Degree Project: Digital Sketchbook

I had a tutorial with Charlotte Newson a local artist which was extremely helpful. It helped me take my work further as I felt I was a little stuck after CUBED.

Reflection 23/02/21: This tutorial inspired our group path of a ‘doll-like-house’ for Interim Congruous exhibition as well as interesting starting point for my practice throughout L6 so – tilted me towards domestic and objectification again.

We discussed how the small clay boobs in Beauty Hurts were successful and how they should be pushed further in new ways; working with household objects. Due to COVID I was stuck at home and I wanted to work with what I had around me e.g. kitchen objects, relates to the domestic household gender roles of women and reminded me of Linder Sterling’s and Martha Rosler’s collage pieces of women and household appliances. Women were always seen to be in the kitchen, however this hasn’t disappeared yet due to the patriarchy.

Reflection 21/12/20: I have circled back to ideas of the domestic roles of the kitchen, experimenting in Baking, very hands on/artist involved and documenting the process of making icing breasts like Martha Rosler Semiotics of the Kitchen – main inspiration.

I decided to fill a mug with the clay breasts to explore women’s depersonalised and a domesticated object – inverted Womanhouse, Breasts to Eggs relation.

As I reevaluated Beauty Hurts, it then made me think that women may always be sexualised. No matter if you have your cleavage on show or not women are always harassed, judged or sexualised for their breasts.

The clear packaging from Beauty Hurts suggests the idea of even though the breasts are technically covered, they are not hidden. So with this I brought a clear mug and I refilled the mug with breasts again as I am aiming to expose this stigma of breasts and display them as they should be, normalised and not sexualised. See image below, A Sip or two.

This was a big movement in my work as this tutorial with Newson challenge my work/use of materials that are at hand. This helped consider the reflection and feelings of COVID that are in my creative space. See below my sketchbook page – this blog helps me finalise my thoughts and has become a great process for me and my work:

Another object I used after researching Womanhouse and in particular Eggs to Breasts, is a frying pan and a wooden spoon. I was really excited to see how this work with the photography. Eggs to Breasts fascinated me that I had to created this piece of work. I chose to place the breasts in the frying pan as if they were eggs. Although it has the similar ideas of fertility (which I’m not interested in following currently) and womanhood. See images below.

Reflection 01/11/20: From a 1-1 with Jane, we discussed how it would’ve been more successful if the pan was hot so the clay breast actually changed appearance – may be worth placing the breasts in the actual kitchen space?

I named these pieces Cookin’ Up Beauty as it refers to the idea of social media reinforcing women to follow the stigma of wanting the perfect body and though they are on their way to be ‘idealised’. Reflection 21/12/20: “beauty itself has been traditionally gendered as a female trait of desirability” (Koo, 2004, p 299). Visual of cooking till perfect to fit to the stigma. I am really enjoying this photography at the moment I feel much more involved in my practice at the minute and feeling as though I am expressing how I feel.

Reflection 08/03/21: I did place the breasts in the kitchen space for Congruous but didn’t work with the physical change of the breasts instead, the representation they channel of women which I think this was just enough.

I decided to try the breasts on flesh so I took them in my hand and focused on the tight grip – references the pressure of women’s own destructive gaze on themselves to become the ‘idealised’.

Reflection 21/12/20: Interesting to see this relation to Only Touch with CLEAN Hands here so early one. From my group crit 24/11/20 regarding this work, it was brought to my attention that even with a female hand it still suggests issues with the male gaze/dominance depending on how you use the hands and its actions? Is this the same for this too?

Newson was intrigued to see how a males hand would change the meaning of the photograph. In A Handful of Women (man hand) adds the harsh image of male dominance, sexual objectification of the female body. See below – would it be more impactful if the breasts would’ve changed shape?

Ideas:

• Doll size chest of drawers, wardrobes, ovens etc. Relation to the idea of a ‘Barbie World’ and the idealised and in relation to the gaze. Reflection 21/12/20: “Even toys under go ‘the knife’ in the name of beauty” (Koo, 2004, p 298).
• Creating even smaller clay breasts to play with size and range in the photographs – see how they work and change the photo as well as the meaning. I feel as though these would also work extremely well with projection similar to my CUBED installation.

