Our degree show is still open for public view for a few days, We are very lucky that we get the opportunity to display our work in a public art gallery which is a chance to get our work seen by people who wouldn’t usually venture to a degree show at a campus. I’m going to just do a a review of the pieces I have on display in the gallery. It was hard to decided what to put up without it being overkill and ruining the look of the space. In the end I had 4 works up for assesment and I’m proud to say that I did really well.
I got my degree results last Friday and I got a first! Words can’t describe the excitment and pride I feel. It almost a little embarassing.
I wish you could see all my sketch books and experiments and test pieces I have but all I have is a few crappy shots of the gallery because my camera is so beyond repair I just need to buy a new one.
“Torn & Tattered Series”
“Clothes Maketh The Man” – The Suit
When I started making the suit back in January, it was just a large piece of fabric with my stitched portraits on it which have become a kind of signature way of working for me. I became frustrated with my work being so flat, and 2D. For so long I had been talking about turning my work into something 3D and sculptural. I had played with the idea a couple of times, but had always been reluctant to take the plunge because I feared it wouldn’t work out. However I just made the first cut and never looked back. It was a struggle to work with the fabric being so layered,
In the end I think the suit has become a really interesting piece. It obviously isn’t a conventional suit to be worn everyday, but is cut and sewn like any other business suit. I see the suit as a symbol of men’s lack of choice to express themselves through fashion compared to women. Even in an office environment where one is expected to dress smart, Women’s fashion, as well as social acceptances, allows them to wear a larger range of options and colours to let some part of their personality shine through. Our choice of clothing says a lot about us, and we use it to send out a message to other people. I see it as an extension of our personality. Its a statement about the place where we are as people and the emotions we are currently feeling.
I had been working on the suit so long I had begun to question whether it was becoming a piece of work to be proud of or simply something that resembles Joseph’s Technicolor dream coat. Now I see it in an environment where it can be viewed without distraction, I see that it truly sends the message I intended it to. I like the idea that it is tattered and torn, hence the name. It shows imperfections which we all have, and that we are not invincible.
“Dress”
The dress was an after thought idea that began to make more and more sense as the project progressed. Half way through making the suit, I looked at the left over suit patterns I had and began playing with them, I rather naively put the thin paper through the sewing machine and it jammed, making the paper screw up and become ruched. This made me instantly think of pleated dresses and long flowing skirts. I thought I would make another costume, this time a female one, a dress. My work dealt with themes of identity, and part of our identity is defined by our gender. I thought using a man’s suit pattern to create a female garment was a statement on societies way of pigeon holing people into categories instead of allowing individuals to just express themselves and stand alone as one.
