Louise Giovanelli
Upon reflecting from her foundation course at Manchester Met, Giovanelli felt it was time to experiment more with her process of thinking through making. In her first year she used simple materials and resources like photographing her surroundings and things she found in her room. This developed into an interest in how figures work with objects, especially ones that aren't here long such as balloons. This process helped her to come up with the concept of painting these objects using oil paints to create a form of permanence. I found this to be a very clever subject matter and shows that her process of thinking through making really works.
Developing it further she then painted objects that are manipulated by figures such as origami and party poppers. This series made her think more of the materialism of paint like it's form, colours and texture which I have too noticed due to practicing in painting for years now. Even with the failures your'e still learning the process and what is achievable. as response she started to really delve into the practise and began repeating her paintings to gain experience, to fully understand what she can improve on and to know that the final result is her absolute best. I have tried this myself before and testing and repeating before actually creating the final piece.
In her second year she began to experiment with making her own mediums and testing with pigments, this isn't something I have done before but after her explaining how it helped her to connect more to her work, I feel that it would be a good step in the right direction for my own studio practise. Instead of repeating the same pieces, this year she changed the compositions, lighting to get to understand what works best with the object while also gaining more practise. Also gaining more interest in art history she began to look at the influencers and the masters for inspiration and not her surroundings. This is the stage I feel I am going through now as I have only just began to look more into art history since the lectures on Mondays. Especially the meanings hidden in some paintings through iconography. This interest took her further in her third year to look solely at old master paintings of flowers such as the dutch masters. Creating and developing her own style of these paintings, she wasn't interested in the artist's biography, but their methods and obvious knowledge of how to accurately paint objects. She explained that learning off books and the real thing was more intuitive and beneficial than learning off social media. I have to disagree with this as this is where many of my ideas are developed and it is a great tool to share and learn knowledge like tutorials on specific methods.
from this she began a series of going to galleries and taking inspiration from their collections to make her own versions and then have them installed in the same situation to show the similarities and contrasts. She continued this at three different shows and created a name for herself, even publishing a book on her method. Even though this was some of her best work, she felt like she didn't want to just be known for recreating historical pieces. In response she moved onto her own work and experimented within residencies so it was only her focusing on her practise. With no pressure in some and stress in others, she gained valuable knowledge and learnt how to critically analyse others and her own work to develop.
Ending the lecture with her belief that the apparent necessity of having meaning has meant that painting has moved on from actually being about the practise, colour, form and textures. It's ideal to step away from the constraints and to go back to the basics before moving on too fast. This connected with me as before first year I would have to have meaning in a piece for it to be developed or produced, however at the start of the course I ditched these ideas and created for the benefit of painting and experimenting.
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