Contextual Studies 11/12/12

John Berger's "Ways of Seeing"

 

"John Berger's Ways of Seeing changed the way people think about paintings and art criticism. This watershed work shows, through word and image, how what we see is always influenced by a whole host of assumptions concerning the nature of beauty, truth, civilization, form, taste, class and gender. Exploring the layers of meaning within oil paintinga, photographs and graphic art, Berger argues that when we see, we ar not just looking - we are reading the language of image"

 

 

The relevance of Berger's work to my own research and practice is his ideas of the value of art, in particular the value of women within art and the ways in which they are portrayed and perceived by the viewer. I will look into his views on women being seen as objects within art, the concept of vanity ans in turn exploring the relevance of his ideals to that of the work of Jenny Saville.

10/12/12 Presentation research

My focus over the past couple of weeks since the hand in of the Studio Practice 1 brief, has been solely on the presentation for Contextual Studies: presentation date wk beginning Mon 17th Dec. This has consisted of reflecting back over the 1st essay draft and compressing my findings into a summary of what I have researched thus far.

Research has included

History of Contemporary Art

Origins of Conceptual art

Looking into the work of artist Jenny Saville

John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" and relevance to essay and argument

History and purpose of traditional portraiture and the self-portrait: what was its purpose and what did it represent?

 

 

I have also begin to research a theme and concept for Studio Practice 2. Throughout the project there will be a clear overlap between research into the theme of project and also the work carried out within my essay into the values of art and what exactly defines art, as art. I will be publishing my final ideas on the projects theme and concept later this week once further research has been carried out and I have more concrete idea of the direction I wish to take.

Week 10: Final Artwork

Having started to develop my concept through the use of paper, I have now arrived at a composition to take forward to final artwork.

 

The process used for the final artwork, although time consuming conveys the concept of the project successfully. The multiple layers depicted within the piece reperesnt the progressive nature of the lie and also the levels to which people within the story are so heavily influened by what they have been told and are seeing: ultimately the Emperor walking naked down the street.

The whiteness of the artwork adds depths to the piece as it does not deter from the overall effect and also has a direct link again to the concept. The fact that the artwork is not completely visible to the passing viewer highlights the fact that people know this is a blatant lie but cannot necessarily see the truth. I suppose the whiteness of the piece also relates to the innocence of the young child and his inability to realise that everyone is going along with the sharad. However, as this was not highlighted previously within my development process I cannot state this as being one of the focal points of the concept. In spite of this, if I was to develop the project further or take another approach, looking into the innocence of the child would be an interesting concept to develop.

 

advanced stage of the process

 



Working with paper

The next process experimented with was paper cut outs and layering. This is a process that I have worked with previously, but only briefly touched on. I felt the work I was producing with the string circle/coil was becoming rather static and not getting anywhere in terms of a possible final artwork. The relevance of this approach, as you will see is the idea of the continuation and alteration of the lie throughout the story.

adaptation of string coil/cirlce

looking more at depth

moving away from circle and looking more at the imagery of the ripple itself

 

Throughout the course this project I have been focusing more on the circle aspect of the ripple rather than what a ripple actually looks like. The different wayas in which it moves and expands. As I am using the ripple effect as my inspiration I felt that moving in this direction would be more successful, especially with regrds to a possible final artwork.

 

The experimental pieces documented above are my first attempts at working with a more complex composition. The use of the different layers and shapes within each piece is very interesting and an aspect that I am interested in developing for this project. The image above I find to be the most successful, conceptually and aesthetically and as a result will be taking this one forward for the further development into a final artwork.



Update

In my previous blog I was looking at the embossing process and how its relevance coincided with the concept of the project. First attempt was a basic approach, I developed this process further by making a plate that was sustainable for embossing.

 

This imgery is also inspired by images of the ripple and the concept of the ripple effect: the knock on effect of a sequence of events.

