After exploring self as a muse I have turned my
attention to the notion of viewing, context and meaning. I wanted to distance
myself from the work and find a subject that offered me a vehicle to impose
narrative. I am currently creating miniature installations reminiscent of human
habitats in which I have placed my reanimated mice. The
viewer is restricted to viewing the pieces, through a peep hole.
I am playing with the ideas of voyeurism, humanisation and suggested consciousness.
I found my tutorial with Sean very helpful concerning my work and how to progress it further. I had a lot of ideas as to how I was to present work and he helped me realise that as a viewer it would be much more interesting to view my work through some form of chronological order. The dates, the times, the locations I had explored through my work were just as interesting and revealing as the final outcomes of the differently formed portraits. I now have the idea to create a photographic book so that viewers and other people can see my work from day one right till the end. Annotated with the specific times and dates they were drawn/produced below them. Also, Sean's lecture reassured me that it's okay to not know where you're going or sometimes even where you are with your work at times. It's okay to experiment and you don't always have to pin point what you want to successfully achieve as an artist through one defined phrase such as just, a drawer,a painter, or a sculpture. You can be all 3.
Ways of Seeing is a 1972 BBC four-part television series of 30-minute films created chiefly by writer John Berger and producer Mike Dibb. Berger's scripts were adapted into a book of the same name. The series and book criticize traditional Western culturalaesthetics by raising questions about hidden ideologies in visual images. The series is partially a response to Kenneth Clark's Civilisation series, which represents a more traditionalist view of the Western artistic and cultural canon.
Suddenly This Overview(1981) is a collection of around 200 small, unfired clay sculptures, the uniformity of material, scale, and somewhat awkward handling of which provides a unity for an extraordinary broad range of subjects, from everyday objects to historical events. In one piece, a life-size loaf of bread sits plain and crusty upon a plinth, while another in which two figures walk along a street, one with a guitar case under his arm, is called Mick Jagger and Brian Jones going home satisfied after composing "I Can't Get No Satisfaction". (below)
I have booked on to take part in a taxidermy workshop for beginners on the 26th November at my local museum. I have looked into Nicola's work on the internet before via the internet so was excited to hear she would be doing a workshop on taxidermy literally a couple 100 metres away from my college. I've got an idea that with the mouse I am going to take home with me I want to experiment with how the viewer visually sees the mouse. This links in previously to my idea of communicating/recommunicating objects to give them a different meaning and perspective.
My first idea is to create two different locations for the mouse to be in, each giving a completely contrasting meaning and context. The idea is; even though the exact same object will be in these locations, the perspective the viewer has on the object used is changed by the objects surroundings and the way it is visually shown rather than its physical being. I want to experiment by keeping the mouse in the same position but with different suggestive settings.
Today I had a chat with Patti Ellis, a lecturer from Camberwell, about my work and found her opinion very refreshing and helpful. From listening to what she had to say it made me realize that when I looked back on my work looking just merely at my physical self was too much of a routine topic. I found it hard to take things from myself as the days went on and I realized that what changed was my medias and method of communication. I found that the way I communicated my work interested me and inspired me much more than the actual outcome of was the work was. For example, the peephole idea, I find, is a really interesting concept and method of communication. I wanted to experiment with these different types of ideas more but with different subject matters. Almost looking at the semiotics within my work rather than the object used. Pretty tired at just seeing images of myself. It makes me feel vain and somewhat obsessed which is definitely not the kind of person I am. I don't want to force work. At first when Patti pointed out the fact that the least interesting part of the project was actually me I felt a bit disheartened but shortly afterwards realized that what we had just discussed and confirmed was nothing but a positive to help my work move forward. Sometimes you've got to leave certain parts of your work behind to create higher quality visuals.
Self portrait drawn from mirror observation: 10:20am
Drawing produced; 3:25pm
For this second image I thought it would be interesting to repetitively draw how I felt I looked but with my eyes closed. I like how with your eyes closed your concept of composition and scale is completely altered and distorted. The repetition of the over lapping portraits creates a feel of distress and anxiety and shows how I knew in my mind I would never be able to get the drawings to look anything like myself.
Next month I am planning on taking a trip to Paris to meet Emily and have decided to use it as an opportunity to create some self portraiture in a location I've never been to before. I think this small project will be interesting experimenting with as even though I'll be spending time with someone really close to me I have no awareness of what my surrounding will be like, I'll kind of still feel like a stranger. I think it will be intriguing seeing how different her life is now since moving from the town she used to live in, a mile away from me, To Paris(397 miles away). My initial idea is to create some kind of film/video of myself, probably including Emily. As my project so far has been quite real and personal I would like to keep this concept going by creating pieces that represent me/ our friendship, rather than staged videos that seem like they've been rehearsed over and over.
For today's self portrait I decided to experiment with some shots which I initially decided I wanted my self portraiture film to contain (which I will be creating later on in the week). I thought it would be interesting to take photographs of my morning routine, the different stages from when I wake up to when I leave the house in the morning. I decided to edit my photographs in black and white as I want them to have a similar feel to Andy Warhol's screen shots, which I have previously researched into. In the work I always have my eyes focused on the camera as I think this helps grabs the viewers attention and gives them a better insight into me as well as adding quite a strange concept to the intention of the work. I think these images work well as a set and I'm excited to see how they will look together as a completed video containing movement and motion.
Today, I won the Claude Brun Prize and represented the College by exhibiting one of my art works from earlier in the year at Blackburn Museum. At the exhibition I was invited to join Blackburn Artist's society and have secured a place to exhibit again early next year at Samlesbury Hall, Lancashire.
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