Kaleidoscope

I experimented with collage during our lens based media sessions during level 4 but mostly in my sketchbook as a way to express the source materials and imagery that had caught my eye. I developed this further in level 5, creating collages from magazine images and looking at identity as a theme.

Images from Yellow Submarine (1968), Grateful Dead, Aoxomoxoa (1969) Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-1974)
My installation was influenced at the start purely by music and then developed into looking at the whole of the 1960s culture, music, celebrity, comic, films and literature.
This got my brain firing off on all different tangents after realising I could have source material from as many different influences as I liked and, like a plant starting to grow shoots growing towards the light, I slowly felt like realisation was dawning on me but i hadn’t yet worked out quite what that realisation was yet.

In my first year at university I explored a number of techniques, a range of printmaking methods, painting, the use of found objects and how displaying my work as an installation could change the way it was received by the audience.

To me it was all about experimenting and trying out all the techniques that were available to me that I had never been able to do before. Also it was about breaking my preconceptions of what fine art could be, anything could be art not just a painted masterpiece or a photorealistic sketch and that there was more ways of creating art than the traditional methods that had been ingrained into my brain.

I felt I quickly developed my own individual style and began to feel more comfortable creating work that I felt happy with whether it conformed to other people’s ideals or not. It was beneficial to me to build up my confidence and push my work forward so I could develop both as an artist and personally.