Assessment Display

I found some photos of my studio assessment set up from last year and have realised that I never analysed them or logged them on here. I thought it might be worthwhile to give me some ideas for my upcoming assessment as I am yet to decide how to display my work. I'm still fond of the clean, minimal, black and white look, with labels as if part of a museum collection. I am aiming to approach it like a little exhibition to best show off how i have refined my ideas or to strongly indicate how a final outcome might be realised. In these photos I really like the mixture of different media - 2D images, found and made objects and the projector. I think I have a similar collection of things to present in these different ways this time, and am looking forward to curating them and bringing them together.

I am planning on making these 'media' cards again, with the links to my pinterest, instagram, website etc and the artist statement. I think this is a logical way of doing it and in keeping with the overall aesthetic. I could present them on the desk on a sheet of paper but I think this, like the title as gallery protocol, sets the tone of it being a display. 

Making Cyanotypes

I tried making cyanotypes for the first time with paper I bought from an online photography store- not the best quality but I bought a big pack so I could experiment before perhaps buying better stuff. I had some acetates of the lenses printed ready so that I could make this this holiday and have some work when I get back to uni. I really like the idea of including the sun in the medium, so that there are levels of meaning, and the materials and process are fitting with my intentions and interests. It seems to me really poetic to make images using light, and of objects that once helped someone to see. It is as if the light reactivates the now obsolete and 'dead' lens.

The process was fun - and very easy! I need to do more experimentation with timings to figure out the right colour blue: I wanted to wait for the sun but made do with a cloudy day and wasn't entirely sure what length of exposure I would need for this. Oddly, I left one of these images outside for 0 minutes, and another outside for 20 and they have come out the same colour. I also would like to try different acetate images as I think maybe I might have made the acetates too dark so on the cyanotypes (such as the one above) there is not much detail to be made out. Overall, i really like the effect -I think they have potential to be taken further; I'd love to make a really big version, with that rich blue filling most of the page.

Saatchi Gallery

This week I made a quick trip to the Saatchi as I was in the area - I never have very high hopes for what I will see there anymore; I know I have mentioned in a previous blog post how I find it a little depressing how people go there as somewhere trendy to meet people and barely look at the work. I also find that the spaces are so large, and therefore the works are so large, that they are quite different to my work - they are often rather bold and brash (and often political) sculptures or paintings that are quite opposite to my taste. I did find this was once again the case but the gallery was almost empty and I enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with each work, and pick up on smaller things that I can use as inspiration for my own practice. I have got into the habit this year, especially since Venice, of observing how a work is presented even if I don't like it; I'm conscious that I need to start making my pieces more 'professional' and think about how they might be shown in a gallery space, so going to bigger galleries is helpful in this respect.

Olivia Bax - 'Model For More', 2014

Similar to the sculptures of Rudolf Polanzky that I wrote about recently, this sculpture made me wonder whether there was a separation between the stand and the form on top or whether it is all one piece. Again, I like the minimal metal stand for its elegance and practicality.

Amba Sayal-Bennett

I don't recall ever seeing overhead projectors in major gallery spaces before. I admit I had little interest in the work itself but was more focused on the display. It was almost reassuring to see that this was 'good enough' for a major gallery, to have projectors just on the floor with all the cables exposed. I rather like overhead projectors for their straightforward function; in this case the acetate image is just as much on display as the projected one as well, the projector is inextricable part of the work unlike modern digital projectors. 

Dis/Order - 'Eternal/Muternal Beauty', 2015

I was surprised to find that this was actually my favourite work in the gallery - surprised because it is neon and glaring, and is to do with some kind of cell mutation. I actually really liked how whimsical it was, it made me smile which was a change from all the heavily political works in the adjoining rooms. The presentation was also intriguing, the neon objects were the only things lit in the dark space and created patterns in the darkness. This was a strange kind of museum style display but I can still add it to my growing list of examples; the jars were displayed on shelves like a glowing, postmodern cabinet of curiosities.

