2D>3D>4D; just the title of the briefing this morning was enough to get me excited, and that is no mean feat. Quite honestly I am ecstatic to be leaving the boring world of flat paintings behind me and venture towards the good stuff; working between dimensions. The briefing introduced us to the idea of making 3D constructions to inform paintings, as well as using constructions in addition to painting to create relief and sculptural pieces. Although this is already a part of my working practice, I have always moved towards photography to capture ‘final’ images, and although I am not drawn to painting I like the idea of flattening 3D constructions back into a painting, as it provides a ready-made composition to work from. The work of Peter Lanyon, Frank Stella and Matthew Ritchie particularly stood out to me as having used interesting methods for moving between dimensions with the results being a mixture of constructions and consequential paintings and relief pieces. Another working practice which stood out to me was the use of transparent layers to build up a three dimensional form, like the work of Karin Schaefer and Marilene Oliver, who both use sheets of acrylic as a surface to make drawings on, from there building up layers of the drawings creating another dimension of depth. Another artist using acrylic but in an entirely different way is Nalini Malani, who created reverse paintings on large sheets of the plastic. I was particularly drawn to her piece ‘Stories retold The Sacred and the Profane’ (1998) which presents her paintings on large acrylic cylinders before being exposed to multiple sources of light, creating the most beautiful shadows, which to me become as important as the paintings themselves. Further research has led me to discover that similar pieces of Malani’s work incorporate movement into the cylinders in addition to the projection of videos for the shadows to play over, as if they create their own narrative based on the screen they move across and how the shadows interact with one another. I love this idea of kinetic energy being viewed in the form of shadows and how these become a separate entity from the original paintings. I am also fascinated by the use of videos in addition to the shadows and I hope to conduct more research into this to find out the thoughts behind them. For this week is now up to us to take this idea of shifting dimensions forward, either through making maquettes, combining drawings or perhaps creating a composition in a box, to inspire further developments. As excited as I am by this new direction for progress, I am struggling to think of a starting point in terms of where to start, as I am not particularly overwhelmed by the paintings that I have already done, and I don’t want to be repeating what I have already experimented with in this area during the last project. I need to go back over my work and see if there is anything which I haven’t had the chance to develop yet and see if they are worth pursuing.
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Over the course of this week I have come to realise how challenging I find painting. In the process of creating the impression of form with the application of paint on a flat surface it has become clear that I struggle to get on with this way of working; I instead much prefer the act of layering and working back into paint, or using paint in conjunction with three dimensional forms. I have made a series of experimental paintings, primarily focussing on line and layering. I have used brushes, palette knives and found objects to apply the paint. I have used both palettes and the paper I’m working on to mix paint. But as much as I have enjoyed experimenting with these methods I still find painting on a 2D surface difficult. There is just something about a relief surface or something three dimensional which to me is so much more interesting to paint on; an unusual surface allows for shadows to form and therefore adding to the paint work. Another process which I have been looking into is working with the ‘throwaway’ elements of creating a piece of work. I have always found in my practice that I never throw anything away, as I’m always trying to find an alternative way to use things that could potentially be discarded. In this case, I have been looking closely at the dried paint left behind on a palette. Peeling this away is something I would normally do in order to mix new colours, but on closer inspection I have discovered how fascinating the dried paint is. It takes on a plastic-like consistency, whilst capturing a multitude of colours which have merged as a result of the mixing process. I like the way that by the paint drying it has captured the history of the painting I have done; as the colours used create an entirely different composition on the mixing palette. It is like a visual representation of my decision making whilst choosing what colours to mix. From this discovery I have started to make small experimental pieces looking at how these paint fragments can come together in terms of a composition on paper. I have arranged the pieces taking inspiration from the 3D cardboard piece I have made. To me, these small experiments are more successful than the paintings I have made. I prefer the quality of the surface that has been created, and I like the idea of chance in how the colours have mixed and the shapes of the fragments as I have pulled them away from the palette. I hope that from this I can develop this idea into something more substantial. By mixing paint and letting it dry, I could experiment with thicknesses and the addition of mediums to see if I could perhaps use paint in some way to construct 3D forms. Today marked the introduction to the second project in our first module; Paint and Purpose. Essentially, the project is about looking at the language of paint, and the creation of a vocabulary using the medium. When the question 'who here hates painting?' was put forward to the group, an internal struggle commenced; painting is one of my least favourite methods of work, yes I will combine it with a number of practices but sat in front of a canvas for hours on end? No thanks. In spite of this I was optimistic in my attitude towards paint and restrained from throwing both arms up in the air and running away as fast as possible.
