spine.
One variation was the use of clay and the other using a length of pipe insulation foam, divided by cable ties which had a strangely orthopedic appearance, especially with the excess lengths left in place, which suggested ribs before any further work had been undertaken.
The next construction challenge was the addition of ribs. Using clay, a plan of a rib cage was drawn out, and cut out, before being placed around an inflated support whilst it dried.
From this point, I began to see a delicacy in the work I was producing, having looked at the fragility of actual skeletons. I found myself considering adding details of corsetry to the form and also the idea of incorporating fragile taxidermy into the piece.
The Fish
Glass ribs, glimpsed through crate handles, are seen in this sculpture by David Nuur
The fragility of the structure of a ribcage (or the internal structure of any soft-bodied creature) whilst regular and predictable, is fundamentally brittle and delicate and beautiful.
The ongoing rib cage sculpture...
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