Current Influences

I had a dream last night that I was casting little resin houses. I have so many ideas for installations and performances and I need to get to work. My studio currently looks like this:

I am planning to finish painting it and get a desk in the next week and then I have lots of things to start. I'm currently thinking about themes surrounding tradition and my experience of living in the UK. The way places in the UK differ from one another and the way it's changing. I want to make work that is humorous and/or thought provoking.

These are the people who are currently inspiring my thoughts and ideas:

Bedwyr Williams

Jeremy Deller

Rachel Whiteread

I will be updating more regularly soon with pictures of work in progress and finished pieces. I hope to participate in more exhibitions this year and visit more galleries. I'm really enjoying the freedom of being a graduate, though I miss group critique and discussion. 

I am also planning to organise a group show of graduate work in London next year, if you're interested in helping out or participating, let me know.

Searching, always

I recently got back some pictures I took at an art show. The problem with film photography is that by the time I get round to getting the pictures developed, it is long after the events took place. It's interesting, we expect everything to be so instant now, show reviews to be up the instant a private view has taken place, easily accessed on the internet, which only makes us less and less patient. Anyway, on to the show.

 I went to see 'Searching, always' (a group show by arjeea21 artists at Gallery 49, Bracknell) in February 2013. It was an incredibly cold day, and although some of the work was on display in the windows, I didn't want to stay outside for too long to see it and spent most of my time inside the gallery. 

The work was really varied, under the loose theme of 'Searching, Always' the artists went in completely different directions, often taking transient objects or moments and giving them a permanence, from portraits, to everyday objects, to prints of a leaf.

As usual I took pictures of my favourite pieces and was particularly drawn to many of the pieces that came with a sense of mystery. Hopefully I will see more work from this group in the future.

 

 

Above - Work by Peter Driver

Above: Work by Roxana Tohaneanu-Shields

Rabbit

I decided to linocut a rabbit just before Easter, however I became pregnant shortly after and lost all of my creative drive due to feeling so sick.

Now that I'm feeling a bit perkier and reflecting back, a rabbit seemed oddly metaphoric of the whole situation.

 Numbered, named, signed and ready.

I decided to submit the print as an edition for the 20:20 project at Ochre Print Studio. So last Tuesday I printed 25 onto Somerset paper. 20 will go into boxes, along with the prints of other artists and I will receive a box of 20 prints myself, including one of my own and the work of 19 other artists. The final prints will be displayed and sold at the summer show at Ochre, which runs on the weekends of 15-16th June and 22nd-23rd June, 11am - 5pm.

Prints drying on the rack

Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration at the White Cube

I have always admired the work of Chuck Close, but have mainly known him from his paintings. When I read about his exhibition of Prints at the White Cube, I had to go. I'd never seen his work in person before and really wanted to get a sense of the scale and a look up close at the detail of some of his works.

The exhibition was definitely not a disappointment. Two things that really struck me were colour and technique. Close really understands colour in a way I don't feel I ever could. I imagine it's something which comes from years of work and dedication. Close knows how to add layer upon layer of colour to make a photo realistic print. It's truly amazing to see.

As for technique, Close's work is very logical and methodical. Each piece is planned out before hand. The exhibition showcased charts, plans and diagrams created by Close before completing each piece, as well as showing the stages of some pieces and the woodblocks used for a series of woodcuts. This gave me a serious insight into the way the pieces were achieved.

 This is a tapestry! I believe it is machine made, however the work involved in planning the piece and colours must have been great.

 

The details of this series were amazing, up close you can see every separate colour, like pixels. Standing back, the colours are spot on.

 

This series showed the build up of colours used to make the final print. 

This frame was a kind of metal stencil used to plan the grey paper pulp piece below. There were tiny numbers on the frame to indicate different shades of grey.

 This painting has now been produced as a woodcut!

Another tapestry

Chuck Close Prints: Process and Collaboration was at the White Cube, Bermondsy from 6th March - 21st April

Photocopy Lithography.

Writing this up for a workshop and generally for future reference. I will try to remember to add pictures the next time I do this.

You need:

1 fresh photocopied picture, needs to be 1-2 days old max, copied using a large photocopier, not the desktop laser kind.
Roller
Barren/wooden spoon
Flat absorbant paper
Gum arabic
Oil based etching ink
Water in spray bottle
Glass or Perspex plate.
Paintbrush
Sponge
Jar/tray of water


Directions:

Spray glass or perspex with a light spray of water (This should help the image to stay still).
Lay photocopied image with image facing upwards.
Paint image with a layer of gum arabic.

Roll out some ink, carefully roll the ink onto the photocopy. Roll in one direction, so as to not disturb the paper.

Using a clean sponge, dip into water and carefully move over the image, the ink will stick to the black areas of the photocopy but will gradually come off of the white areas as you sponge.

Place a sheet of paper on top of the image, gently use the barren on the back of the paper to transfer the image.

When you peel away your paper, the image should be transferred.

You can also use a press, but you must be very careful when moving the image as the wet photocopy paper is very delicate.

You can take more than one print from the same image, though the paper degrades very quickly.

The best images to use for this have a strong contrast.

Linocutting

 Since seeing 'Eat your heart out' and some of the work at the Saatchi, I've been really interested in hearts, I was going to do a multiple colour linocut, but It is reasonably big and is taking time to plan out, so in the meantime I started doing this small, but highly detailed linocut.

I wanted to look at the heart as a symbol. Valentines day is coming up and hearts are everywhere, but the hearts we see on the shop shelves are a far cry from what a heart actually looks like.

I plan to make cards using my anatomically correct heart symbol in the place of the usual commercial heart.

I'm sure I will take this project further, but am so far pleased with the results.

I'm going to head into the print studio on Tuesday to print the final editions before moving the project along to creating the cards and beyond.

 

Beginning stages of cutting

 

 

Test prints 

 

Saatchi Gallery.

I recently visited the Saatchi and saw their latest exhibition: Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union. I went with Olga who is Ukrainian, which shed a different light to if i'd been on my own, as she recognised places and translated Russian text in some of the images.

There was a large variety of work, so I took pictures of the things I liked and tried to capture as much as possible.

Meanwhile II

 I saw the exhibition 'Meanwhile II: Subtle interventions by: Susan Collis, Oona Culley, Daniel Eatock, Cadi Froehlich, Janne Malmros, Trevor H. Smith' a while ago now, whilst working at the Hartley Library, University of Southampton. There is a gallery on level 4, which regularly hosts either art or history exhibitions.

You'll have to forgive the images as they could be much better, however I think my camera battery for the light meter has run out and I just didn't notice, and relied on it a bit too much. This exhibition was hard to capture anyway, as most of the pieces were light in colour and some contained barely-there details.

 

 

I think what I took away from this, was that there can be a kind of subtlety that is very appropriate in relation to some areas of artwork. The exhibition was based around the themes of removal, omission, deconstruction. Sometimes what the work was about was the object which was missing or no longer present. Coffee/tea mug stains on a table are reminiscent of times past and conversations lost, words are barely impressed upon paper, and drawings are made by absent marks or gaps. 

Showing absence in work is something which is hard to do, so the variety of ways in which this had been done was inspiring.