I started using blue and yellow in my practice subconsciously without realising that the colour scheme was all around me, in my room, garden, on the way to uni, in my work from last term. It took my crit to hep me notice that this could be from what is around me, it was also at my crit that David Medalla was mentioned to me; part of his practice is having his experience directly inform his practice.
I found this piece of bubble wrap laid over my yellow box sculpture with blue light reflecting from the outside and decided to experiment with it, adding blocks of blue and yellow to play the the translucent nature of the plastic.
It is an interesting experiment although a very simple one, it calls to mind artists like Olafur Eliasson who uses colour and light to evoke experiences in his audiences. The shapes allow for spaces in between and keep the colours separate as opposed to mixing the primaries to make green.
The plastic wrap and the shots from ‘inside’ it makes me feel enclosed, but the vibrant contrasting colours create a sense of wonder which is amplified by the coloured god rays shining through the plastic.
Improvements: A larger scale with a different palette, experiment with the elements again, what about coloured backgrounds? dye the plastic instead of using pens? cute it into shreds, layer it up, play with colours through each other? don’t get distracted or lose your way because of studio access changes.
Tom Davis is a contemporary artist who studied at DMU and is now working in Walsall Birmingham. He is a visual artist working in digital and traditional painting who is inspired by personal life, video games, digital culture and perception. When he spoke about his work he gave us a very detailed and reflective presentation of his work to date, his honesty about successes and failures of his process was inspiring and reassuring.
Tom’s work from time at University/Degree Show Work
One point he spoke about that was realising the limitations of your process, this was something that actually became a focus of my methodology this term and for me the limits of what I can do directly govern what I do. I try to work with a limit but also right up against it, in the hope that this sparks new ideas or effects. This is similar to the way Tom used his experience during lockdown to integrate his interest in games and nature.
He also spoke about media and relevance to the context, for example a digital display of work is relevant to the context of Tom and therefore an oil painting would have a different and perhaps unwanted effect.
Digital pieces, inspired by still images from games/culture, exploring traditional drawing with digital colouring.
Tom likes to make work across different media (plaster, oil, acrylic, digital & comics) he also spoke about how he enjoys converting from analog to digital and making smaller versions of work that can then be scaled up. This is similar to my own digital drawing process where I work over real life locations I find on walks/trips. Tom also makes small collages as preliminary ideas instead of drawing/painting all the time, this is something I would like to experiment with further also.
He ends by speaking about his return to naturalistic subjects, how he struggled with digital/gaming focused process and couldn’t justify it to himself completely. He also talked about how he absorbs what’s around him and about enjoying slightly different ways of working, emulating this could help me balance my confused style and help me hone in on my unique process/processes.
Another insight I got from this talk (and my own process) was the need to go out to primary sources to learn more about a subject or idea. Davis says he felt like secondary research limited his outcome and I agree, with my own work if I am limited in the amount of outer world things I can absorb that affects the diversity of my inner world.
My other favourite thing about this talk was Tom’s challenge to us: ‘My challenge to you is to go out of your comfort zone, make work outside, leave with a view to coming back with a piece of art. How can you integrate outdoor adventures into studio work or practice?’
This inspired me, much like the Ed challenge, to just get out there and go for it which in the current circumstances of the Covid pandemic has been a lot more helpful than some other guidance.
Experimental pieces made on location, using different media and times of day.
RANDOM OTHER NOTES: heavy application of acrylic to get a different effect, different language for oils and acrylics. new interest in natural subjects, watercolours and painting from life. changing aspects of your practice gives you different results, different medium different location etc. TD now paints outdoors by candlelight, very traditional and interesting process. TD now interested in NFT, but concerned by ethics and energy cost. eventually things blend, try combinations and push limitations.
Tom also mentioned some advice for after graduation: be a part of an artist community afterwards and get in with a community and a network. Go to private views and openings to build a network and encounter as many new/interesting people as you can. Try not to be too introverted.
Fischli and Weiss are a pair of Swiss artists who collaborated on various projects and ideas, one of the most iconic is called ‘The Way Things Go’. The pair collaborated on many works over their careers and even had a retrospective at the Guggenheim in 2016, regrettably Weiss died of cancer in 2012, but their unique viewpoint and way of communicating meaning keeps on rolling like a tire.
This work is actually a 30 minute clip owned by Bates College Museum of Art, who describe the work as slapstick and thought provoking. Generally they were received by people well with an appreciation of their humour but also of the issue they were trying to poke fun at. However, other artist like Roberta Smith also spoke about the danger that viewers take Fischli & Weiss’ work (and work like it) at a superficial level without fully understanding the deeper complexities intended by the creators.
I love their playful elements but also their very frank way of communicating and also generating ideas; The Way Things Go was made from the leftovers of their studio whilst working on an entirely separate project. The same is true of How to Work Better, found on a bulletin board in Thailand, its a list of 10 things to do to work better that the pair use to ambiguously critique and/or praise notions of industrialism and potentially modern life or the ‘rat race’ as it is sometimes known.
