First Half: In the first few weeks of term 1 I focused on making and continuing my explorations from last year, working more automatically and spontaneously. I decided to return to painting because it had been some time and I wanted to revisit an older skill, bringing in new ideas and approaches for me to push myself and experiment with.
I struggled initially with a specific focus as I was painting mainly for pleasure not purpose, focusing more on the action of painting and the satisfaction of colour combinations or mark-making. I was given several large used canvases, one with a hole in, I liked this fact even though it was inconvenient for painting it did inspire me to think about distorted surfaces and later distorted space.
I had been basing certain elements of the painting on experiences I had outside or in the woods, like sunrises and sunsets, the high contrast of winter days and murky tones of twilight. This was mixed with automatic shapes and gestures that capture familiar elements of painting, my desire was to capture not just the colours of the experiences but the feelings they brought on, through colour and placement.
I also wanted to abstract the experiences but leave clues, with this in mind I whitewashed my vibrant painting to obscure and confuse the layers beneath with the layer on top. These top layers were made of subtle muted colours to compliment those underneath and were mixed with waste products from the experiences. Blue tissue paper from the studio where I watched the sunset, tinfoil and sandwich wrappers from a cold lunch on a park bench, canvas offcuts, litter, sweet wrappers and various discarded materials.
The end result was a work that hinted at some sense of place or reality, shown by the recognisable waste and familiarity of painting as a process. In the same way it is so muted and confused in a gentle way that it feels separate from reality in ways, since it is hard to make any sense of what it is really about. This confusion not only speaks to the vivid nature of the initial experience but to the murky waters of memory and to my general sense of confusion and bewilderment that has surrounded my degree practice so far.
Second Half: The later half of the term I was more focused on extending this notion of an experience distorted onto a surface, into a distorted experience of space or multiple spaces. I developed this by replicating my painting process making two more large 6ft canvas’ one communicating a clear process but with pure abstraction and one that floated in-between, metaphorically and literally (In the final display this painting hung horizontally in the middle of the others).
As I had developed this notion over the term I had been experimenting on the side with found objects, combining them in simple ways to change them from their original state, I also used photography to abstract elements of shape/colour/texture, so their use or function as a recognisable object was unclear. These experiments became more relevant when I moved into communicating a distorted experience of space.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QVT9i9aFAyuR9j7NUk0MTpv6F0rrKJ5S/view?usp=sharing
I combined the different approaches and realised that the objects, like the paintings, needed to be more abstract but also very familiar. For this I chose cardboard delivery boxes, of various sizes and shapes, since they are a commonplace item in modern culture especially since the pandemic. I then cut all of them at the same angle to lean in different directions, this was inspired by my research of Anne Hardy, and I intended to give the illusion of the ‘stable solid ground’ being ‘unstable plastic fluid’.
When arranging the final display I tried carefully to consider the way our experience of life is through stereophonic vison and 3-dimensional experience of space; contrary to the 2-dimensionality of painting generally speaking. I tried to use the canvases as objects and walls to divide the space and use the objects as coloured marks in a 3D painting, this was in addition to arranging viewfinders around the installation to invite the audience to interact and create their own compositions and unique experiences of the space.
All in all I felt the installation was successful, although I clashed with several course-mates over spacing concerns. This was because my work centred around space and I needed decent amount of space, unfortunately in a very overcrowded and busy section of the studios. In hindsight I think the curation of the end of term review could be improved, as well as the way in which I argued that I needed the space.
For degree show I will need a fairly large space since my work concerns and investigates space as a core element and as a part of the audiences experience. Expanding this experience using visual, spatial and potentially sound based elements is what I am aiming to achieve with my work now.
Below is a link to a short video of me filming the installation on my phone.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EpIDVQmKuJEPs4D4W_iifcNzIzVIx-YW/view?usp=sharing