For the past few weeks I’ve kind of just ignored the impending doom that is the degree show; the culmination of 3 years of mediocre work. I haven’t even begun to think about layout/what I want to include/theme/anything. I’ve just been concentrating on making work and I’m just hoping that everything will pull itself together by the end of May. However just recently I’ve begun to think about what I’d like to do.
It’s not exactly going to be a grand exhibition by any stretch but more like a silent milieu that concludes my time on my degree. I’ve been slowly looking at artists more in terms of how they exhibit they’re work and I find myself increasingly bored by the idea of choosing pieces that I deem “good enough” to put out the the wider public. I feel like it undermines my practice a little bit. My practice is built upon the idea of experimentation and the exploration of the human face/figure. To then go against all of my body of work to produce a show of work that doesn’t represent who I am feels a little pointless. I want the final show to represent not just three years worth of work but myself as an artist and the steps I’ve taken to build upon my techniques. Before whenever I would think of an exhibition I thought that I had to create something totally different from the work that informs it but I don’t think this is true; rather I have to build upon my body of work and exhibit work that extends my practice and allows it to be taken beyond the university setting.
The way I have concluded to do this is to focus on my life outside of university. The main thing that has changed within my personal life is my relationship status; he has dominated my life in both a figurative and literal way. That’s as much detail as I intend on going into on the subject but it allows a little glimpse into where my practice is headed in terms of the degree show. My tutors always say that I need to open up more and being more of myself to my art work, allow myself to run loose with my materials and ideas and I think this is a really good starting point to do this. Alas, it has come a little too late in terms of where I am in my degree but I think in terms of personal development it hasn’t come a moment too soon.
My degree show is obviously going to be a showing of paintings but how these paintings will be exhibited, what the paintings will be of, or who will be depicted in them is yet to be decided.