I also like how Fischli talks about curation; trying to make sure his pieces stay in the ‘good neighbourhoods’ and don’t fall into the bad ones and try to convey too much meaning. I think Fischli is trying to stay away from meta or pretentious ideals and stay true to the satirical whimsy that made the duo’s work so interesting.
In terms of my practice I would like to emulate their sense of ambiguity, their playful use of materials as well as their understanding of everyday materials. I would also like to experiment further with interactive or kinetic elements of my work especially when considering exhibition or installation.
“We knew people enjoyed some of our work, and at the same time we suspected that they didn’t take us seriously,” Mr. Fischli said. “But we had a strong sense of what we were doing. And what was interesting for us was something that was loaded with ambiguity. Irony, after all, is interesting only if you don’t know if it’s meant ironically.”
David Medalla described himself as a ‘poet who celebrates physics’ and was an artist with a long career that focused on a playful and individual approach to making work, his work was based around many themes (namely personal experience) and he was an important artist in the exploration of kinetic, installation and participatory art.
Stitch in Time
His works like Cloud Canyons and Stitch in Time are well known and he was also one of the founders of Signals, an influential 1960’s gallery in London that was open 24 hours a day. I think the main reason for this popularity is because of the purity of Medalla’s mind and ideas, from hearing interviews with him he was as interested in enjoying his life as he was in making art and art was his life.
Having grown up near Manila Bay which was decimated by war Medalla saw a mixture of contrasting imagery from the land and water to the war torn area and then afterwards the regrowth and rebuilding. I feel Medalla greatly understood life (since art is all about life he also understood art well) which allowed him to clearly and thoughtfully take advantage of chance and change to make impactful work, it is also undoubtedly linked to his Filipino heritage where legacy and community are important to the people.
Cloud Canyon
My practice and his are similar in the sense that our lives and our art aren’t really separate, one informs the other and they both turn in a never ending cycle. I also strongly relate to his interest in participation (despite a certain coronavirus limiting this…) and in art as an experience to be shared or given. I also relate myself to Medalla in the sense that we are both concerned with connections between things, most prominently between humans, nature, and the machine.
Moving forward with his influence I would like to make more pieces that require participation to be completely effective and also lean into things that are kinetic or changing. I also want to try and work with other people and artist in making work, to experiment with not being the sole author or creator and to be part of a community or collective piece.
His use of fabric and textiles is also interesting and I want to explore this further in my work, perhaps stitching things together to make connections between objects or places, perhaps go on walks and collect materials and bring them to the studio like a migration of materials. I would also want to emulate his and many other artists’ methodology of capitalising on change and chance wherever possible and having a confident hand and open mind.
One of the artist talks I attended was with Juno Calypso, a young British photographer whose work discusses many themes most prominently feminism, isolation, loneliness and self sufficiency. Her work has a retro/vintage feel to it and recalls 1950’s style in some ways, probably calling back to a very different age of feminism.
Juno explained a series called ‘What to do With A Million Years’ in some depth and described how she approached a venue she was interested in, a Las Vegas 70’s underground bunker now owned by a group of people attempting to achieve immortality. She explained the way she approached the owner and group and the sensitivity with which she had to approach.
She also explained and encouraged us to ‘just go and ask’ which is always useful advice for someone like me to hear; I struggle with confidence especially when asserting myself in the outside world. It was encouraging to hear from someone who had a relatable experience to tell, it gave us a different kind of insight than listening to an artist later in their career.
Juno then went on to explain how her process is very personal and therapeutic (even though it won’t feel that way at the time) I think the wisdom she was trying to tell us is to be true to yourself and do what works for you. She did this by explaining her own limited photographic process which usually involves just her, with little outside help or equipment. For this reason she does most of the work in post production where she edits and tailors images to get the desired effect.
Photography is something I am interested in and after this talk I would like to explore it further conceptually, although it isn’t relevant to my practice at this time and I feel like engaging heavily in this would distract from the current train of thought I am working through in my practice.
However I would like to incorporate and experiment with some of Juno’s stylistic qualities, figure, colour, drama and self/self sufficiency. With a view to try to create my own reply to a conversation we are now in (because she is a newer influence to me I always like to directly respond to my first encounter with them).
The most impressive thing about Juno was her honesty, with her intimate photos of her own body and with her honesty about her process, stating she feels success is attributed to luck as well as talent. It has been very inspiring this year to hear from multiple young artists who have had different experiences after graduation. THIS IS THE KIND OF HELP WE NEED AS STUDENTS. Something to bridge the gap between student education and adult engagement in society/workplace, these kinds of skills seem to be in short supply and it is an area of our education that isn’t practically focused on, only conceptually.
Our Term 2 review ended with us filling out an exhibitor form with a view to writing a statement about our work with our new understanding or ideas, presumably. I struggled to write mine but in the end managed to do a decent job I feel, however the crit showed me that I don’t always understand my work so outside perspective can sometimes be very helpful.
