That'll do...

Drawing feedback 2014...

My drawing feedback from Andy was very positive with an A as my mark. 

This has been my strongest and most enjoyed area of this first year at DMU and I intend to carry on experimenting in drawing until I find a style that is unique to myself. 

seminar presentation, Feb 2014...Shinji Yamamoto

Seminar Presentation February 2014. 

My feedback from Jamie was quite positive and he quoted on me giving a good clear presentation and engaging with the audience. He quoted that I could relate the work further to older generations but as part of the presentation I'd already talked about the first Bonsai tree art found in a temple in the year 706 and the ancient Chinese art of Thick stroke painting.

The other feedback sheets had a common theme mainly stating my presentation was engaging, well explained, good historical content, well researched and showing a good level of knowledge of the subject. 

Personally I think my presentation was a good experience for me and my peer group. I try to engage the audience as much as possible, pointing out relevant details in the images, talking towards the group as opposed to the piece of paper in my hand and keeping the whole thing moving at an understandable but not boring pace.  

I researched the artist thoroughly and concentrated more on the work and its meanings than on the artists biographical details.  

I gave a full but brief insight into the build of the piece and what happens to the sculptures after the show is closed. 

I spoke of the reasons behind the work, its relation to the environment, inspirations, historically related works, modern related works, religion and also highlighted artists working in the same way as Yamamoto. 

I could have improved my presentation by maybe sticking more to what I had written than just talking to the group but I find myself easily distracted from the script when I like the artist I'm talking about. 

I think the presentation, research and written copy deserves an A grade;

Shinji Yamamoto

    "Hanging Garden", Site Specific Sculpture, Cincinnatti.  

‘Hanging Garden’ is a site specific installation built in an old chapel in Cincinnati.

It sits in the centre of the 19^th century renaissance revival building, which was deconsecrated in the 70’s, but still stands at the top of a place called mount Adams.

The building now sits empty and the dilapidated look of the interior, colours of the walls, the flaky paint, holy symbols and fall of natural glorious sunlight streaming through the windows, all play their own part in how we see this sculpture, possibly as a spiritual piece of art.

The surroundings set the scene for the artwork and the once derelict building has since been reopened as a gallery and art space giving other artists the opportunity to show their work. 

The installation is constructed from a living tree sitting on top of a dead tree. Both trees are twined together at the roots, making them into one single piece, but separated by death.

The living tree looks healthy and alive with glowing white bark and branches covered in green leaves whereas the dead tree hangs upside down, all the leaves are gone but it serves the purpose of suspending the living tree above the ground, pushing it upwards and making it appear like a religious icon or a cross in the centre of the church.

In the centre, where the roots meet, is a small patch of earth, alive above, dead below.

He states;
‘The uprooted tree supports the soil which is necessary to support the life of the living tree, creating a suspended garden’.

A sophisticated watering system has been set up to feed the roots and keep the top tree alive throughout the exhibition and the tree will be returned to its original place and replanted once the show is finished.

By placing the trees in the centre of the church the artist has made it into an alter piece, replacing the alter that stood there originally with something grand that makes a statement.

The piece brings new life into a dead place and something we see everyday, trees, now take on a whole new meaning.

Once he’s finished with the trees or whatever materials he uses, he returns them to a place where they can be re-used to make new pieces of art by other artists or the trees get replanted in the place they originally came from. 
Either way he uses natural materials which are reused and recycled.

Yamamoto does this with a lot of his work. He looks at life and death, the state of the earth and the human effect on the planet. He creates pieces that show us what he sees around him. 

He builds from personal experiences and his own reactions to the landscape around him and places this into each piece of work. 

He concentrates on the effects of nature on humans, and the effects of humans on nature. 

The connections between Mankind and nature have a massive effect on all of his works and everything he makes relates to the world around us, and how we see it, in one way or another.

                         Tang Wall painting, year 706. 

Yamamoto's inspiration and influence comes from his background in China and the artists working in the old spiritual style. Eastern artists have been looking at nature, spiritualism and trees for inspiration throughout the history of art. This image shows a wall painting discovered in the Tang Dynasty tomb dating back to the year 706 and is the first recorded image of a bonsai tree being grown as a sculpture. Bonsai is all about contemplation, the spiritual state of the tree and is regarded as long term meditation which takes years to develop. 

