research

Research

For the second semester this year I chose the painting project to further develop my previous passion for this skill. Painting again allowed me to revisit my comfort zone after experimenting in the last semester with installation and sculpture. Using different mediums has enabled me to add new elements to my skill set which includes industries outside of classic fine art such as, fashion and theatre design.

With this project,” Fantasy Voyage” inspired and motivated me from the outset. Being a film from the 1960s about a space age journey though the body, it has visuals of the organs, arteries and the systems that keep us functioning. These inspired me with their alien like forms, shapes and colours that combine to give an abstract appearance. However, not wanting to copy the film, I decided to take the journey within the brain and show its complex, amazing mechanisms and the formation of emotions that form our traits and personalities. Doing research into biological photography and Victorian illustrations taught me how the mind has been represented in art history. These images show the wide variety of colours and textures within the visualisations of anatomy. These stimulated me to experiment with abstract paintings using vibrant colour schemes and different mediums. In addition, I sought to illustrate a physcological side to my practise with more in-depth meanings concentrating on the brain structure, our emotions and mental health.  To achieve this, I also explored the concept of masks which allowed me to use the fashion element from the previous semester. Masks are worn to hide identity or conceal emotions. I found that I could explore a psychoanalytical view whereby the mask represents how individuals “mask” their mental health,  showing this on the exterior would show a positive contradiction and, relating back to the brief, would demonstrate body function. 

Wednesday Visitor - Yayoi Kasama

Yayoi Kasama 



Famous for her hypnotic dot work paintings, Kasama depicts her trauma and childhood in her lifetime body of work. On her family field of flowers she often lost her self and felt consumed by the mass. With her parents not supporting her artistic ambition she often felt her feelings and emotions building, art was a form of expressing and controlling these thoughts. Dots were her shape and illustrated the universe or flies in the sky. Being one, lost in a crowd of millions. I like how she has stuck with this iconic style and no matter the feedback she kept developing it. With the advise of Georgia O'Keeffe she took her art to America aiming to change the art scene. Many ignored her for being a woman and Japanese in a post war society. She eventually pushed her work into the public eye, but still didn't receive gratification for her work. Her style starting appearing but with male famous artists like Warhol and Judd. These recognised her art but took advantage of her underdog position in the art world. I feel that this possibly developed her work with the pain and depression came her infamous infinity rooms and soft sculptures. These stood out from more conforming art of the time, she knew how to catch the eye with falic, yet interesting sculptures. However, I feel that they dont give an experience or express emotion like the installations and repetitive paintings. 



The initial idea for the rooms and paintings came from a plane window view which looked out over the pacific ocean with the never ending fishing nets. She could feel herself being immersed in the net and the overwhelming mass took her back to the flower fields of her childhood. The paintings really strike me as bold and textured in comparison with the pop art of the time, more graphics based.

 

 The development of her work being ignored led to the infinity rooms which she first created after the new interest in space travel and the moon landings. She created small rooms where the viewer could peer into mirrored boxes with lights like the stars that seemed to never end. This i feel was like glancing into the mind of kusama, a way of her expressing her depression with beauty of art.

Wednesday Visitor - Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois 



Maman - This giant sculpture is one of Bourgeois' best know works that showcases her skill and unique style for her time. Standing prominently in front of The Tate, London, this piece is said to exemplify her inner fears and drama from childhood. Instead of dealing with emotions like sadness, anger and depression though therapy or talking she drew and made them into creatures and forms that she could control and manipulate. I love that this personifies the art into an animal or monster that many viewers can relate to. Her wild imagination is clear to see in most of her pieces which is similar to my own practise through visualising emotions and how parts of our brain function.



Relocating to New York for Bourgeois had a huge influence on her work. The dramatic skyline of Manhattan, so different to that of Paris, inspired her collection of Totem poles. These tall, often wooden, sculptures also personified feelings. She saw sky scrappers as being lonely, never touching one another despite being so close. This I see relates to how Manhattan was a new age, scientific city, but in its industrialism was romance and new beginnings. For bourgeois, her new beginning meant leaving family and knowing no one in a new continent. These poles are said to represent some of her fellow loved ones and even her son. She could feel comfortable around these works of art as she had created them and in turn is her imagination being alive. I like the appearance of all these crowded in a room as it can resemble both people and a city form. The organic nature of these forms inspiring me with the hypothetical visualisations of the brain i was working on myself.