Death Cafe Work Ideas

I have been very stuck as to what to make for the Lost for Words Exhibition....I knew I wanted to put in the Dust form a Doctor's Waiting Room, but I have been really at a loss about how it might be displayed. Imagining such a little pile of dust in that vast white space has had me really anxious. It was suggested I present it a museum, or cabinet of curiosities style, but trying to find a suitable piece of furniture (that is affordable) has proved impossible. I considered trying to make my own stand but, without the workshop and with very little time because of all the other work I have to do, this is not really a viable option.

I was finding it so tricky that I thought I needed to take a step back and re-assess what the piece was originally about. i find it easier to physically write down my thoughts, instead of list them on here...

I have decided to go with the last idea, putting very small amounts of the dust onto microscopic slides, as if they going to be examined under a microscope, and laying them out in neat rows. I have an image in my mind of them being displayed like a minimalist artwork, and in similar but not identical multiples, which I am always drawn to in artworks, I also intend to photograph the dust,or the slides of the dust and make them into postcards, which people can take away.

I have written the following for my artist statement:

Dust, the debris of time, is the material remains of the people who have existed and the actions that have transpired in a space over weeks, months and years: a catalogue. Dust is both life and death, at once telling of the body’s growth and of its decay. Skin cells shed and fall like grains of sand in an hourglass.

'Dust From A Doctor's Waiting Room' dissects this most degenerate of materials, both in a physical examination and in an invitation to reconsider its significance. Taken from Falmouth's Westover Surgery, the dust is specific to the residents of the town. Local visitors to the exhibition may well be looking at fragments of themselves in the work. 

Jess invites visitors to take postcards of the dust, so that it will be dispersed back into the local area and beyond.

Each Other's Eyes - Display Compositions

Making Teaspoons of Darkness/Teaspoons of Light

 I had the idea to develop the teaspoons of darkness work by actually casting the bowls of teaspoons in the black emulsion paints. I like the thought of creating quite simple looking objects, where it is not immediately obvious what they are or how they have been made. In my mind there would be a large amount of these small black teardrop shapes, and they would be displayed in rows or lines as if artifacts in a museum. I am always drawn to multiples, especially wen they similar but very slightly different. Carrying out this idea began with sourcing some teaspoons, and therefore scouting the charity shops of Falmouth and Bristol (as if I needed more excuses). In the past year, collecting the objects for my projects has become a significant part of the work, and I quite like how the spoons will be objects that have belonged to people from across the South.

The first experiments I have done have not been a great success. I discovered that, as emulsion is water-based, the paint halves in volume as it dries and therefore does not keep the shape of the spoon. The resulting objects were thin, crisp-like shapes of matte black paint, entirely lacking in interest or poetic potential. Its quite interesting to note how, evident in this example, although a work can be conceptually driven, its aesthetic is still very important in conveying the idea or sparking the imagination. If it is not working it is very obvious but, as I discovered, it is equally easy to know when something is interesting...

I have been thinking of ways to bulk out the paint to maintain the shape of the spoons.. I want to try latex as it will hopefully preserve the colour (which is central to the work) but I will have to wait until I am back in Falmouth after the holidays. I tried mixing with PVA and (some dodgy looking) paint thickening agent, but they still reduced in volume far too much or diluted the colour to such an extent that it would invalidate the concept. In order to just get an impression of what the spoon shapes might look like, I decided to try casting the bowls in wax and then painting them (a tester - I don't think this is conceptually strong enough to do for a final work because it would not be measurements of darkness). To do this I lit a candle and dripped the wax gradually into the spoons, put them in the fridge and removed the cool wax - it reminded me of making the medal and I really enjoyed how malleable and tactile wax is.

I was immediately very interested by the results - where the wax drips in tiny circles onto the metal, there are layers evident in the set article which look like a kind of mottled glass - they remind me of the surface and visual qualities of the contact lenses.  As the wax had blackened in places, burnt by the flame, each spoon came out a slightly different colour; the murkiness also hinted at the darkness and mystery I m after. I realised that, as it was the flame of the candle that made the wax fill the spoons, they are actually measurement s of light instead of darkness. 

