Sculpture Week 2

Retrospectively, I am very pleased the work I made for the second week of 'Poetics of Materials' ...but I had to be convinced by other people before I thought this. I disliked the work up until it was finished and I had an opportunity to live with it and think about it a little more. I was mostly put off by how big and bold the cardboard structure I made was - I prefer things to be more delicate and subtle.

I was very indecisive about what to do with the structure - I had two main ideas about taking it further: continuing to make more and more of it, and introducing a new material. In order to make the decision, I trialled different arrangements, made sketches, made further maquettes and researched other artists. All these methods proved very useful but looking at other artists provided me with the winning idea this time.. I saw a collage/drawing by Rachel Whiteread (from 'Rachel Whiteread Drawings', ), where she had taken points in a found image and extended the lines out to the edge of the page. This led me to involve thread in my sculpture.

Rachel Whiteread - 'Stairs', 2003

I always find am better when responding to a space - it gives me confines to work in. Once I had established the space that I was able to use in the studio, the final piece came quite quickly and intuitively. The architecture of the space gave me all the ideas to position the cardboard, and the thread, and to invisibly suspend the structure with fishing wire. I think the illusion that the thread was the main support was the most successful element to the work - in the crit, people said it looked magical and mystical. I loved witnessing people understanding the work - having to go up close and investigate for themselves - this is the main concept I'd really love to take further, making a physical object that invites curiosity and forces people to think for themselves.

 

Interestingly, the thread and the expanse of white space of the studio wall brought back the subtlety that I was missing when the structure was by itself.

Poetics of Materials

I had a very productive and enjoyable week in the sculpture workshop. I was looking forward to being able to work in 3D again properly and I took to the brief immediately. It was good fortune that one of the materials it was suggested we use was cardboard, which I had been experimenting with and thinking about earlier in the course. I quickly made the decision to use cardboard over wood, having experimented briefly with the wood and deciding I didn't really like its properties - its colour, the inflexibility of it, how it splinters, how it cannot be manipulated easily - there seems more of a permanence and weight to wood, and this is not what I was after. (I think sometimes I am a bit quick to decide on these things, but there qualities to cardboard that interest me far more than wood).

The aspect of this week which I found most enjoyable, and which held my interest the most, was learning more about the material and exploring it quite freely. I really am drawn to learning about different materials, how they move, whether they break or tear, whether they can be stretched or squashed etc. This week has been a confirmation that I enjoy working in 3D not only for the aesthetic, but also for the kinaesthetic - feeling and making. In a similar way to Richard Serra using verbs, recently I have approached materials with a formula in mind: "cut into strips,fold, repeat". I have realised this in retrospect, I seem to do it quite a lot without recognising that I am.

I find repetition fascinating, with the sense of potential and growth that it automatically brings to a work.

 

I came to a bit of difficulty once I had run out the type of cardboard I was using - I found it hard to decide what to do next, whether to find more or use it as a stopping point and introduce a new material. I was thinking about some sculptures I had seen by American sculptor Justin Matherly in the Saatchi gallery just before I went to Venice. These combine two contrasting elements/materials - glass reinforced concrete and 'ambulatory equipment' - in a manner that was, I thought, effective and strangely beautiful. The concrete relied on the metal in its shape and positioning, and it was hard to decipher whether this was an awkward or a comfortable relationship. I was also drawn to how the structures, although different in many ways (colour, texture) had many similarities - as if somehow in their forced proximity, they have begun to mimic each other, and behave in the same way.

 

My aim for the next stage of the brief - to dress/paint/expand on the work we made - was to introduce a new material. I was looking forward to working with more than one material, and thinking about the relationship they have to each other.

janie

Venice trip

The trip to the Venice Biennale was a brilliant and also very useful experience, because of the amount of art that was there. There was so much to see it is very hard to describe the full impact that the experience had on me - I have learnt an awful lot from the work I saw, each one vastly different in subject and medium.

The set up of the event I found quite bizarre, as I have never encountered so much contemporary (and genuinely interesting) work in one place. I enjoyed both of the curated shows in the Giardini and the Arsenale, as well as quite a number of the pavilions. I took notes on works that particularly interested me, jotting down its details as well as a few thoughts about it, and I intend to research the artists more at some point. I think I might try to do this more in exhibitions I visit in England, as it was a very useful way of remembering the works, as well as analysing and appreciating them a little more, both at the time and with subsequent research.