Yamamoto's works are contemplative, spiritual and meditative. 

The old eastern paintings produced using "Thick stroke" techniques were made to convey spiritual resonance with the simplest of strokes being made on the paper, without highlighting the forms or shapes of anything real. They were made to show the creators feelings and beliefs rather than specific realities.  

                                Environmental awareness in art

Environmental issues are highlighted in the above image. 

In China 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are used each year which equates to around 25 million trees and this piece, a fallen tree made from chopsticks, was created to highlight this issue and raise public awareness, something Yamamoto is a specialist of. 

Environmental art is very big at the moment. Artists around the world are always looking at ways to get the environmental message across and make statements with regard to our situation on the planet.

    French Graffitti artists Painting. 

This work is by a french graffiti crew and the message reads "sorry for the tree but we need more place" relating the message that as humans we think we can basically do what we want to the planet and our surroundings, which is what Yamamoto is against.

His work is about the environment but is more aimed towards the spiritual side of nature whereas this piece looks at the immediate effect man is having on the planet but both speak in an environmentalist language. 

The artist 'Christo' wraps exterior environments in see through materials, capturing and protecting the things inside in gloriously extravagant installations which are both interesting and intriguing to see. The pieces have included wrapped buildings (The Riechstag), whole coastlines including the rocks and beach and vast expanses of fences which run for miles in the landscape. These see through tree sculptures are my personal favourite though. They have a real dream like appearance and the shafts of sunlight burning through the material gives them a surreal glow that brings them to life. 

    Christo, Switzerland, 1997. 

Shinji Yamamoto uses materials from locations of previous artworks such as bits of plaster and dust from the walls of the church that the tree sat in. 

His series of dust installations are very delicate, quiet, contemplative spaces made from dust dropping onto small piles and building up through a period of time. The artist uses a shaker to slowly drop the dust through and then brushes the dust from certain areas with an ancient Chinese brush tool. This tool again shows his inspiration coming from ancient art practises such as the design and build of Zen Gardens. These gardens were made and maintained in a search for perfection and the artists making them would use small brushes and rakes to remove any unwanted debris, leaves etc from the garden areas. The dust installations are Yamamoto's Zen Gardens and he revisits them during the exhibition to ensure they stay perfect. 

Looking at this piece I get the impression that the little islands of stone are the earth and the dust is the build up and over population of humans on the planet but thats just what I think, the actual meaning may be something completely different but I couldn't find an explanation anywhere. 

Either way the installation looks really beautiful and opens my eyes to what can be done and said in a piece of art. 

     "Dust" Installation Piece in Ireland.

 One quote I read explained his ideas perfectly:

“Through his work he takes us away from the idea of an anthropocentric existence and points us towards a holistic view”.

I looked up the meanings of this statement;

Anthropocentric translated means “regarding humankind as the central or most important element of existence”, This is basically the idea that humans are the most important thing in the universe.

Holistic means “The belief that the parts of something are intimately interconnected” so this actually means we are in some way connected to nature and everything in the universe, all things have a spirit and should be valued equally. 

Yamamoto tries to show his belief that man and nature is one and interconnected:

“With my installations, sculptures and paintings I work with this universal and identifiable tree/nature imagery to encourage audiences to encounter and engage aspects of nature in a new way. The work explores a poetic reunion with nature, making visible connections and similarities between plant life and humanity, emphasizing ecological wisdom and the interconnectedness of all life.

They illuminate our mutual destiny and the precarious beauty of this relationship”.

    "Sleeping Vishnu Tree"

This piece titled “Sleeping Vishnu Tree” came after the artist walked through a park and saw a tree fallen to the ground. A few days later all that remained was the hole where the tree came from. Inspired by this scene Yamamoto painted an image of the tree in Henna liquid as it ‘reminded him of the smell of a forest’.

In the image he uses gold leaf to create small leaves that suspend the tree from the ground almost as if the tree is being carried off to somewhere new in the way a coffin is carried at a funeral. It resembles the Buddhist statues seen in temples across the world and could almost be a ghostly version of one. 