 

 

 

The images documented above are examples of the plates created in order to process the embossed images. What I tend to focus on within my work is the approach of repetition and as I have began to notice, i tend to move towards to the use of circles within my work to convey my concept. I also worked with other compositions using the same process as documented above.

 

Basic mixed media approach: overlap of ink and string

breakdown of image through ink tranfer

colour overlap

mulitple artwork through colour exploration

 

As you can see here, I have developed my initial composition using sections of my plate. I also wanted to experiment with the use of colour within the project in order to add depth to the project. Material used was basic indian ink onto the plate. This created interesting shapes as the entire image was not transfered onto the paper. I found this to be successful as the broken down images relates directly the story and the lie that is integrated throughout the story.

 

Fron using thse images I progress on to emboss the image, however this approach was not successful. This could be down to a couple of factors, such as; the press used was a book press rather than the powered press usually used, paper not soaked enough. Material used was basic cartridge paper, another factor contributing the failure of the emboss.

Development:- Progress

In yesterday's blog I stated that I intended to process embossed images from the plates which have been illustrated. This has been experimented with and has proved to be more successful than intially thought.
Paper used was basic A4 cartridge paper. The next stage is to develop this same process, however working with a higher quality of paper. The ghost like effect created within these pieces is interesting and relates back to the story, whereby the people know that what they are being told is a lie yet these choose to ignore what is obvious to the naked eye. The concept of the circles convey the idea of the continuation and never ending nature of the lie.

Development.....

Over the past week I have been working on developing my ideas as stated in my previous blog. Since that time I have worked on producing a number of plates which will be used to emboss from and then progress on to print from. This approach I hope will be successful in representing the concept of the lie and deceit which is throughout the tale. Through the embossing process I aim to achieve an artwork which is not fully noticable and of a discreet nature. I have also been working on taking rubbings from the plates which have been successful, possibly the outcome I will get from a printing process.

Development work to date:- Experimental peices to follow

 

Getting There

So having been busy working on my essay for contextual studies and the development of the project brief "The Emperor's New Clothes" my blog has taken a back seat unfortunately.

It's now time for an update...

.....I think in my last post I had clearly stated my proposition for the project and the direction I was intending on developing m concept. At this time, I have been working on developing the concept of the lie within the story and the way in which it gradually grows, having a knock on effect on each person who is led to believe what the is in fact a lie. The idea has been to look into the concept of the ripple effect, where a situation an effect from an initial state can be followed outwards
What I am aiming to achieve here is to illustrate the never ending condition of the lie. Imagery tends to play a major part within my work, resulting in the most minimalistic shapes and compositions in order to express the concept. In this case, I have began to experiment with the literal imagery of the lie through disintegration of the emperor's clothes. This has been achieves through manipulating and fundamentatlly destorying materials in order to convey the idea of the lie being interwoven throughout the Emperor's so called "clothes".
As imagery plays an important role within the work, I have began to experiment and consider the most successful methods and processes to illustrate the concept.
Materials/Processes:
        Wire
        Paper
        String
        Glue
        Mixed Media
        Photography
What I have found to be the most successful thus far is the use of string illustrated in a circular form, demonstrating the concept of the knock on effect and inffluence of the lie.

To be honest, I am not as far on as I would have hoped to be at this stage, especially as the deadline is in a mere 3/4 weeks...NOT GOOD!!!! This could be down to a number of factors; artistic blog, no clue which direction to go, what my focus is or simply down to a serious lack of confidence. Hopefully I will be able to overcome this throughout the course of the year.

Despite being slighty behind schedule, I do feel that there is enough time to develop my ideas into a successful aesthetic and conceptual artwork.

Developmental work

More experimental work to follow

Contextual Studies

Over the past week, my studio practice work has taken a back seat due to a hand in for my essay draft. The hand in for this is Friday 12th October (this week) so have mainly been focusing on this.