I was pleased to note that I am much more able to analyse works - particularly painting and film, which before this term I perhaps wouldn't have given as much attention. Instead, I enjoyed looking at the brush strokes and thinking back to the seminar we had on visual language, deciding what the artist wanted to convey and what the work made me feel, considering the temporal aspects of video. I also saw three performance works, one arranged by (Turner Prize nominee) Tino Sehgal. I have never witnessed first hand a performative piece and they were really quite fascinating - although my main interest came in observing how the public reacted when they saw the performance was going on... some people stepped closer, others stepped back, some did not even realise, school children watched both intrigued and bewildered.

Two of my favourite works, and highlights of the trip, include:

Roberto Cuoghi - 'Belinda', 2013

The size of this sculpture was immediately impressive, and it worked so well in the space - between two big pillars in the first room of The Encyclopaedic Palace. I was immediately attracted to the shapes within the structure, which remind me of rock formations, coral and give the impression of growth, like bones which are still developing. The 'ripples' on the surface also give the work a sense of movement, heightened further by the unbalanced, precarious-looking position of the top-heavy mass. I have read that 'Belinda' is a massively enlarged copy of microscopic proteins, produced by a £D printer and coated in stone dust. I love the work even more for knowing this, because of the dramatic change in scale... I am very interested in enlarging the minute and unseen, especially natural forms. The fact that we see recognisable elements in Cuoghi's sculpture, and are able to draw associations with other natural forms that we encounter, fascinates me - I love this continuity in nature, whether zooming in or zooming out. I also love its pretence, how it is a manmade structure posing almost, as a natural form.

Camille Henrot - 'Grosse Fatigue', 2013

I rarely am captivated (or patient) enough to sit through entire videos, but I experienced the full 13 minutes of "Grosse Fatigue" and would happily watch it again. The video is by a French artist, who set herself the challenge of explaining the creation of the Universe. The video is comprised of many different elements, different shots of different actions and motifs presented as if on the windows of a computer screen. This vast amount of visual information is brought together by the audio, which is a spoken word poem. I found both the visuals and the audio very interesting, the bright coloured backgrounds and everyday materials used were very effective in their simplicity... it gave the sense that all these small, simple elements together made something complicated, just like the universe. The mix of surfaces, textures, movements, patterns was also mesmerising and compelled you to watch on. The voice over had a beat, it was rhythmic, almost like chanting, and the language used was religious, biblical.. as if it were from an Old Testament passage. I wrote in my notes "Science v. Religion v. Belief v. Knowledge' - the poem could have been any of these things and the juxtaposition of the images made it all the more ambiguous.

Painting 2D>3D>2D (Written 18-10-13)

Taking my work from 2D to 3D seemed like a very natural step for me, and is something I usually do in my practice (but more with drawings and plans than with painting). Following the crit we had, where it was suggested I think about what 3D materials my painting reminded me of, I experimented with wire, masking tape and different papers making small maquettes. I enjoyed this because it was a very quick, spontaneous process and seemed to develop very naturally.

I feel this way of working would be useful for me,  certainly it would provide me with a lot of ideas because the work is constantly eveolving and changes very rapidly. It might however be hard to decide when to stop the process, and focus on one thing to refine it.

I had not anticipated the translucency that was produced by the masking tape, which could certainly be taken forward in painting by using many thin layers of paint. It was suggested that my work has similar sensitivities in this way to that of Ian McKeever, an artist who I have looked at previously and whose work I like very much for its subtlety, exploration of light and transparent qualities. I am also drawn to McKeever's curiosity for an ambiguous solidity of form and space - I am very interested to explore this element further in my own work.

Ian McKeever - 'Day Painting', 1999

It was very interesting in this week's crit trying to guess the order in which people's work had been made... whether the drawing, or the sculpture, or the photograph came first. I was happy with the response I got to my work, and the feedback was very useful in thinking of ways forward - I am thinking about how to develop the x-ray like quality of the photographs I took of my maquette on the light box.

Painting (Written 10-10-13)

Painting has been surprisingly enjoyable this week. I was doubtful at the beginning that I would enjoy it because I haven't done any painting since AS Level, and don't feel particularly comfortable doing it. In fact, it was these things that made it enjoyable because I felt really free to experiment - I had no expectation of myself to live up to as I might in future weeks. I learnt an awful lot from the slideshow about how to look at paintings and understanding the different brush strokes.. this is something that I feel I have missed out on before, and it was really good to have the opportunity to consider painting in this way. From this, I feel myself already better able to look at paintings and understand them, and appreciate the visual language of the artist's work.

