What has changed from my ideas with the Chinese & English foods and drinks?
I have given some ideas with careful thought and I have decided that fr now, I will try to print these images out to see what these objects will look like in crast to the actual real objects. I feel that these images are more powerful when it comes to displaying the objects in couples alone and away from the other objects. To display them in couples would bring in the relation of me and my girlfriend and the part about separation of couples from far distances coming together again.
Relating to Xenia Hausner and Ai WeiWei
In a way this idea of contrasting the foods and drinks really does relate back to the two artists where they use their cross culture influences in painting or objects. This idea of my cross-culture foods and drinks is to not only represent my girlfriend and me but also other Chinese and English people as well. When the two cultural foods and drinks come together it then brings in the juxtaposition where you are contrasting the two relations together.
This message that I am trying to bring forward not only is to try and show that the two cultures share a resemblance but the main narrative is to address the absence or loss of my girlfriend where we are meant to be together.
What is the next plan of action?
On Monday I will try to print these images out onto some nice photographic matt finish paper and see how the objects work on there. If they work quite well, I may try to produce a human size one where you have the objects of foods and drinks in human size that would represent our bodies a lot more. But i will see first how the normal size photographs will work and go from there.
Who Have I looked into that relates to my two culture themes?
Australian Artist Xenia Hausner is a portrait painter who produces big scale paintings. Xenia Hausner has made a fresh assessment of this broad realm of globalised modernity. What seems at first to be a snapshot of daily life is in truth the multiple refraction and reflection of life in a world in which cultures are entwined in another. Xenia Hausner is mainly concerned with the seismographic recognition of a mutual curiosity and attraction between west and east. Hausner’s typically expressive techniques does not offer distinct and realistically interpretable scenes.
Rather she manipulates elements from various regions and cultural environments into a new fragmented reality. The asian and European girl in school uniforms, the three western women in front of a North Korean propaganda poster and a young couple beneath Chinese lanterns and neon lights. Hausner has simulated all these scenes in her studio using models. By looking at Hausner’s re-enactments in her paintings clearly resemble China as east and europe as west. Again you have the two cultural societies in a juxtaposition mode where the two cultures are trying to contrast with each other.
So how does Xenia Hausner relate to my Cross culture themes?
Hausner relates back to my degree show where you have myself playing with Chinese people with a game of Mahjong acting as juxtapositions. Right now this theme of the cross-cultures of England and China will continue into development with my current work.
What development have I done with the Drawings?
As I have previously said about wanting to print them, I have managed to have a go at printing them today. I got Glen ‘the technician’ to help print one of these images out first just to see if it will work because the detail of my drawings are very fine lined. In the end one of my drawings did manage to come out very good onto the acetate and thought it was crisp and neatly printed. Then Glen exposed my printed acetate image onto the silkscreen using photo emulsion so that he can transfer the image for me so I can print it.
The image did come out very nice and crisp with all the detail shoing on the silkscreen so was very happy about that. There were about 5 minor spots that were showing on the silkscreen where some of the photo emulsion was washed away but I managed to cover up all of the spots so that the ink does not get through them. So now that I have inspected it and covered up any holes and gaps, I was ready to print my image onto some nice Fabriano paper.
What was the result of the print process?
To be honest I was happy very much with the results of my printing process and if i had to rate the difficulty in printing them it would just be a 5 /10. This is a simple print that I printed with just one colour but still had to use some plastic film to align my image on the paper so that the alignment of the image is neat enough. I was very happy with the result of printing this first English and Chinese illness drawing image and did end up looking the way I wanted it to look so I was satisfied with that result.
I then wanted to think about trying some of the special paper with the hair and fibres embed into the paper which is indian paper. I wanted to try one of these out to see what effect and narrative I could create. When I looked at the Indian special paper, it looked as though it has hair embed in it as to say a toilet has hair inside the toilet room and looking at this paper would help develop the narrative further of my disgusting atmosphere of my Chinese and English Illness. So it made me wanna experiment with this paper compared to the other normal paper but has worked better in terms of narrative.
What will I do next?
I will think about printing the next 3 Chinese and English Illness prints onto the acetate and see if they come out the same neatness as the first one. Once that has happened, then me and Glen can think about exposing the next 3 of them images onto 3 other silkscreens and hopefully they will come out neat and crisp as the first successful image. After I have managed to successfully print these out I might either think about using a second colour on them or I will just leave the images how they are but I will see…
What updates do I have with my Chinese and English Illness Drawings?
I wanted to have a go at playing around with these images on photoshop because I am thinking about printing them through silkscreen using nice black ink and good quality paper to print them on. So I have had to put all four of my drawings on photoshop just to get rid of the writing that was next to my drawings and now it makes such a good difference in not seeing any writing next to them. I wanted to add the writing originally just to label what the objects are used for but works better without the writing.
What will I do next in printing terms?
I will either wait until 1st of February to print these out as I have my assessment weeks coming up real soon. Or I might attempt to print out at least one of these drawings just to see what difference it looks through printing and then perhaps add this to my concepts and contexts presentation for the 28th of February. This way i have something to show in terms of my developement with my Chinese and English illness sculpture. I will keep you updated of any new changes in my work.
Task 1. refine the 2000 word Project Proposal *Mandatory*
Yes… i have managed to make a very good start with my proposal already by breaking down elements of what my work is about and comparing my use of themes towards other artists. I have successfully kept up with my tasks of writing 100 words a day at least. At the moment it all sound quite promising straightforward to writing about the main elemental points about what the divisions of representational indexicality actually hold. I will keep continuing to refine my proposal to the best understanding that I possibly can and making sure it all sounds like good sense. I hope to send a copy of my proposal to Shaun Camp and with any luck he can tell me what I should do to make it better.
Task 2. start on my Research Methods Presentation *Mandatory*
I should really make a good start with my Research proposal presentation which will be held on the 14th of January. As this is the deadline to come up with all the findings of elements behind my work, I should try my best now to puzzle my theories together to make a convincing case for my artwork. This will involve some artists along with theorists within the indexicality side of things, the sublime, Dada, the everyday object etc… I must explain all of this in the clearest view possible for everyone else to understand the concepts behind my work.
Task 3. complete Chinese and English Illness Squatting Toilet
Yes… I have been slightly held back all because I had to get my prints ready for pretty’s exhibition and this job could not wait. Now that I have prepared my prints, I can now focus a bit more on my squatting toilet and hope that I can finish cutting the remaining bricks in reasonable time preferably before the 21st of January. Then I think it should be done for now until by the end of january I can play around with it more to see if anything does need changing.
Task 4. complete Chairman Mao Print – adding sunglasses, white teeth, a gold tooth and background colours = 4 more layers.
I must ideally try my best to complete the remaining layers of my chairman Mao print before the end of January if possible. There are only 4 or 5 layers left to do of the print which would total up to about 11 or 12 layers altogether. I hope that I can make another good start on this process by the 4th of January which is on Monday. The next layer will be the background layer.
