Print..final pieces for assessment...

The Arte' Povera movement concentrated their artworks on materials found or recovered from wherever they could get them. My materials have been accumulated from various jobs I've done on domestic properties in the last few months. Newspapers, materials, paints, woods, metals etc have been collected and stored with the idea of using them in the future to produce pieces.
I've especially used them in my printing work as they lend themselves perfectly to the notion of experimentation.
All of my final assessment pieces have been produced with mostly recovered stuff.


This first piece came from experiments I've been concentrating on in my accumulation and dispersion project. I wanted to make something that expressed an idea but in a non print medium, something with levels and layers of both production and idea.
The idea was to build an image relating to the theme of a set of images found in daily newspapers.
I realised when looking through my pile of accumulated newspapers that we see the same types of stories over and over but with different people filling the images. Same theme, different person. I decided to concentrate on a specific set of stories that seems to be appearing more and more in our news.
I've brought together an accumulation of portraits of people with the same goal in life and created what, as a collective group of people, they were actually intending to create themselves.

The image is called "explosion" and the portraits I used were of 15 wanted terror suspects.

                                      "Explosion", 30 x 40 cm, paper, tape, eraser rubbings. 

One of the headlines accompanying a portrait of one of the suspects read "We must erase these people from our world" and I wanted to use this idea in my work.
The process involved collecting a set of portraits from newspapers and erasing the images with a rubber eraser until the face had disappeared from the page.
The debris from the eraser is collected on clear tape then laid onto a new piece of paper to create a completely new image made up of the collective portraits from the newspapers.
The random dispersion of the debris is completely out of control and relates to previous works of mine where I was looking at controlling a process but not an outcome.
The image is loaded with detail and texture, built from the layer of rubbings attached to the surface of the paper.
Closer inspection reveals a subtle collection of different colours. Blood red, burnt black and green/brown earth colours all relate to the debris left after a real explosion.
The choice to use white background paper was a conscious decision as it reminds me of the smoke and dust seen in images of terror attacks.

                                                detail from "Explosion" 

Each of the 15 different pieces of tape has captured a different portrait and bringing them together creates a simple yet complex print which engages the viewer and points them towards an important social issue of today. 

This next piece was arrived at after a lot of playing with a print idea I'd had relating to the way we are all the same but completely different and as individuals we can easily become lost in the crowd populating the world today.
I wanted to create a print with one face repeated over and over but with different details each time. The features stay the same but the face never looks the same, echoing our own faces.
The dispersion of the paint on the cloth changes with each application. Some are soft edged, almost happy looking, others hard and direct with a sinister glare, but each very individual.

"collective individualism", paint on cloth, 120cm x 75cm

I tried to make the centre face as clear as possible to become a focus point in the print which the eyes can return to after studying the mass of faces staring back at us. 

I don't know if its possible but I'd like to carry on with this idea and somehow make the individual faces move slightly, maybe through a projection, to add a whole new feeling to the piece.

This last piece is something I've experimented with several times throughout the first term as you can see from previous blog pages.

Looking at accumulation and dispersion I started to build a piece that used collected materials along the lines of the depletion of fossil fuels and the dispersion of electricity.

I realised I've been trying too hard with this piece and started over again with the goal of not overcomplicating things but just making a piece of art that I like but still show the idea of the electricity breaking through the wire and dispersing around us or breaking free.

I'm pleased with this finished piece now and the fact that extensive experimenting means its ended up as a sculpture, from a print class, pleases me even more.  

'Untitled', recycled wood, cable, mesh, electrical components.

print work scrap book...

Pages from my print scrapbook....

All from the Accumulation and dispersion project...

Splatter images...

Accumulation of 'trash and rebuild'...

Looking at the dispersion of electricity...

Collecting images and re-printing the detail over the top through clear plastic...

printing the 'loss of identity' images onto canvas....

Taking eraser rubbings from newspaper images and building a collective image on single pages....

Loss of identity print...'We all die the same'...

Drawing...Reflective surface...

The mirror was found in the same place as the glass shower panel. Standing it upright on a ledge I could close one eye and draw the image as it reflected on the mirror surface. 

The slightest shift in position makes the image move on the mirror so it has to be drawn speedily with minimal movement and simply looking away for a moment whilst drawing, then back again, adds a satisfyingly distorted element to the final image.

Mirror Drawing,  30x40cm, marker pen on found mirror.