A recurring theme in Bourgeois' work was motherhood and she felt this natural instinct. Again personifying, in this case buildings and the home, she took these familiar structures and added limbs, bodies and facial features that depicted how some roles, like a mother, felt like being trapped and had huge responsibility. These homes i feel show how behind closed doors there are secrets and stories often no one can understand form the outside. For her it is a way of explaining her feelings without words. However, i feel her installation work offers more of an atmosphere and an impact that the viewers can experience rather than a painting to look at.

Wednesday visitor - Alex frost

Alex frost



Installation artist, Alex Frost, uses unique concepts and visuals in his practise. Above is one of many videos in a series of work that relate to viral trend of unboxing. In a twist he unboxes regular, everyday items underwater in a tank. This adds an uncomfortable feeling to the piece with general liquids and foods floating around. I like that it transforms these items and makes the viewer experience emotions completely different to those normally associated with the items. It also forms with the trend of watching relaxing and satisfying videos.
The next piece, above, "Wifi Swimming Pool" expresses how many galleries and public spaces are now expected to have internet access. This new age of technology helps us all keep connected however it can also distract us from our surroundings and the examples of culture near us rather than the world's within our hands. The mosaic style appearance of the piece is comprised of items bought offline on auction sites and the large conglomerates we all use. I like the way that the medium relates to the piece's meaning and that it helps add to the viewers understanding of the work.



However, some pieces stem into the the found objects medium. I am not fond of this technique for my own practise but can appreciate that it is an art form for others. However, by simply being shown this piece with no description it is hard to comprehend what point Frost is trying to make. 



Another piece that involved his installation skills, above, took the story of a whisky distillery town in wales. The process of creating their drink is called "Noisey" which inspired Frost to use the landscape of the town and fill it with nose like sculptures. Tying in to the surroundings way key, so the colours all match the renders of houses in the town. I like the way that he was inspired by colour pallets around him and this enhances the meaning of the installation.

Wednesday Visitor - Gabrielle de la Punte

Gabrielle de la Punte

Output Gallery


Punte has had a passion for exhibiting artists work and to help them gain recognition since her degree. She soon realised that she would become a creator due to not seeing her own art practise as better than others. This practical outlook helped her to put on opportunities for her fellow students to display work that she could in turn gain experience from.
She also created "The White Pube" which offers more relatable and easy understanding art criticism to those who don't have an art qualification. This urge to give access of art to the wider society was the drive for her setting up the Output gallery.
Given to her as a gift from another successful business, the space is centrally located in Liverpool City centre. Tourism and passers by venture in to see the wide array of exhibitions on usually for a week or two. Punte's vision for this space was to allow for local artists and students to showcase their talent as the larger institutions mainly allow for international talent. I really liked the idea of getting more of the local area involved and seeing what creatives the city has to offer.

 Furthering on this aim to include more people she opened up Input weekends where people can enter with their portfolios to propose an exhibition. This has allowed for many to pass the formalities and to get their art out there.  
Her large amount of exhibitions in a short space of a year or two has put pressure on the larger institutes to notice local artists.

In the Q&A I wandered what made her decide to take the creator-ship route rather than developing her own artistic abilities. She answered that exhibiting for others for filled her creativity just as much as creating work herself. This I related to as sometimes the concepts and ideas are more enjoyable for me to present than creating them.   