What settled the feeling of dread in my stomach however was the emphasis on making discoveries, not art. These introductory projects are designed to be an opportunity for experimentation, and ultimately making mistakes. Phew. The key points that we are encouraged to look at are Lines and Marks, Areas and Edges, Layering, Borrowed Language. I hope by being thrown into this experimental stage with these themes to focus on I will have some way of creating marks in response. I am quite thankful for the body of work that I produced last week, with some luck I should hopefully be able to develop some interesting work from the themes which I have already begun to uncover. Yesterday saw the end of this first rotation project. After a group critique of everyone’s work it is surprising to see the diversity of ideas and outcomes. I feel that this fortnight has really opened my eyes to experimental drawing, and taking this further into three dimensions. I am really pleased with the work that I have produced in such a short timescale, and the variety of work that I have made.
I was told that my work looked like a exploration into the visual representation of sound. This has made me sit back and thing about the drawings I made in response to my tinnitus over the summer, and made me realise how much more there is that I can do to explore the idea of sounds and how they can be visualised. Even if I don’t get the chance to explore this further this term, this is definitely an avenue that I want to explore in the near future. Even though the next project is based on painting, I hope that I can incorporate what I have developed in this project as I would like to continue to develop some of the ideas which I have had and potentially experiment with them in another type of practice. Continuing from my photographic experiments I wanted to see how another material would look when projected onto my sculpture; cling film. Whilst making some experimental responses to my sculpture I had placed cling film onto paper which I had covered in drawing ink, and as the ink dried it made shapes negative to where the cling film had been sitting. What I found more interesting however, were the shapes left behind on the cling film itself. Geometric panels of ink have been transferred onto the cling film, and so I tried projecting these panels onto the sculpture. I found that this projection was far more successful than previous attempt with line drawings. Not only do the panels translate well onto the sculpture, but the panels and texture of the cling film also project onto the wall behind, creating a series of overlapping layers.
I also applied this projection to another experiment that I made. Using photocopies of the blind drawings I had made, I wanted to see how these lines could be translated into 3D. Following the same technique as when making the original cardboard structure, I used the lines already present on the paper to guide me in where to fold, bend and secure the paper into 3D forms. The result of this shows how lines on a flat surface can be manipulated and transformed; linking back to our original starting point of Richard Serra’s verb list. I was inspired by the talk about drawing and materiality that Lucy gave at the beginning of the week, and I was intrigued by the work of Claude Heath. His uncompromised blind drawings of objects show the direct relationship between thinking and drawing. The use of different colours over the top of one another allows us to see the ‘journey’ that he has made around the object as his viewpoint has changed. In response to his work I decided to create a pair of drawings; one with my left hand and one with my right with each sheet of paper being attached to either side of a wall. Standing abreast of the wall I could then proceed to draw what I saw but with the response being from both hands at the same time. What I found really challenging was trying to direct my left hand, as it had the tendency of wanting to push the charcoal into and ‘through’ the wall whilst following curves. What surprised me were the similarities between both drawings. I thought that the right handed drawing would have dominated the marks made by the left hand, but this was not the case. Looking at the long exposure photographs I had taken yesterday, I also had the idea of filming the sculpture moving and then perhaps drawing what I saw; taking a line for a walk around the sculpture itself. Despite having the film in front of me to watch over as many times as I wanted, I found it difficult to make out the details of the sculpture on the screen. So instead I stood next to the sculpture and turned it myself as I was following different lines of interest around the piece. I translated this into a map-like drawing which spans a long thin piece of paper. I am really pleased with this drawing, something about its composition and the simplicity of the lines makes it very appealing to the eye. A resource that has really inspired me this week is a book called ‘Drawing Projects: An Exploration of the Language of Drawing’ By Mick Maslen and Jack Southern. I hope that I can try out more of the exercises in this book aside from the few that we had already done with Glad, if not now then certainly later on in the term.
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AuthorThird Year BA Hons Fine Art student studying at Falmouth University Archives
April 2017
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