    Buddhist statue, China. 

The sweeping shape of the body and head is highlighted in both of the images as are the flowers around the lower part of the figure.

He says:

 “I wanted the tree to lie and sleep, envisioning a new world, like the dream of the world that emerges from the naval of the Indian god Vishnu in the form of a lotus flower”.

    "Rainbow" Steel, Paint, Rainwater.

In a series of rainbow paintings he worked with rainwater, ash and soot found in the location of the paintings and bits of sheep’s wool that were captured in farmyard fences. These paintings were made in Ireland and he says he saw rainbows almost everyday which inspired him to create the paintings but he didn't just want to paint them, he wanted to create them, or let them be created, using the elements of the weather and the nature of the surrounding location.

He works together with nature to create his artworks. 

Religion also plays a big part in his creations and he uses holy statues, Buddha’s and religious symbols in his pieces to relate this and show his beliefs. His installation spaces are quiet. Places where people can go and sit, meditate and Ponder the artworks and the surroundings and how it relates to their lives. Each space could easily be mistaken as a shrine or temple. 

    This installation in Ireland was made with recovered bits of  the church walls.

    "Petals of the universe" Compressed Flower Material.

His extremely delicate ‘Petals of the universe’ sculptures were made by applying very high pressures to small fibres of plant material which, when dried out, start to take on a new form or shape and resemble the shape of the original flower blossoms.

He says of the pieces, again looking at the world around us, the whole process reminded him of the way rock is formed inside the earth from pressures underground.  Avery natural sculpture made in a very natural way. 
These small sculptures again form themselves with little or no help from the artist.

This is his whole belief when it comes to making art.

Using things that sometimes will not relive, but will sometimes take on a new life, created through his own thoughts and creation processes, driven by his passion for the spiritual side of the environment.
Each thing becomes something else, something new and is either alive or a record of the life it once had.

I looked at several different environmental artists who also use this idea of taking nature and its inhabitants and using it to create new works of art.

Jaako pernu creates large artworks using natural materials. 
He creates installations using trees, which, once the exhibition is finished are moved outside to a new space where the piece is left until it degrades through the forces of nature. In doing this he returns the tree back to its place as part of the earth in the same way yamamoto does with his trees.

Robert Smithson, Mathilde Roussel, Andy Goldsworthy and Nils Udo are all looking at nature and the environment to create their works. 

"Andy Goldsworthy" uses materials found outside to create his site specific pieces of sculpture. 

He works on land and also in water and always uses whatever he's stumbled across in the location he's in.

"Mathilde Roussel" creates these falling figures which look as though they continue to grow in the gallery space. This piece reminds me of an exhibition I went to in Leicester in a disused factory and in one of the old, dark, dusty production rooms was a full field of fresh grass to walk across. It was  really surreal situation with this natural thing growing in a completely unnatural environment. 

    "Nils Udo"

I like this sculpture but it works in a very different way when compared to Yamamoto as the trees look as if they've been cut down to create the work rather than being recovered and recycled. If this is the case then the trees have been killed and their spirits lost and it would be interesting to hear what Yamamoto's thoughts on this piece would be? It's environmental art because its outside in the environment but is it environmentalist art? Is it trying to relate a message or is it simply a sculpture in the woods?

Shinji Yamamoto looks at the world through environmentalist eyes. He creates works that try to make us understand that there is a connection between humans and nature and he makes us aware of the dangers mankind is forcing onto the earth. His art is very 'up to the moment' and in-keeping with what's happening to our environment. He shows us the idea that everything has a spirit or a soul and he does all this through his art.  

His work is beautiful, inspirational and meaningful. 

Drawing...Talking about drawing presentation...

Robert longo

Untitled 2013

Robert Longo's untitled landscape drawing really caught my eye at the Frieze Fair in London. 

It literally stopped me in my tracks and I thought 'what a great photograph' but on closer inspection I realised its actually charcoal drawn. The thing that really caught my eye was the spill of glorious light burning through the centre of trees. The delicate, dissolving edges of the light and trees work to bring the piece together and the dispersing light is made stronger by the single trunk placed dead centre. This is the most important part of the image. It does the job of holding the viewers gaze in the centre of the drawing and brings the viewer back after looking at the rest of the image.