I'm really looking forward to developing these. My aim is to collect more spoons to make a more impressive and coherent series, and to perhaps experiment with different colours.

Teaspoons of darkness (painted wax) and teaspoons of light.

Cabinets

I wish I could remember what I was thinking when I write some of the things I later find on my to do list. I came across this note (below) the other day and the exact thought behind it is a bit of a mystery - but I'm going to try and jot some thoughts down anyway because it sounds interesting. 

I think maybe what I would have been thinking is how the cabinet is a place where artifacts live, and that this display method has such established connotations with the museum that it automatically impacts the manner in which its contents are perceived. Museums are inherently about the past, exhibiting objects once belonging to people and civilizations long dead, or the skeletons and preserved bodies of natural history specimens,  

I thought I might take a look at some artists who have used cabinets in their work to analyse their function as art objects and curatorial decisions...

Kate MccGwire - FINE (Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional), 2012

Firstly, the feather sculptures of Kate MccGwire, which are catergorised in their own section of the artist's website as 'Cabinet Works'. I presume that each piece is made for a specific cabinet to determine its size and shape, which is perhaps quite a different approach to museums (what comes first, the artifact or the museum case?). There is an interesting contrast between these works and MccGwire's installations which, although are created to follow the architecture of the space, are a lot more organic, less balanced in their form and composition. MccGwire's decisions to make the pieces sit quite large in the cases conveys a sense of cramped incarceration, making them even more uncomfortable to view. Presenting them in this way, with the connotations of natural history vitrines also makes them even more animal-like and therefore more uncanny. Although the shapes appear as if living beings, I think they still agree with my note and speak somehow of death, and perhaps more broadly about death in the museum context; the sculptures take the place of skeletons or taxidermy specimens and reveal a unnerving, even sinister aspect to the museum's encasement of the dead.

Cornelia Parker - The Maybe, 1995

Tilda Swinton sleeping in a museum vitrine is unusual (not least) because she is a living artifact, but in a way she is almost as sentient as the feather structures of MccGwire. The work would not have nearly as many connections with death if the performance had not occurred in a museum case; although sleeping is naturally associated with mortality and fragility, here Swinton is in the territory of the dead. As 'The Maybe' also includes more conventional museum exhibits, such as artifacts from the Freud museum, Swinton is related to these other works through the cabinet. The function of the vitrine here, and probably in every work, is ultimately to direct attention; in this case it is not just to her form, but also to her existence. 

Mark Dion - Tate Thames Dig, 1999

I always think of Mark Dion first when ( think of cabinets because I remember his talk I heard in first year. His way of using them as a space to bring things together, to create connection is what is most interesting. The cabinet is a kind of device to put authority on a collection of objects that might not have immediately obvious relationships. I think how this relates to death is perhaps less obvious, but because (in this work above at least)  it is using objects that have been found discarded and buried underwater, it is as if they have been resurrected and the cabinet is a means to preserve them. I am reminded of the idea that we are all equal in death, and this is also what the cabinet does by exhibiting things slide by side as if there is no hierarchy between the objects. 

Damien Hirst - No Art; No Letters; No Society, 2006

Damien Hirst and Death go together so intrinsically that it is perhaps difficult for me to forget what I already know of his work and analyse what the cabinets themselves bring to the work. Although, perhaps the cabinet is part of the language that Hirst has built up, so that within his practice alone, the cabinet or vitrine becomes naturally associated with death and mortality. In the work above, the cabinet is almost a found object, as if it has been removed off the walls of a chemists with the contents inside and put into the context of the art gallery. Thisis different to all the other examples I've looked at, as they are reliant on the cabinet being a means to display, something that has been acquired or constructed after the object or artwork itself; however, Hirst's cabinet here is intrinsic, irreplaceable, ingrained in the meaning of the piece with no chronology of what came first.