I produced a few paintings that (as relatively quick studies) I am happy with and more importantly, interested in. I am mainly interested in the shapes and the structures that they show, especially in the painting made from stencils as it has a certain geometry to it. I was wondering however, how much of the interest I see in my paintings is really about the painting or the subject in the original image. In the crit, it was pointed out that I am perhaps looking at the painting in a 3D way, thinking about what it would be like as a sculpture for instance.

However, I enjoyed it less when I was trying to make a painting using layers - I have never formally been taught how to paint in the past and really, have little knowledge of how to apply the paint (at AS Level I just did it in the manner which felt most natural and was not advised otherwise). I think I have little patience for painting 'properly' - waiting for layers to dry etc. The thing that held me back the most was that I feel I have no ability to judge whether a painting is good or not - I think this is because this medium does not interest me, maybe I have not researched it enough or am familiar enough with paintings, but I found it really off-putting to produce something and have no confidence in my opinion about it.

Unpacking the Box (Written 03-10-13)

This has been an interesting week of learning about the course and how it is to be taught. I don’t think it differs vastly from foundation in terms of going to lecture, seminars and tutorials etc, but there does seem to be a greater emphasis on crits and opportunities to analyse/talk about each others work in a group. I have found this a little daunting because I am not used to thinking about work for so long and it worries me that I can’t talk about the things I am seeing in as much detail as some of the others in the group.

In unpacking the box, I have continued to think about habitats and natural environments, but using materials that are man made or processed. It has turned out to be a little tricky to focus my ideas because I am trying to do everything quickly… I would usually spend a lot longer researching and developing ideas, but I want to have some work to show at the end of the week.

I have used my space as a sort of mood board.. I find it quite useful to have lots of images in front of me that might inform what I am doing or remind me of certain things. It was also nice to use this as a way of explaining my work to people, as we are still getting to know each other. I enjoyed seeing for the first time the type of work that the others are interested in. I can already see that the people I am on the course with will be very useful in helping my development as everyone is already discussing and sharing ideas quite a bit, in crits and otherwise.

 

I was thinking a lot about the use of cardboard this week, it seems to tie into my project in lots of different ways... Firstly, in how cardboard boxes become the environment for whatever we put into them (the brief itself is of course 'Universe in a Box - perhaps the box itself is the universe). Cardboard is associated with a certain transience, a temporality because they are often used to carry things from one place to another and house things for a short amount of time. I was reminded of London's 'cardboard city', where homeless people set up temporary shelters with cardboard - this runs parallel with how wasps make their nests, constructing it from cardboard and wood. I was also reminded of an installation work I saw at Glastonbury Festival in the summer by French artist Olivier Grossetête, who builds giant cardboard buildings as a collaborative effort. Of course, the sculptures only exist for a short time, but the buildings they replicate are grand and study monuments.

 

 

After this week, therefore, I think of cardboard as a much more poetic material.. I made a few maquettes using it but I would really like to explore it further in the future.

Week One drawing Project (Written 26-09-13)

I would just like to quickly observe how art, and specifically drawing, was used this week as  a unifier and a conversation topic… it is of course something we all have in common on our course and I am really enjoying getting to know people through their art, and through talking about their work.

The Drawing Project was really fun because none of us felt too precious about the work we were making and I think this gave us some scope for experimentation and working freely. Indeed, I really enjoyed working in a style so different from what I am used to - painting in bold colours, very stylistically and very quickly - I really would like to do this again because it was fun to do! The brief seemed so loose that we were able to follow lots of different ideas, and ended up with quite a strange, but interesting result.

 

 In re-interpreting Pierro De La Francesca’s ‘Flagellation of Christ’ (1455-1460), we mainly focused on changing the perspective, removing the depth of field and distorting the mathematical ratios and proportions that were so considered in the original.

 

 

I both enjoyed and disliked working in a group. On one hand it was exciting and spontaneous to work with other people’s ideas (that were usually very different to my own)… when we were painting together, we moved around the work so that it was truly a collaboration and areas would be worked and re-worked in different ways. On the other hand, however, I don’t think I would want to work collaboratively in my own practice because I found it hard to put across my ideas, and am not confident in enforcing my own ideas.  

Universe in a Box Reflection (Written 15-09-13)

I feel I have an interesting collection of things in my box, which I am keen to explore further. I have found that collecting materials and objects has provided me with quite a few ideas - I haven’t really done this in such a defined way before, and only did so at the suggestion of the brief but I will certainly do so again in future. I have found keeping a sketch book the most coherent way of documenting my ideas; I think this is probably because I am used to doing so. Keeping a sketch book seems to allow me a space to look at images and take them further with drawings and collage, as well as making visual associations… the juxtaposition of images I find really useful in coming up with new ideas, different concepts can be linked together in their aesthetic similarities and I find this inspiring.

