Exploration...

Since the start of term, I have had weekly PDP classes which help to recognise potential opportunities and contexts of practice within varying areas of contemporary art and design as well as assist in planning and making informed choices and decisions to help me futher myself towards my current aspirations.

The above is achieved through methods of learning and development such as the observation of reflective practitioners, the identification of qualities I have and those still to be developed, networking and synthesis technqiues, blogging and documentational devices, and of course research into all the diverse artistic pathways such as Fine art, Design and Craft to further my understanding and appreciation of how each pathway is individual in style and approach, yet can come together as one and be experienced in another.

My research into different pathways has begun and I will upload the research into the three artists that I have completed so far:

Michel De Broin- 'Black Whole Conference' 2006

Michel De Broin often explores customary objects and plays on metaphorical associations in his artwork which acts as an expression towards the way we are influenced as a society, and as an individual. His work is as deeply capturing conceptually as it is aesthetically which I find to be of great importance in my own work and in the case of ‘Black Whole Conference’ 2006, this is no exception. This piece seizes the viewer by the creation of solidarity where every chair seems to support one another, no hierarchy exists and a multiple has taken a stance to form a static appearance. Undoubtedly, this piece is highly conceptual and illustrates how contemporary art and architecture sit side by side in an installation which depicts a manifold of entities acting almost as a reaction to the society driven by hierarchy as there is a reliance within the piece; if one chair was missing the rest would fall apart. I believe Broin decides to work with everyday objects to heighten our connective impulses with certain articles and possibly question the basis of our thoughts towards it. Broin’s approach seems to evolve from a concept, which is then transformed into a visual which can be seen and interpreted by the viewer through association. The way he manipulates the objects can be seen as an art in itself as he always transforms an ordinary entity into something truly exceptional, almost illustrating that everything has a meaning and a purpose, and earlier associations towards the object can be disregarded, as anything can be reformed. The work of Broin is significant in relation to my own as I see also go through the process of transforming a space, or an entity in order to create an installation. The aesthetics of the piece are just as important to me as the concept is, and through this I strive to create works of art which also concentrates on barriers in our existence which can be conquered or ‘reformed’ as Michel De Broin illustrates.

Antony Gormley- 'Blind Light' 2007

Antony Gormley is known for creating vast amounts of technical sculptures that require vast amounts of accuracy and time which more than often relate to the human body and the space that we encounter each other in. With his sculptures focusing entirely on a human presence, viewers are often made to feel the ‘viewed’ as they exist within ordinary spaces as well as galleries. Although Gormley is more famously known for his sculptures, it’s the installation atmosphere that he recreates that interests me more, as I feel he transforms spaces into a compound of realisations, for example his 2007 installation, ‘Blind Light’. This piece is a glass room filled with a dense cloud of mist which again reiterates the feeling of transforming a space into something else. It evokes the feeling of the unknown, and how we react to one of our sensory relationships being jeopardised. I believe Gormley was attempting to address the face that when we are in a room, we feel safe and secure because we know where our location is so when this is taken from us, the associations to the unknown fills us with doubt. I believe this piece questions the unknown and how this affects us mentally and socially. This piece induces an individual challenge where the viewer is invited to react and respond and this is what particularly engages me with this artist, the viewers are always at the centre of every artwork. As I also work in installations, I share this tendency within my own work as I always want the viewer to be able to relate to the piece once the concept has been realised.  

Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller- 'Opera in a Small Room' 2005

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller collaborate together to produce highly conceptual installations which continuously evoke questioning and self-reflection. The workings of the duo endlessly look at a situation, and then create an artwork around this that is more often than not enigmatic as countless metaphors are used to allow the viewer to interpret the piece as they break down each potentially symbolic entity in order to comprehend the installation. They combine sound with visuals to create an stimulating configuration of senses and ‘Opera in a Small Room’ 2005 depicts this well. The term used for this time of installation is called a ‘total installation’ and this is where the artists presents an immersive scene into which the viewer enters. I particularly like the layout of the room and the existence of a ‘fantasy’ lifestyle so that the viewer gets a real sense of actuality. A sense of hysteria is created by not physically being able to enter the room and the only visuals can be seen from looking through small windows. I believe this to be symbolical of the way we as individuals can only get an insight into peoples hectic lives through the windows of opportunity they allow to show. Of course, many concepts could be gathered from this piece and as always is always down to personal interpretation. The way the artists collaborate to form thought provoking installations is a way of working that I find myself relating to as often my work needs to be explained in order for it to be understood, never do I intend on focusing on literal connotations with the objects that I work with and just as Cardiff and Miller expose concepts through prompting layouts, I also find myself using prompting materials in relation to an idea where the chain of thought magnifies from.

More artists research will be updated onto my blog soon!

Time for Another Update

Well, considering the Alloa brief I have moved on quite sufficiently as I am now 3 brick panels into my final piece out of the 5 that I have decided to make for my sample piece to illustrate the brick effect which will be displayed upon a window within the campus.

The Process...

After finding an interesting combination of two glass maquettes containing both stringers and broken patterned glass, I decided to experiment with this idea but cut the layering of glass down to 2 panels instead of the initial 3 and attempt to put the glass panels in with the stringers and broken glass in all at once. This would then save me time as time is a big constraint on this project and working with glass, a lot of preparation is needed in order for the glass to be ready and fully fused. After speaking to one of the lecturers I was advised to experiment with a smaller panels as I am trying to recreate a brick effect and initially in my earlier maquettes the sizing of the panels were larger so again I took this advice on board and sourced a further 14 panels of glass which gave me 4 panels for experiments and a further 10 for the final piece as 2 panels are needed to make 1 brick effect.