As a viewer, standing in front of the mirror, you are transported to the place It was created and through the reflection you get to see yourself, trapped in the image, there in the barn, looking at what I was looking at. A sort of 'here and there at exactly the same time" element being added to the piece. 

The reflection can also be used to project the drawing onto another surface, creating a soft, transparent, ghostly image.

Drawing...Crit

Drawing Crit 

"Contrasty, collage, dark, horror story, interesting, exciting" were some of the words used when my images were viewed. Most agreed it was a good example of the integration between drawing and photography. 

The overall view is they are very complex and don't make sense straight away and demand to be studied to be read properly.

 "Breaking from convention with the detail showing a disjunction in a non systematic way. They seem to echo early cubist works, full of complexity and complication".

"Atmospheric with a feel of film noire, shadows and gothic".

"Full of narrative and journey with lots going on and the idea that you can create your own story".

"The space appears synthesised and pushed together into a dramatic image".

Drawing...Journey...Sculpture...

                                                                                                 Untitled, 

                                                     Bottle, rope, wood slats, nails, candle,   33cm x 22cm

On each journey little trophies keep presenting themselves to me. Some have to be hunted out, others are just there to be seen.  Each has its own history attached. The medicine/alcohol bottle has become a time capsule of dirt, lit by the flickering movement of the burning candle placed behind. The rope, tied in a hangman's knot, is covered in moss and suggests a connection between the bottle and death. 

Lens based...Selfie, Object and self Portrait Projects...

'Selfie'...

'A type of self portrait typically taken with a digital camera'...

Or the 'Look at me, doing something completely mundane and shoving it in your face' shot. 

"Wow...I'm brushing my teeth...that's well Reem!" 

(I don't even know what that means...)

                                              'Selfie', taken in the darkroom @ DMU on my phone..

   'Object'..The darkroom light, dmu..

                                                                    'Self Portrait'...

Wikipedia quote;
'Portrait photography or portraiture is photography of a person or group of people that displays the expression, personality, and mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is usually the person's face, although the entire body and the background or context may be included'.

The self portrait I chose shows my obsession with going where I probably shouldn't. 
I've always been interested in exploring the places most people don't see or don't want to see. 
I think this is how I want people to see me. 

                                                                                             

        'Underground tramp's squat'

 The next two images suggest the idea of me being somewhere, but my mind is somewhere completely different. 

I think this is how most people see me. 

I also looked at making portraits stripped back to the bare minimum. 

The facial features are shown but nothing else.

Kids school photo's always show children in their uniforms, forced smiles and happy. we all know kids aren't always like this so I took this idea to make the classic, sickly, 'no-body wants to see it but you're granny' style portrait and capture them as everyone sees them ( "Your kids are soooo well behaved, How do you do it?, They're little angels, Blah Blah, Blah...").....

and then as they really are..........

'Posed and unposed portraits'...

                                        'Tim, backstage'

To me portrait photography should be the first thing you learn as a photographer. Good portraits demand that you learn to break the boundary's between the subject and yourself, and this is so important to a good photographer. 

Building a relationship is all imperative, whether it lasts 10 minutes or 10 years, but without it the true view of the subject can't be captured. 

"I sometimes find the surface interesting. To say that the mark of a good portrait is whether you get them or get the soul - I don't think this is possible all of the time". 

Annie Liebovitz.

                                                                                                                  'Dad'

                                                                             'Honest truths...'

"If the photographer is interested in the people in front of his lens, and if he is compassionate, it's already a lot. The instrument is not the camera, but the photographer."

Eve Arnold.

I think a lot can be said by a single image. Does it need a person in it to be a portrait? Maybe not. Can just the surroundings or the build up of an image act as a portrait?

'Portrait of a tramp' is a good example of this idea. The lack of the tramp adds to the image. We instantly get an image in our heads of what the man must look like without the need to actually see him. 

                                         "Portrait of a tramp"

           

Drawing...Journey...Sculpture...

                                  'Windows 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11',      Metal, cobwebs, dirt.

On my wanders I've found quite a few treasures, (one mans trash and all that) and I wanted to use the little collection of old, metal shapes I found in the barn where I discovered the shower panel. 

The idea was to collect anything metal I stumbled upon and use them in my first attempt at a sculpture. 

Each component was recovered from the old window frames where I found that if I stuck my hand down into the small gap between the brickwork of the outside wall and the rotting wooden panels of the interior, I would sometimes be lucky and pull out a hidden trophy. 

Each space was inhabited by gangs of spiders and smothered in cobwebs and years of dust, and was not that far from one of those jungle challenges on the celebrity? show. 