Wednesday Visitor - Bedwyr Williams and Jai

Bedwyr Williams & Jai

Bedwyr Williams

After no studio space for 5 years Williams began to create home based work. similar to the situation many of us are in at the moment with being in lock down. Finding more time to develop ideas such as his love for Wales. Below are the stills from his piece "Big Towers" which visualises a futuristic scene of a classic welsh town. This time lapse of the skyline was accompanied by a voice over of Williams of a poem concerning issues we all may face in years to come. It was peaceful and tranquil to watch the day go by in this imagined city and with it appearing realistic, gave the sense of immersion. I was really impressed by the skill and effort gone into the buildings reflections, shadows and weather alone. The meaning wasn't very obvious, but i read it as being a warning of losing traditional towns and the nature surrounding us. The time lapse element emphasising that time is running out for us to change this inevitability       



Williams also has a strong research element behind his pieces which I can relate to in my own practise being based off documentaries and scientific influences. The piece below was another example of his technical abilities. The landlord of a now dilapidated hotel, which thrived in the 70's, commissioned William to create a virtual revival of the hotel. Stepping back in time with visuals of what the hotel appeared like in its prime showed how William can take mere description and transform it to reality. This inspired my own research into recreating hypothetical scenes of places that we can no longer see or areas inside us that we can only imagine.    


However, William's practise is hard to grasp with some abstract and some literal pieces. I like the idea of having to read into some pieces, but ones with found objects like below don't show as much time and development to me than the ones created from a blank page or just a concept. The meaning I understand can be different for other viewers, but has difficulty being art rather than a mass of random objects. The one thing I like about this piece is the framing and construct as it is similar to set design and installation which i have experimented with previously 



Jai Chunhan



Moving to the UK at the age of 10 was a huge difference to Chunhan which exposed her to a whole new culture. Seeing art galleries with the works of masters like Monet and Picasso influenced and moved her. In particular "Water Lilies" has a large impact on what she considered art. Expressionist painters became her influence along with the film and cinema industry that she hadn't experienced in India before. The shock of being able to depict and envisage all these stories come to life. Similar to this most of my influences come from documentary research and visuals provide me with more ideas similar to artists like Chunhan.  As an art student she became more familiar with her own painting style, but also noticed the lack of art outside of European influence in our major galleries. she researched back in to her Indian heritage to find that her family has a creative background with clay and crafts. The references of Indian sculptures became prominent in her pieces with themes of gender inequalities and society's issues. The pieces shown here show how she took the expressive style and painted these figures that ignore race and their identity to focus on them as a human instead.  I really like the bold colours used instead of skin tones and the vibrant backdrops that contrast them so perfectly. I see that she captures their personalities and moods with a more sketch like style while withholding a recognisable form.  


 However, some of these sketch like styles can become too messy and overdone which makes it hard to read without the aid of a description. The pallet is a simplistic tone that sometimes can become one large colour overall, but provides impact when used correctly like in  many of her pieces.

Wednesday visitor - Jacqui Hallam

Jacqui Hallam



John Moores painting prize winner, Jacqui Hallam takes a creative and explosive approach to abstract art. Her unique style of bold colours splashed upon overlapping canvases showcases her skill. Originally not wanting to be a figurative painter, she turned to experimenting with more simplistic forms, shapes and tones. not believing in her work as a student meant she didn't delve into the meanings of her work. Relating to this in my first abstract pieces I also focused on the antithetical side, compared to the readings with in it. For example, it took more experimenting to understand how different colours can represent emotions and a story on their own or mixed with others. 


I appreciated the wide use of materials such as stains, varnishes, iron and pigments all mixing to react. On the canvas she performs and dictates where the chemical reactions take place. These provide the vibrancy and liquid effect dripping down the pieces. I took inspiration from this when controlling where the colours mixed on my own pieces and how the wax mixed with the colours on the surface.
She describes her work as having a visual language. For example a pink patch would actually represent a flower and this is how she used found objects in a slightly figurative style.

Her overlapping of materials and canvas actually came from her studio being to compact to display her work individually. These accidents help us to sometimes develop our work and see it in a new light. For example, after I had completed my abstract piece entitled, "Hippocampus" I began turning it upside down and moving it around like Hallam to find the right orientation and with my headpiece "Anxious", i began with a plain canvas and ripped it by accident to then go on to become the sculpture it is now.
However, with Hallam's pieces I feel that she could develop them with some new darker colours or maybe even bring them off the wall and stand alone as individual sculptures.