Essay Statement:
What is deemed as acceptable within contemporary fine art? A discussion on the values of traditional, contemporary and conceptual art and the comparisons between their acceptance within today’s society.  

 

Within this essay, I intend to discuss the acceptance and monetary values within contemporary art and how it is or is not deemed as socially acceptable within today’s society. Discussion points throughout the essay will be focusing on the history of contemporary art, changes since 20^th century, values of conceptual and contemporary fine art and also the work of artists whose work relates to these topic points. Since the beginning of the 20^th century, a common question asked by society is what exactly constitutes art? This has often been asked since the modern, post-modern and most recently conceptual art era. Who is it that determines what can be constituted as art: society, art galleries, collectors, museums?

The Emperor's New Clothes: An Insight

Week 2 continued:
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What I have been researching here is further breakdown of the tale of the Emperor's New Clothes, hoping to gain a better understanding and also looking for a relationship that exists between what I have researched and my concept. Key elements of the tale have been highlighted below and touch on the basic principles (is this the right spelling?) of my concept (stated in previous blog)

The Emperor's New Clothes Fairy Tale
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The story presents an emperor who concerned himself with only surface appearance, who sought to dress and show himself with his elaborate clothing. Upon hearing of a new suit of clothes made from a special material that was fine, light, magnificent, and invisible to the foolish and the unworthy, he eagerly wished to try it on. Before doing so, however, he sent two of his trusted men to observe the cloth. Neither could see the cloth, and neither wanted to admit themselves foolish or unworthy, and thus both praised the cloth. The emperor then was dressed by the two swindlers ("weavers" of this "cloth"), and demonstrated himself in a parade.

All the citizens observing the parade praised wildly of the color, the magnificence, and the design. Although everyone was praising empty air, as it seemed to themselves, all were afraid of the consequences if they admitted that they could not see a thing. The crowd pretended to cheer, marvel, and welcome the elegant new clothes of the emperor, when a small child noted:

"But he has nothing on at all"!

This remark had an impact on everyone, including the emperor, and he ended the parade with an even more flamboyant (and vain) show of dignity.

In later versions, the ending is sometimes modified where the townspeople realize they had been tricked and give the emperor some of their clothes and he's still the sharpest dresser in the land.

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http://www.arikiart.com/articles/emperors-new-clothes-fairytale.htm

Origins

It has been claimed that Andersen's original source was a Spanish story recorded by Don Juan Manuel (1282-1348).
___________________________________________________________http://www.arikiart.com/articles/emperors-new-clothes-fairytale.htm

Analysis

This story of the little boy puncturing the pretensions of the emperor's court has parallels from other cultures, categorized as Aarne-Thompson folktale type 1620.

The expressions The Emperor's new clothes and The Emperor has no clothes are often used with allusion to Andersen's tale. Most frequently, the metaphor involves a situation wherein the overwhelming (usually unempowered) majority of observers willingly share in a collective ignorance of an obvious fact, despite individually recognising the absurdity. A similar twentieth-century metaphor is the Elephant in the room.

The story is also used to express a concept of "truth seen by the eyes of a child", an idea that truth is often spoken by a person too naïve to understand group pressures to see contrary to the obvious. This is a general theme of "purity within innocence" throughout Andersen's fables and many similar works of literature.

"The Emperor Wears No Clothes" or "The Emperor Has No Clothes" is often used in political and social contexts for any obvious truth denied by the majority despite the evidence of their eyes, especially when proclaimed by the government. Amazon.com alone lists 17 works with one of these two phrases in the title, and this ignores political magazine articles and non-mainstream authors.

In practice, the phrase is often used as persuasion by partisans when in fact it is not obvious that their position is correct.

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http://www.arikiart.com/articles/emperors-new-clothes-fairytale.htm

 

The Emperor's New Clothes

Week 2:
_________________

During this time I have been exploring in more depth the concept of the lie that is interwoven throughout the tale but I am also beginning to consider combining this with the innoccence of the child. My initial thoughts, as stated in my PLP (wk beginning 10th Sept) was to convey the relationship that exists between the tale and reality: the ways in which we as a society can be manipulated by the media. This is obviously a good starting point for concept development, especially as I have found this aspect of the story to be a focal point.