I wanted to keep the rust, dirt and cobwebs as they give an authenticity to the piece and a feeling of the history and life that has become attached over the years.

I put the pieces together in the order that I found them so it really built itself. 

Sitting on their own in the gaps between the windows the pieces are nothing, but built together they become alive and gain a certain physicality and completeness. 

Drawing...Journey project....

These two drawings bring together all the elements of one of my 'wanders' around the barns and fields dotted around Kibworth.
The first drawing concentrates on a particular field and small shed/barn that is on the outskirts of the village. The small square of land was a dumping ground for the guy who used to own it but since he died its just sat there rotting away and being swallowed up by the brambles.
I wanted to highlight the sky in this one as the field sits on a hill and the sky always looks massive behind it.

 'Thanks for the crap mate', mixed media on paper, 120cm x 60cm

The next drawing looks at an accumulation of everything in the fields I journeyed through on a wander one evening. 

Untitled, mixed media on paper, 40cm x 120cm,

Drawing Journey Project...Photo prints...

The barns along the way are a great source of material for paint, print, drawing and photo work.
This set of images is from a wander, an exploration, a nose around, a trespass and a close look at the interior of a now abandoned stable block.
Looking through the hanging, crooked door or the smashed, rusty window frames most people would say its empty, but the building is full of 'stuff' to be discovered, studied, recorded and played with.
You just have to look a bit closer....

The light sneaks through small cracks in the walls of the barn, highlighting the things left by previous visitors...

I hung the bricks on the window frame they'd been used to destroy...

Like the red mist in the 'War of the Worlds' films, these long fingers of ivy creep along the floor from one end of the building to the other, slowly taking hold of everything in their path...

Tucked behind this wall is a large stash of old cider bottles, wine bottles, cigarette packets and shopping bags full of trash. I've seen a tramp wandering around the village in the past, cider in one hand, fags in the other. Now I know where he's heading... 

This barn sits in the middle of a large field at the farthest end of the village. The shrubs and bushes outside are taking over and the whole building is almost covered in green spaghetti. 

Two purposes. To get drunk and then used as target practise for a rifle. 

We've all been there; drunk with a gun....

    

Drawing...Antoni Lopez Garcia...

Antonio Lopez Garcia

'Maria' ,1972, pencil on paper, 27.5 x 20.75 inches.

Born in 1936 Antonio Lopez Garcia trained at art school in Madrid before becoming internationally recognised.

I really relate to what he said about his work-

“After a few months practicing drawing statues for my entrance exam to Bellas Artes, I asked my uncle to bring the Venus drawing to me. I pinned it to the wall next to my own drawings. How different it seemed! I would look at my drawings trying to understand why but I just couldn’t figure it out. I looked at his then mine. Although mine were well crafted and good they seemed inexplicably dull. They just looked empty whilst my uncles seemed to reach immense heights”.

       Ref.. Antonoi Lopez Drawings..Published by T.F Editors 2010.

The same could be said of my own drawing. It sometimes lacks depth and feeling. Its something I need to concentrate on in my time at DMU. 

'Venus De Milo' Antonio Lopez Torres, 1929  

His uncle was a very accomplished artist and Garcia looked at him for inspiration and training, eventually building his own strong style and coming to the conclusion that sums up, not only drawing as an art, but all forms of art-

“What matters is the ability to express an emotion you first must feel, which is separate from the skill and the accuracy that allows you to copy the real world”.

                       'Kitchen at Tomelloso' 1975-1980, pencil on paper, 28.75 x 23.75 inches. 

The 'kitchen at Tomelloso' concentrates on the shape, composition and build of the space but the attention to the grime, dirt, flaking paint and shadow do the most important job of bringing the image to life. It looks well used, lived in and worn out. It has a history of its own, described by the way he's drawn it. 

He doesn't just draw what he sees, he draws what he feels, and more to the point, he draws what he wants 'us' to feel. 

Garcias drawings are a great source of inspiration. Full of exquisite attention to detail but drawn in a way or style that is far from photorealism.

The works I like best are the drawings he makes in preparation for his paintings. These drawings are perfect examples of the way he sets about making a picture. Lines are drawn hard and direct to begin with then softened with erasers before just the right amount of detail is added. Some stop in a vignette, others are feint layers of delicate lines built through layers of tracing paper, paint and paper. Some are merely scribbles but with a touch of technical flair. 

Each is brilliant. 

'Quince Tree', 1990, Pencil on Paper, 40.5 x 46.75 inches.