The Prep

Different coloured stringers were sourced from the college and broken to size and placed carefully on top of one glass panel. From this, I then broke up a slightly patterned glass using a hammer and selected pieces which were then placed upon another panel of glass and then put on top of the remainder. The glass is then left to its own devices for the next day as the glass fuses together and then carefully checked once this process is complete. For my first maquette I used patterned glass sourced from the college to create the broken glass effect but this did not work out and produce the sharp effect I was looking for but instead created a melted edge effect which I later found out was down to there being an incompatibility within the two glasses.

As you can see, the edges aren't as defined as they were in my previous maquette using broken glass and this was because the glass used in the previous one was from A&J Glazing which must have a stronger resistance in terms of the strength of the glass. I am somewhat glad that this didn't turn out according to plan as this whole project has been a learning curve as I have never experimented with glass before so this was dealt with and new glass was sourced to avoid this happening again. A positive outcome also came from this experiment as I learned that due to resizing the glass, 2 pannels could then fit into the kiln to be fused, and also that I could fuse the stringers in with with the other layer of broken glass in at the one time without it breaking.

Moving On...


After this experiment, I then continued to create my final piece.

The pictures above illustrate a part of the process that goes into making these panels alongwith the panels that have been created to date. The panels are to be photoshoped into the chosen window at the Alloa campus to create the right effect of how it would look in situ.

Preperation for Photoshop

Today I visited the Alloa campus again to refamiliarise myself with the surroundings and the chosen space that my art work would exist in. I took measurements of the windows and took the appropriate photos with the help of Kara Day to ensure I had suitable photos to be used in the editing process.

More pictures and details to come!



FLEX

Another Monday morning has arrived and another few maquettes have been produced in relation to the sculpture class. Although this class requires no conceptual development or attachment, I still find myself relating certain materials and ideas to the word at hand rather than experimenting freely with a wide variety of materials, so I decided to make a conscious effort to use materials that would be seen as being more frigid than flexible in todays class.

This was created by cutting varying lengths of strips of wood using the Bandsaw and gluing together in such a way that I recreated and developed from the pixelated style that I created for the letter 'X' in an earlier experiment. I done this by gluing the ends then edging out the tops of each strip to create this effect which i find works well and could be developed further into a final piece by using larger strips of wood alongside wood glue to create this at a larger scale. I particularly like the way it is consistantly interesting from all angles which is essential to any 3D work. From this, I decided to experiment one step further by using the vacuum extractor for one of the letters just to see the outcome and determine whether or not any potential could evolve from this technique.

Due to the height of the lettering, this technique was always going to be done at a chance as the plastic needs to be blown up before being vacuumed in order for the height to be extracted. Although this experiment didn't turn out particularly well, I like the graffiti style it has created as the plastic has been strained at each corner of the lettering nonetheless creating an interesting look.

In addition to this, i decided to experiment with Styrofoam and cut out block lettering with precision and accuracy using the bandsaw to achieve a very defined style, once again a material that i wouldnt instinctively associate with the word 'FLEX'.

Composition wise, I played around with varying styles but for this one shown above, i tried to recreate a regimented look as well as maintaing a disarranged manner by lowing certain letters. I think that by using such simple lettering like this composition would be essential to providing an intriguing 3D artwork. For the next composition i wanted to move away from a 'controlled' aesthetic in order to create a scattered arrangement.

I quite like the look of this maquette, but decided to adapt it further by cutting down the height of the 'L' and 'X' to create a deranged effect from the varying heights.

After i had cut down the size of both letters i reverted back to a rigid composition which highlights the variation of the size in lettering but for experimental purposes decided to look into the scattered effect again now that adaptions had been made in relation to the lettering.

I find that this works well, and think if there was a stack of random styrofoam shapes underneath this maquette it could have potential as a final composition as i feel anything other than sharp shapes would be too diverse for it to look visually pleasing.

More Experiments to come alongside final piece!

Additonally...

In other news, I have also been undergoing a sculpture class as part of the 8 week tutorial sessions which was previously video.
In this class, I was given the task of choosing a word and then manipulating and producing maquettes and of course a final piece of the chosen word at hand.

I decided to choose the word Flex as it instinctively stood out for me and gave me the most ideas in terms of materials and a final outcome.

In the above maquette I manipulated wire using a mixture of straight and curvacious formations in order to create a disorderly effect where the viewer has to carefully seek out the lettering.

From another viewpoint.

For the second maquette I decided to use mainly wood with wire to create a simple but effective distinctive style for each letter. The 'F' was created by breaking up wooden sticks and simply rearranging them together again in a disarranged manner using the glue gun. The 'L' was made by using sheets of soft wood to create a a linear form. For the 'E' I decided to use wire to add to the combination of wood and simply reformed the wire using curves to create the simple lettering. Finally, for the 'X' I decided to use wooden blocks and glue then together in a pixellated manner to again add to the effect of a wide range of text styles. Personally, I find that this one works quite well and has a quirky appeal.

Close up of 'FL'

Close up of 'EX'

Created a simple experiment using card to create simple shapely form. The pieces of card were then glued down to hold into place and pictured from different angles. For this experiment I only looked at the letters of L and E and didn't find the aesthetics to be upto standard and dismissed this idea as I didn't feel it had as much potential as the others so far in terms of manipulation.

Birds eye view.

Another experiment created using wire then wrapped in string to create a natural loose formation. I particularly like the style of the lettering as I tried to incorporate my own handwriting as it tends to have flexible tendancies in terms of the F and L lettering. I think that the font adds to the piece and the string creates an interesting effect. This one is a possibility to be taken further as I find their to be potential at a larger scale.

                                   



More pictures will be following soon of more experimental ideas and maquettes!