Week 11: Monday 2nd December 2013

Week 11: Monday 2^nd December 2013

PE Presentations:  It was a fantastic resource to see and explain the progress of my project and the journey I have been on so far to my other peers some whom knew my work and some whom did not. Another positive was the feedback and ideas given to me from the other students from artist research, to techniques, and galley visits that are currently happening.

 There has been a main focus on the live project, my samples (images from last week) are very vulgar and inappropriate, although I am trying to achieve the same texture and emotion that is within my collages and photographs  the textile samples for the stitch LIVE PROJECT are weak and not thought out properly. The problem lies in my material choice, and as with my installations and collages I take time to source the correct materials, I need to source the correct materials for my textile samples. 
Running alongside my material investigation for the LIVE PROJECT, I am still visiting and recording new places from the airport to the Trafford centre, to Salford Quays. I am recording these places, by a diary of notes and emotions and photographs.

I have been combining text and image from my photographs of the Air Raid shelters, to evoke place rather than image. The text I have chosen is from wartime posters inspired by my research into the Dada Movement combining text and image in relation to the space. The text and image combined definitely create a place rather than an image; this is something I will also be investigating further, combining my first hand research images with second-hand text.

WEEK 10: Monday 25th November 2013 Live Project samples:

Week 10: Monday 25th November 2013

Week 10: Monday 25^th November 2013

The images from Stockport air raid shelters are describing colour, pattern, and composition not the place. I also need to clarify the type of emotion I want to provoke in the viewer, initially I decided on Horror, watching films and creating compositions using colour and ideas found in horror films. From my research and development of ideas this week, it is the idea of the ‘unknown’ and ‘uncanny’ these are the emotions I want to provoke through my installations, photography and collages. 

 I have personally been visiting places around the city that I have never been before. 

 I recorded my thoughts and feelings as I was on the 50 bus to Salford Quays, and as I was on the bus to the Airport. 

There are still things I need to clarify and decide before Christmas, Is it Manchester city spaces I am interested in representing as a place? Alternatively, is it my personal spaces at home that are the places that are the closest to my heart? Mostly what is it that I want my audience to experience? 

Week 9 : Monday 18th November 2013

Week 9: Monday 18^th November 2013

 I visited the Air Raid shelters in Stockport; I need photographs to work from as I am still using my original photographs from the Victoria baths. The Air Raid shelters are a perfect place to photograph for my project, lots of old corners and spaces create a sense of emotion and history.

 I have focused on colour, texture and tone, creating a photograph that has an unknown scale and the place and space is unknown which leaves the audience guessing thus creating an emotional response.

Week 8: Monday 11th November 2013

Monday 11th  November 2013

Continuing to work with collected materials from light bulbs, insulation tape, and electrical wires. My work is very inspired by artists and ideas of Kurt Schwitters. He was one of the first installation artists using found objects as materials, he created the Merzbarn in his parents home and  interestingly he was part of the Dada movement whom enjoyed to challenge art and create unusual concepts. Schwitters work was nothing like the art world had seen before (see image below) he was ahead of his  time and many concepts of installation and reusing materials are present in contemporary work.  I have become fascinated with their themes and concepts from the unusual materials, shapes and combination of image and text.

Schwitters, K. (1923 -1936) Merzbarn[online image][Accessed on 13^th November 2013]
http://www.merzbarn.net/hanovermerzbau.html

Week 7: Monday 4th November 2013

Week 7: Monday 4^th November 2013.

I have been experimenting once again with cardboard I have collected. 
The cardboard has the right properties  from, re useable, strong and lightweight. I have also collected different sorts of tapes; red and yellow electrical tape to FRAGILE tape. I chose these to embellish the boxes, as they all provoke danger and horror and are practical for joining the boxes together. I am very pleased with my outcome this week, the 2D photographs of my 3D work are really working and the boxes I am using are creating a space that pushes the boundaries of what textiles and installation art can be.  This week I have also spent some time in the library finding new contemporary installation artists from, Gedi Sibony and Jacob Kassay.  The images of their work, is enabling me to see a future beyond the cardboard and maybe it is time again to start a fresh with some new interesting materials, that evoke a different emotion from anxiety and horror.

Week 6: Monday 28th October 2013

Week 6: Monday 28^th October 2013

With a long project it is normal to experience peaks and troughs, last week was definitely a low point within my project.  I have been looking at the idea of creating danger or uncertainty within my work. I have been looking and drawing symbols that represent danger. It has become clear from my samples so far that I am a space maker and an image-maker.  My major project is now moving in the right direction, I have researched new ideas surrounding danger from watching films to practitioner research, which is the input, I needed to expand my work and evoke emotion.  For the next few weeks I need to produce exciting practical work that has the right meaning and connotations, this will be done through, material knowledge and samples.

I have been inspired by Antoni Tapies and his political paintings, although my concept is very different to his, he provokes emotion through image, colour and layering of paint.

Tapies, A. (1976) Cartography [online image] [accessed on 20th October 2013]https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/antoni-tapies-2025

Tapies, A. (1958) Grey Ochre[online image] [accessed on 20th October 2013]https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/antoni-tapies-2025

Images of my own drawings using, paint, tape and found objects.