Reflection 21/12/20: The range of sizes was very successful within my practice as it helped to create a variety of noises as the breasts fell in my film Only Touch With CLEANS Hands – this was a very influential piece.

Reflection 15/04/21: I have continued this idea of small sculptures except with icing in Sweet Tooth B&W, tackling the breasts from another angle with performance/eating develops those original ideas of sexual objectification and male dominance I had here further.

05/10/20 – I had week 1 and 2 of CUBED, a space to practice/work with installing our work. Here is the space I had to work with as well as the poster I designed for my exhibition. It was scary to have such a large space to myself as I had been crammed in my bedroom during COVID.

For this space I decided (with the help from feedback in my recent Pecha Kucha) to continue working with my clay bodies, to take them further than just photographing them, but to install them as I never was able too due to COVID. At the end of L5 I created a digital illustration of a floor plan with how I wanted to display the clay bodies (see illustration below). I then adapted this floor plan to suit the CUBED space.

I realised that I need to create more bodies at a quicker pace for the exhibition and as my time in the space had been extended for an extra week, I decided to film my self in the space to show how the making and creating is just as important in the space as the end result of the exhibition. Here are a few process videos from CUBED:

Reflection 25/02/21: Yayoi Kasuma shares similarities here – use of small simple repetitive objects like in Phalli’s Field with the use of a mirrors, creating a visual of  there being more than there actually is.

Reflection 08/03/20: This documentation of the process is something I have continued through my practice from CUBED, in Baking, The Haze of Social Media and Are You Watching? I realised it’s not all about the end product but how I get there too.

Within the first week I was trialing the bodies in different parts of the space. I had a 1-1 Jane and felt more inspired to work with how I could install the bodies/ incorporate the space, light and audience into it.

I placed the bodies in day light because the sun was bright and they resulted in a phallic like shadow. Adding something new to my work as well as potential display ideas. In the image above, thoughts came to mind from my dissertation research of how women in, Sigmund Freud’s theory of Penis Envy, are inferior to men due to the fact they do not have a penis. With his theory in mind I aimed to develop a confrontational image of women coming out of the male’s shadow and being in the light. I loved this and had to develop this to fit into my space with the use of projection as well as LED lights on my body sculptures. I created a digital drawing to plan where the bodies will sit among the projector below.

With the second week, I hired a projector and lights to be able to work with a pink light to play with the life like appearance of the bodies as well as the aura of the room – working with Rachel Maclean’s Make Me Up colour scheme & the feedback from Pecha Kucha. However, the space was naturally too bright meaning the lights didn’t work as well. I felt it had messed up my plans for the space and could only create an intense pink spot light on one of the bodies, not all 73 (see below).

Reflection 21/12/20: From this point I noticed how much my work thrived with a suggestion of projection. The coloured light/movement created a unique space, especially in a darkened space.

The projector was something I hadn’t worked with yet in my practice either. I projected my short film of Consuming 2 over the bodies as I wanted to create an uncomfortable space which would capture peoples attention. It worked really well as I then could create some of the shadows I had hoped for in the previous week. It gave more personality to each of the figures due to moving coloured lighting/reflecting on the clay bodies.

Reflection 21/12/20: Projection is now a massive part of my work and it not only changes the space but also the work, the colours and the meaning attached to the work. This CUBED exhibition has been a good reference point for my practice, it helped me understand and experiment a lot with a physical space.

Reflection 08/03/21: From Consuming 2, I have recently created Sweet Tooth B&W,  I had reflected on what worked well in my practice that I wanted to develop further, it was the use of this projection and film here where I wanted to revisit. I have become confident in projecting Sweet Tooth B&W alone with additional material e.g. cellophane, material the will benefit the projection, rather than with clay bodies/breasts where I felt I should involve them.

