Experimenting with lighting brought forward new possibilities within my work and I really liked the outcome that the lights offered me. The rota lights were not as strong as hoped in my studio due to too much natural lighting and other interferences. i think they would be best suited in a darker room with more space to allow for me to space them apart and create more hues. With saying that, the lighting buries itself within the folds and creases on the paper and highlights certain areas giving off the impression of a solid or stone like surface. which i am aiming for. at least to me it looks like ridges and aretes on mountains or hills. newsprint has always been a fun material to me, i enjoy drawing on it with graphite and ink and i thought why not use it for it's more gestural and textural elements within my work. it was slightly fragile to work with due to the tape and pressure it was under to create forms but that adds to the process and idea that i am hoping to achieve. fragile materials like newsprint are things i lean towards due to their accessibility and performance. sure they might not be the "best" but they supply me with the outcomes i enjoy. i'm starting to care less and play more. i would usually have been too precious with materials as i always felt like i was wasting them, but this is for a purpose, it's not going to waste. i plan on keeping and reusing the materials i collect for future ideas and installations. i've always been big on savouring materials and making them stretch so that i have substance to work with for a long time. at times this might be a bit tedious but i like to know i have things to fall back on eventually.
continuing with using the polythene. I really loved the way light bounces and interacts with polythene, it looks so dreamy and intriguing like floods of water or cascading glaciers and waterfalls.
I began looking into bioplastics and the function they have as well as how they act as another textile. I want to drape the plastics over some of the objects i have or materials to see what results i get. Although, my first experiment did not go as planned. the mixture was too dense and collapsed almost instantly as soon as you picked it up. it would break into tiny sections which i was not really hoping for. I looked into bioplastic as I intended on making large sheets of it and using it as a similar medium to glass due to its transparency and texture. I initially wanted to slump glass over objects, which i'm working on bringing into fruition soon. therefore to tide me over, i used bioplastic as a back up plan incase the glass slumping doesn't work at all or there's too many difficulties. I think during next semester i'll experiment more with bioplastic and its properties to bring larger sheets into my practice and see how it interacts with my other materials.
Working with bioplastics got me thinking back to Heidi Nortons work and if I could potentially cover objects or a landscape in a bioplastic mixture to get an impression from.
"Mount Pom Pom" by Misaki Kawai.
I've been thinking over structure and "formality" to my work and i've realised how restricting that is and how prescribed things become. My studio is my sketchbook. I don't like attaching structure to things that happen spontaneously. I like the element of surprise which often times outside the sketchbook structure. Don't get me wrong i still keep one but it's mainly to reference or for things that "need" structure.
"...the most important thing for an artist is not their ability to draw technically well, but their ability to trust their instincts..." - Misaki Kawai
I've been thinking about this statement for a while, it's been going around in my head and I believe it. A lot of my work happens within my instincts and what my eye perceives as good or bad. Looking at Kawai's work has really helped in opening up more to my instincts and ditching conventional structures that are often tedious at best. I love their use of materials and how they let their imagination run wild, which I've been letting happen to my own work and throughout my practice. compared to last year i feel i've really developed and let my work become it's own thing.
Really fallen in love with Wyatt Khan and Do Ho Suh's tactile and installation work, creases and folds in fabric has been something i've been exploring with and how the these creases resemble natural elements and forms. whether through indexicality or through sheer resemblance. The materials I use offer these results i'm looking for: natural and rigid forms to resemble landscapes. I guess i just need to find a way to make them more 'rigid' or more solid as opposed to just loose, which isn't always a bad thing. I think i'm gonna try experiment with starch and maybe try slip casting with fabrics and see where it takes me and what results i can get from them!
"Untitled" 2013, Linen canvas on panel, Wyatt Khan.
the folding and overlapping of fabric is something that really stands out to me while looking at their work, it looks almost stone like or concrete rather than soft. i like this juxtaposition of softer materials with harsher and more solid structures and forms. even the composition itself looks almost boulder or fossil like in my eyes. I really found comfort in Khans words when he said " I would like the viewer to experience the errors in the process that reveal my hand, and a very human experience of imperfection”." (saatchigallery.com) i feel like i can relate to this as i want to portray the good and also the bad within my work, the raw and more polished parts simultaneously. My installations are beginning to take shape how i would like them to with more refined aspects being included also.
"The Home We Carry" Do Ho Suh
pages from "Soft: Feelings" about Do Ho Suh.
I've been thinking about creating installations that completely submerge and overwhelm a space or place. I really find the link between space, place and belonging really captivating and how we associate things, people or memories with specific places. My work is beginning to take shape and mutate into something larger and i'm happy with it. I'd love to create something so immersive like "The Home We Carry", I've thought about taking over part of my studio or landscapes around Dundee with fabrics and paper and painting in these places to take and "imprint" or a three dimensional photograph of sorts to remember the place and exact memory by. I've ordered some polythene to hopefully start this project idea and see how it goes. If not there is always next semester.
"Passage" 3rd year corridor exhibition curated by Sara Pakdel-Cherry 2020.
Felt good to get some sort of "normality" back with exhibitions still taking place, was such a great opportunity to take part in and get to share everyones amazing work from the past few weeks! here's to many more! :D