My self-directed study explores play, space, and limitations with a sensitivity to materials and the curative process. Composition is a core element of my work as well as interaction, not just between the components of the work but also between the work and the individual.
I focus on intrigue and intuition when starting and try to let autonomy guide me through combination and experiment with getting the right effect from a material or a motif. I like to also play with colour to highlight or create a relationship as I see it between things, connections have been a concept central to my work as well as modularity or unity; the sense of the whole being just as valuable as the sum of each of its parts. I have also tried to adopt a playful approach to experimentation and failure to stop fear from limiting my work, in addition to current situation and limits.
There is a clear contrast in the forms of the objects I have made; the yellow and blue tones, the harsh squares and soft circles, vibrant colours and muted tones, domestic materials displayed (in theory in) natural environments. Most of the forms are also balanced or suspended as opposed to fixed or deliberately grounded, they’re held together with tenuous bonds in precarious ways. They are also unspecific in that there is no clear or concrete definition of what is going on with each thing or why.
I think this contrast is intended to play with tensions and relationships between things, I also wanted to communicate a sense of naturalness, in the sense that they’ve been made authentically and you can understand how they have been put together. I have also had feedback that this is the case, and although the work is not specific, the thought process is visible and feels familiar. Perhaps the work speaks to the shared sense of ‘searching through confusion’ we’re all experiencing at this time.
The work seems to reflect a conversation, with different individual parts communing with each other to convey a meaning, which for me can sometimes only be understood after they have been made. Corey Archangel has a similar practice in which he is sometimes the last one to know the connection or context of his work. I feel this level of unconscious or passive engagement is helpful to allow honest communication to flow, which can then be altered to suit a need for the artist, viewer or community etc.
Daniel Buren’s Within and Beyond the Frame and Ugo Rondinone’s 52 windows were both suggested as contextual references for me. Rondinone’s use of vibrant colour and surface are similar to my work, perhaps I could emulate his large scale & installation style. Buren’s concept of taking art outside the studio is definitely something I want to continue to explore further, by taking materials to a site and making a specific piece or installation.
I was also influenced by Eric Bainbridge and his process; he takes a curative approach in some ways and is more concerned with the overall relationships rather than specific details. I also want to carry forward David Medalla’s methodology of having work be directly informed by personal experiences, for me this could be using materials I find myself or taking silhouettes and themes from interactions or moments that happen to me.
I decided to use the garden again to try and make some more hanging work that could interact with the elements somehow. Unfortunately before I could make any significant progress it started to rain heavily.
This did prompt me to think about making work that makes sounds based on the rain, perhaps large metal mushroom heads or leaf type shapes. This could blend well with the sensitivity to materials topic, since using the natural elements and becoming in tune with them is being sensitive to the most natural material.
I heard about Corey Arcangel from a CPS seminar, he wasn’t suggested as someone for me specifically but I decided to investigate on my own. I’m glad I did because his process is fascinating even if his work is sometimes hard to categorise or fully understand. He has a similar feeling to me in that his process is sort of intuitive more than well planned or thought out, stating he is sometimes last to know what going on with his work and that he is interested in materials.
Charlotte Posenenske is a German born artist who makes sculptures and paintings and who interestingly became a sociologist towards the later decades of her life, her work is broadly about industrialism and mass production.
Her work visually centres on industrial materials and representation with the flatpack style boxes and brackets being repeated (with some variance) to create different objects from the same materials. Her work very modular in this sense and the sense that the different objects relate and communicate with each other in the space, the different component parts contribute to the understanding of the whole.
Posenenske’s wall hung sculptures use different types of language; brighter colour, matte or gloss surface, curves are used as well not just angles. This gives them a different feeling to the viewer but the sense of modularity and mass production are still present; all of her forms look as though they could be 3D printed and easily assembled by anyone in today’s world.
This could perhaps have been Posenenske’s point, that if corporate consumerism and mass production continue to aggressively expand art could become a function and not a passion. this is again emphasised by her choice of materials and forms, all industrial in nature and all products of man not directly of nature. Had these forms been made from grained wood they would have had a completely different feel with the natural wood contrasting the man made references.
This careful consideration of modularity and sensitivity to materials is something I want to try and replicate through my work but in my own way, although I do like the idea of having easily repeatable forms that can expand to fill or take over a space. I also love the simple but powerful use of colour to make relationships between the objects, so they can be effective as an individual thing but also belong to a collective. This is also our paradoxical desire as humans, to be unique and to be accepted, which goes against the phrases like ‘the nail that sticks out gets hammered’.
I want to also take forward the fact that she painted and sculpted simultaneously to have a flow between her ideas, for me this is something I feel I have forgotten how to do effectively which leads to be getting stuck or frustrated easily. If I can have multiple ways of working through or thinking about an idea then I can be a more versatile artist and adapt better to any more unforeseen circumstances (Covid) that may happen in the future.