The projection was still quite faint due to the brightness in the space, so instead I have rented out the installation room to be able to work with projection and shadow more successfully in the future. Below are a few images of these outcomes:

I had struggled with the lay out of this space so I had played around with the best ways to capture shadow, space and to involve the audience. I had explored a few lay outs for the figures but something wasn’t right about lining them up like in the images below. I decided to use my original digital plan, from above and decided to circle the bodies around the viewer. This was resulted in making a walk way, to feel as though the viewer is involved in the installation and feeling on a similar level of the bodies, doing the gazing back and forth.

Reflection 02/03/21: Yayoi Kasuma Phalli’s Field format is present here, circling the viewer within a distorted space.

The individualism of the figures stood out in these arrangements, this was something that was mentioned more than once in feedback. This was a learning period for me – to think about and develop more the presentation and positioning of my work in a space.

Reflection 21/12/20: Individualism is very prominent in my work, currently I don’t focus on a range of bodies during one shot, I choose a few bodies to project films over and it suggests an experience attached to that female and body.

Here below, are some of my final films of the outcomes of the space:

Reflection 28/03/21: There’s cinematic relation to the projection from my dissertation research present, the women (the bodies) act as a type of audience, watching themselves (the breast), the idealised (the icing) being eaten on the screen. It plays to Mulvey as well as the negative inverted self surveillance women feel, that comes from the male gaze and the representation of women in the cinema.

Reflection 12/02/21: Congruous shares a relationship to the CUBED projection as I continued the imagery of breasts being desirable objects expect in a space where you eat instead. I spotted this that many pieces of my work seem to circle back to Consuming or at least include elements of this eating/women as consumption.

Today I had my Pecha Kucha presentation which I was dreading but it went really well. I found last years Pecha Kucha very useful even though I didn’t want to admit at the time because it went awfully (I guess not always a bad thing)! It was very eventful, in the sense of different directions but it benefited me massively, which I now see after many emotional breakdowns…

But, this year was positive! I’ll put in some of my slides I used as I showed my journey to the rest of my class through level 5 to now.

As my first Pecha Kucha I presented in level 5 last year wasn’t my best, I wanted to really express how much I have developed and grown in confidence as an artist and I feel like it’ll be a good way to follow my progress through my blog too!

Reflection 21/12/20: This Pecha Kucha really helped push my work into a more experimental area of my practice – more interesting photography which then lead to moving images and films.

In my presentation one piece of feedback I received was that it was clear how much I had experimented with different medias and materials (above). I had worked so many different ways as I had no direction I was going, this was new for me because I usually like to have everything planned out but this allowed me to accept feedback and use my research to direct me.

It was also mentioned in my feedback that it is clear how much of an impact Gormely’s Field (above) had on my practice which I’m happy about because it had a massive impact on my work from which I was originally working on paper to beginning with clay. But not only the appearance was new but it allowed me to work with a more in depth meaning to my work, using the gaze as an actual act of the clay bodies.

The adaption of working with colour and clay was a massive progression for me and everyone in my Pecha Kucha Feedback expressed this, the pink light and tones was a very effective move in my work. I received this feedback last year too but hearing it again has made me want to continue working with these figures and it’s clear from fresh eyes that they still hold their strength.

Reflection 21/12/20: Colouration has been explored massively within my work recently, but interestingly enough without actually changing the originality of the sculpture. Using projection/light to adapt the sculpture for the image/film out come.

From this feedback I am using this within my one week long CUBED exhibition from 5th – 9th October and aiming to involve these figures in an actual exhibition space to see how successful they are in a larger space and away from colour.

This was another thing that stood out to me from my Pecha Kucha that it is important for me to explore how social media has adapted our ways of seeing not only our true selves but also others. What is true or false? All women in my group expressed how they know exactly what I mean and how I feel. I’ve always read about women feeling negative towards social media and themselves but it was interesting to see and hear from those you know.

It’s something to be talked about and after presenting my current work the class I realised how important it is as arguably every women feels the same. This feedback has given me more enthusiasm to go down this route as I feel it will benefit my work even further.

Reflection 21/12/20: It’s good to note thought I decided myself that this path didn’t suit my artwork, I felt had I had to push to make artwork to fit around this theory and this isn’t what art making is about. It’s about making art and seeing what comes from that with a theory in mind. It wasn’t as successful as I hoped but this beneficial for me to find this out early on within this semester and my practice.