From the work I have done in my sketch book, I feel that to continue this project I might want to investigate habitats. I have been looking at a lot of natural structures such as tree roots, plants and wasps nest and these have led me to consider growth in nature, and how animals and humans build things around them to live in or amongst.

 

 

'Universe in a Box' Development (written 30-07-13)

Two main things have influenced the way I have now decided to take the project. Firstly, I have been thinking about the connotations of the word 'Universe' and trying to decipher what it can mean. I always find looking up synonyms and definitions to words gives me a lot of new ideas to work from. I have been thinking about the meaning of 'Universe' as a habitat, environment or surroundings.

 

 

Secondly, I watched a documentary about British artist Cornelia Parker ('What Do Artists Do All Day?' - BBC4), in which she photographed things she encountered on her journeys through London as part of her day-to-day life. It makes more sense to me that people make art about things they have experienced, and the world around them and so I have come to define 'Universe' as the world that we encounter.

 

I have a fascination with what influences people, the things that mould someone even without their knowledge or consciosness. It is exciting that everyone's blend of encounters is different, making up a universe unique to them.

 

With these things in mind, my aim is to document my encounters by the things I collect and put in the box.

'Universe in a Box' (written 29-07-13)

This is from my written journal that I kept prior to this blog.

'Universe in a Box' - My initial reaction to the brief was that the box was the important element - that it would be necessary to install a work in the box and use it like a habitat. This was very daunting for me because I am looking to work on a large scale with 3D materials, which would look twee and craft-like if confined to a small box.

Reading over the brief slowly several times was a useful technique to understanding it in a way that I'm more comfortable with and that allows for plenty of experiment. My aim therefore for this project is to collect lots of different things e.g. objects, drawins, photos, materials and to simply store them in a box. I am not going to display them in any particular way because I don't think it is necessary.

Etching 2 (Aquatint)

Another successful, and enjoyable, day in the print room. I am really pleased with the aquatint print I made - I think using tone worked really well with the composition I chose, and it is a far more interesting image than my first hard ground etching.

I found myself perhaps more interested in the look of the plate as I was preparing it - the different surfaces bitten into it were fascinating and I would be quite interested in experimenting with what can be done with metal itself (and forget about the print). Another student from a different year was using the acid to corrode a metal box, which was making really beautiful colours on its surface - I'd love to investigate something similar. ...I think perhaps this points towards my interest in materials over making marks (drawing), which I view as more of an ideas process.

Drawing Development

 

 Developing ideas was momentarily tricky because I kept on coming up with the same ideas - I feel my drawings all have quite similar qualities because I have used line a lot, so they were not providing me with much variety with which to develop my ideas. Sticking to a particular 'style' is something I know hinders my work quite regularly, but I think perhaps I am learning to overcome it with set techniques. My second conversation with the tutor was needed and very helpful as we discussed how I should bring random elements from my environment into the drawings, introducing new motifs or exploring juxtaposing the qualities from different drawings. As a result of this conversation I began to use the cereal boxes and masking tape that were around my work space, as well as making cardboard maquettes and playing around with inverted images.

 

 

Etching 1

My slight apprehension about this new process was unnecessary because I really enjoyed it, and feel pleased with the prints I produced. I made a conscious effort to note down as mush as possible about the process so that I could refer to it later and observe small details so as not to get things wrong. I must do this for other processes in future because it enabled me to work independently, and (most importantly) with confidence... where as I might usually feel anxious about doing something wrong from memory.

I did not spend much time on the composition of my first etching.. I thought I might concentrate on experiencing the process instead. I enjoyed learning how and why the different steps work in preparing and manipulating the etching plate - I always find that I am better at something if I understand the reasons behind it, and this was very well explained to us.

I consider my first print to be successful because it was very clean, and the plate seemed to have held the ink well. I think the drawing itself was a bit sparse and uninteresting, but still coherent with the rest of my work and showed a new, different quality to using pen as I had done before in the week.

 

I think, although enjoyable, etching possibly isn't a process I would use very often in my practice because I only tend to use drawing as a means to making a 3D object and it would make more sense to use pen... Nevertheless, considering the preliminary drawings of artists such as Rachel Whiteread, which are really interesting and can be viewed as artworks in their own right, perhaps occasionally I could formalise some of my sketches in this way.