 

Up til now I have been looking into the work of contemporary artists whose work consists of materials and processes that I have become familiar with

over the course of my studies.

 

Artists have included:
Hany Amrmanious, George Papadopolous, Antony Gormley
Rebecca J.Coles, Maggie Ayres, Jill Tattersall

 

 

Throughout the course of this brief I wish to explore the idea of the lie and how easily it  develops and grows through society. I have been exploring this idea through basic knitting skills in order to represent/convey the idea of the lie progressing/growing/developing. I feel this to be the focal point of the story, whereby I feel will allow for the most development of the story. Not only do I find the aspect of the lie powerful, but the innocence of the young child who is the only person to state the truth! Both of these elements combined have the potential to be developed into a truely powerful and aesthetically good artwork.



 

  

Conceptual Ideas for development:

• The lie that is interwoven throughout society
• The innocence of the young child who states the truth
• The illusion of the clothes that the people chose to believe that is there, which is so easily destroyed.
• The fear of not wanting to be branded a fool/unworthy of their jobs (royal subjects?)
• Reality: the relevance of the story to reality (media manipulation/propaganda/censorship)

Although there are a number of points here, each one significantly relates to the other and therefore come together to create one concept.


Research:

• Hany Armanious: Sculpture/installation
• Antony Gomrley: Scultpure/installation
• George Papadopolous: Glass
  Rebecca J.Coles: Paper
• Maggie Ayres: Mixed media
• Jill Tattersall: Mixed media



Maggies Ayres

George Papadopolous




Antony Gormley

Images Sources From:
http://www.maggieayres.co.uk/
http://www.yorgosglass.com/gallery1.htm
http://www.antonygormley.com/sculpture/chronology-item-view/id/2227/page/189#p1


Experimentation:

Material/process/method experimentation is vital and therfore, in order to successfully develop my concept into a final artwork, working within a range of different materials, I feel will allow me to achieve this successfully. As stated in my PLP, I intend to begin developing the concept by working with a numbr of materials and processes:

• knitting
• silk paper
• paper work/manipulation
• painting
• printmaking
• sculptural elements (wax, clay, plaster, wire etc)
• Mixed media

 I want to explore to progressive nature of the lie but also the breakdown of the lie and the chils innocence through the use of these materials.



3rd YEAR: New Term, New Brief, New Approach

Well, the summer holidays are officially over which means the hard work begins for 3rd year!!! We have been issued with our first brief of the year: "The Emperor's New Clothes"

At this stage I am merely focusing on the over all meaning of the story and the deeper meanings/morals that lie within. Initial thoughts are moving towards to the innocence of the young child, the lie that is intertwined and also the symbolisim that is integrated.

As this is such a broad theme with the possibilities of taking it in any number of directions, I am going to allow this time for pure experimentation, which will hopefully give me much more of a focus as to my specialism.

Lets begin....
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Multiples: getting to grips with development of concept

To be honest, I have struggled greatly with the development of this project, however, I feel as though I have overcome this hurdle and with the time left for the project will be able to produce work to a sufficient standard. As I was looking at repetition of movement, more specifically OCD, I was having trouble developing my ideas and experimental work. I therefore decided to take a different approach where by I have began to look at the extreme: complete loss of movement. This has led me onto to look at motor neurone disease and ALS ( a form of MND), therefore the artwork itself could potentially become the multiples, rather than the concept. First experimentation consisted of experimenting with silkpaper, where by i created a face, this has progressed onto using skin safe silicon to make a mould of the face and then creating a plaster cast of the negative shape. What i was looking at here was the loss of a persons identity and the loss/breakdown of a persons ability to move.