The detail is excellent when studied closely and each blade of grass, leaf and stem can be seen. The picture is full of layers of drawing, depth and detail and the technical control of charcoal is superb. 

He uses deep, dark areas of black and bright, glowing white areas to bring the all important contrast into the image making it appear three dimensional. His drawing is both delicate and deliberate. 

He draws in a way that makes the living landscape he's concentrating on actually come alive on the paper in front of us.

Longo says he chose to work in black and white because 'Growing up, all the major newspaper stories, Vietnam, wars, riots etc, were always printed in B&W which he saw as really gritty, powerful pictures and he thought this was the best way to get a strong image across to the viewer. 

Longo makes these pictures by first projecting the picture onto the paper canvas, then he draws the image in pencil, then (the interesting bit) he lets a hired illustrator draw the image for around a week before he finishes it with layers of charcoal. So, is the work really his? Of course it is! He has the skills to draw and complete these pictures without the help of others but the simple fact is he doesn't have the time to finish all the pieces he's working on. Lots of artists use assistants in their studios and I don't think thats a problem. Longo has the idea, works out the image, sorts the medium, directs the works and finishes the drawings. 

He is the director...He is the artist. 

At the moment there seems to be a trend for hyper-realistic drawing, taking a photo and drawing it exactly the same but Longo doesn't do this. His work, like the work of Chuck Close, stands out due to the soul they contain, the feeling and the life they have within them. 

I never really understood the idea of photorealism, why not just use the actual photo? 

Longo's work is excellent in all aspects, technical and beautifully drawn and very collectable at the moment. His tigers heads are selling for 1.5 million dollars each and his new series of wave images are really strong but the work I really like is from his book on Lucien Freud's apartment. I found this book a few weeks ago in the library by chance and loved it but didn't realise it was by the same man who made the drawings at frieze. The images are really strong and dark and give us a glimpse into the world Freud lived in and the place that surrounded him. The images look at the details, the un-noticed and everyday things and the environment that he worked in. 

He has also just produced a new series of large drawings based on the most used hand guns in America. He got the details from the FBI. 

The series was inspired by his son coming home after playing basketball and telling him there was a fight on the court between a black kid and a white kid. Half way through the fight a kid of about 6 walked to his bag and pulled a gun out and told everyone to 'F$*k Off' then he casually put the gun away and walked off to the shops. Longo's kid told him this was the most amazing thing he'd ever seen in his life "It was SO COOL!!' and Longo realised it was a perfect statement of the times we live in where young people are growing up thinking its cool to carry a gun. 

My presentation raised a few discussions with the main one focussing on the use of projectors and assistants to help produce artists works. 

Does this mean the art isn't made by the artist themselves or does it  not actually matter? Is it cheating? 

Damien Hirst uses assistants in nearly all of his works. His most famous is probably his dot paintings which are hardly ever done by himself. He even went as far as sending a client a preprepared box of paint, brushes and a stencil enabling the client to draw the whole thing himself. He didn't even meet the artist! Personally, I think the use of helpers is fine as long as the direction and control is in the hands of the artist which it is with Longo. He draws the first image, starts the work, moves onto another whilst an assistant works on it and then finishes the work himself. He has full control. 

The other discussion was about the common development of photorealistic painting and drawing which is becoming really popular. The class was split, some like it whereas others commented "Why not just use a photograph". I'd have to agree with the second comment as I like a drawing to look like a drawing.

Longo's images are more than photorealistic though. He creates them with a unique look. They can be mistaken for photographs, as I did at Frieze, but on close inspection they have a unique look. The mistakes of photographs are gone in his drawings. Through his drawings we see a perfect example of what a photograph might show us. 

CPS Presentation...Jannis Kounellis

Jannis Kounellis

Born in Greece, 1936, contemporary artist Jannis Kounellis makes works involving sculpture, installation and performance. Studying art in Athens, his early works concentrated on the street signs and notices which he used as inspiration to produce canvas based paintings full of composition with stencilled letters and shapes painted in household paints. Taking inspiration from alternative artists such as Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana he started to create works away from what was expected at the time.