Week 5: Monday 21st October

Week 5: Monday 21^st October 2013

 It’s important to feel uncomfortable, if I'm doing something I'm unsure about then it is a push in the right direction. The deadline is fast approaching for the dissertation and it is important I have been planning and splitting my time properly between practical work and essay based reading and research. They both aid each other and it is something I am immensely interested in, I do feel my practical work has slowed down a little due to other deadlines and I am focused on material manipulation and three-dimensional building. I intend to experiment and play, with materials until the draft essay deadline.

In addition, I interviewed the curator from Manchester Art Gallery on Tuesday 22^nd October. The ideas and answers she gave me, were brilliant and very installation based.  Although originally for my dissertation, she has now given me some ideas for my own project and at first, I was set on pushing the boundaries of textiles but now I feel I can experiment with the  boundaries of installation art.
For example: a public art gallery has people visit that may not have experienced installation art before.          

‘Within installation art you the audience, are the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle, there is not a beginning or an end; the journey through installation art is personal and can be different for everyone.’ (Jesson 2013). 

Week 4: Monday 14th October

Week 4:  Monday 14^th October 2013: 

Working in three - dimensions drawing with objects by photographing and arranging. The materials are low cost and basic; this is where my problem lies. I have been focused on using materials for their cost; if I am not to so precious over the samples I have already created, I can change and manipulate ideas I already have in order to progress. In turn, I have been squashing, wrapping and moving my sculptures to create new spaces and places.

Week 3: Monday 7th October

Context: 

After university I am very interested in perusing a career  in visual merchandiser, this week I visited town to take photos of the shop displays to give me ideas and inspiration, from the materials used, to the position of the objects in the window.  My Practice at the moment  would be independent gallery based installation like Rachel Whitereads work,  but it has become of a surprise that the photographs can be used as prints. In the weeks to come I am hoping by taking extra time for contextual  research  and contacting stores for a work placement will enable me to have a more skilful knowledge of what it takes to be a textile / installation artist.
These are my own photographs; I was focusing on the use of colour and materials. Visual merchandising has to be cost effective, reusable and seasonal. I am already working with quite rustic colours and going to have a look at the autumn window displays was inspirational for how diverse wood and cardboard are as materials.

Week 3: Monday 7th October 2013.

Week 3:

Monday 7^th October 2013.

Up scaling work  is the priorty I have explored the beauty of the materials and products I have collected.  I have been playing and creating sculptures from the wooden pallets, old flooring, tiles and MDF.  To develop a strong concept and awareness of other people’s ideas I have been reading many different books surrounded by the idea of space and place to help me refine and develop my new samples.

‘...a great many of our memories are housed, and if the house is a bit elaborate, if it has a cellar a garret, nooks and corridors, our memories have refuges that are all the more clearly delineated. All our lives we come back to them in our day dreams’ (Bachelard, 1994:8)

The poetics of space, by Gaston Bachelard, has been a real inspiration to my project and samples, his ideas surrounding the domestic space and place along with new materials to work with have inspired the installation works.

Rauschenberg, R.(1971 -1972) Cardboard Series [online image][Accessed on 4^th January 2013]http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/images/interior13/9780300123784/78.jpg

Inspired by Robert Rauschenberg’s Cardboard series I have been sampling with cardboard; the material is cheap, strong and malleable.  Moving, arranging, I document my three-dimensional samples through photography. Taking photographs of my samples is imperative, as these can then be collaged and stitched into; it also enables me to combine two and three dimensions. Working on a bigger scale is challenging, physically and mentally. It is a new idea that takes detailed sampling and material knowledge.

Weeks 1 and 2: Mon 23rd September and Monday 30th September 2013

                           

Using my summer project as a platform, I have begun final year with excitement and a conceptually driven project, my ideas stem from a personal experience last year, where I spent the year living with cockroaches and the anxiety that was provoked in house-mates and me within our home. I am researching and developing ideas surrounding concepts of space and place and revealing and concealing.

 I have started by sampling from my own photographs of the Victoria Baths, Manchester. I chose this environment, as it is run down and historic. I am also planning to visit the Stockport Air Raid shelters.  Specifically my photographs are of the old living quarters above the baths, that were now almost beyond repair. Focusing on texture and colour the peeling wallpaper, cracked windows and bricks were ideal to photograph.  I have begun to create smaller samples focused on a limited colour pallet; I sampled around 25 of these boards. After evaluating them as a whole they were of a small scale, the shapes within the samples were inspired by the photographs I took, the scale needed to enlarge so they would begin to represent and mirror the space of my original photos. The materials I initially will collect need to have a domestic feel from, flooring to roofing; they also need to be raw, rustic, recyclable and cheap.  Many artists from painters installation artists and multimedia artists past and present, like Robert Rauschenberg and Gregor Schneider, inspire me, although very different they provoke emotion through installation experience and this is something I would like to achieve.

 Gregor Schneider’s work: Death House, He created a house in which all the windows door and exits were locked, visitors to the installation felt trapped and contained, the house holds history like the Victoria Baths.

Schneider, G. (1999) Death House[online image][Accessed on 20^th September 2013] http://www.gregorschneider.de/