1967-1972 saw a group of artists create the Arte povera (Poor Art) movement and start to oppose the ideas of governments in european cities, through their artworks. Using non traditional found materials this group produced works in a way that radically contradicted the idea of normal art, i.e. painting. The pieces were all structured installations or sculptures and were built in spaces with materials recovered from industrial heritage and their countries history. The group strived to show art could be made from anything and everything echoing back to the works of Duchamp.

Kounellis works in a range of different mediums including paint, sculpture, installation and performance but always has the same heritage filed images in his mind. He looks into traditional ways of life, labour, pain, and work life, and contrasts it with visions of modern urban life that he witnesses happening around him.  

He takes simple finds and turns them into nostalgic displays of history and uses the gallery space as a canvas to create his installed paintings quoting "Art should be replaced by life itself". 

Rows of coats hung on pegs and tangled in barbed wire become symbols for a lost workforce represented as prisoners of their work place and the struggles that tied their lives up. 

Each piece is strong, dark and overall quite powerful in their presentation. 

His most famous piece involved a group of horses tied to the gallery walls for 12 days. He did this to represent the horses used in old traditional paintings and by doing this he brings the landscape into the gallery or turns the gallery into the landscape. I think he kept them tethered to highlight the fact that in traditional paintings the horses can't move either. 

I think the piece was all about the experience and impact and the effect it has on the viewer. 

Was it cruel? I'm guessing the horses possibly had the best 12 days of their lives so possibly not. 

The whole situation must have been constantly changing depending on the group of gallery visitors.

"When I made the pile of coal piece it created a presence for the viewer. The coal can be bought anywhere by anyone, therefore the preciousness is not in the object but actually in the gesture of placing the coal inside the space". Kounellis makes an image by placing the real world in front of us but in a way that presents it as an art work, the thing he presents becomes the art and the emotion it generates in the viewer becomes the experience. 

Looking into one of his works we see a lot of representation. 

The steel canvas - industry/workplace/hardship.

The shoes - the people working/people who died in the workplace?

The coat tied to the bed - the struggle of the working man/woman, tied to the same life forever and the same job, only ever being able to afford the single bed even though they might have a partner in it too. 

Each piece asks questions and tells us about particular histories.

I see Kounellis as a story teller using labour intensive, history filled materials to produce images filled with his and his birthplaces heritage. 

Lens based presentation october 2013

Keith Carter 

65 year old Texan based Keith Carter produces monotone photographic images in a surreal dream like style. His use of harshly contrasting dark and light areas and difference in focus and depth of field give the images a feel of being stills from a movie. Through this technique we get the opportunity to add our own story or narrative to what's going on. 

Carter spent a long time hunting out towns in America with strange names including 'Paradise' and 'Earth'. He visited each town and took just one photograph with no preconceived idea as to what he was going to capture. These images are intriguing to look at and are a document of the lives and happenings in small American towns. The figures are frozen in time, suspended in the surroundings they occupy and Carter uses his technical skill to portray American life as it happens. The images could be from any era though as they have such a timeless feel showing us how these towns haven't changed over the decades. 

Each of Carter's images contains a certain amount of strangeness. Simple subjects are printed in such a way that they have a dark, edgy, haunted look with a hint of creepiness. The pictures serve to remind us of times gone by in our lives, memories recalled from small details in the back of our minds. childhood adventures or even nightmares. Reminding us of friends we had as kids who disappear as time goes by but are always there, somewhere in our thoughts. Carter achieves this so well in his pictures which strongly feature children and the way they play or interact with each other. 

 

I tried to reproduce an image in carter's style as part of our lens based projects. I stayed away from photoshop and breathed onto the lens before shooting, creating the blurred edge, then tweaked the colours to get a sepia tone. I got Amelia to look away from the camera as I wanted to ask the questions 'What's she looking at, Whats happening over there?' I used the little playhouse in the background as a substitute for the wooden houses the American families occupy in Carters images. 

I'm pleased with what I achieved in the image. The only possible change might have been to print it in black and white and give it some real darkness?