Degree Project: Digital Sketchbook

I was unsure where my work was going or what it was meaning. I contacted my peers/people outside of uni to get some help. I was told to reflect on my work I had done from L5 to L6, to see what I liked/didn’t like and what had worked/hadn’t worked, both of those years were experimentation periods. From this I realised I had enjoyed my photography: female sculptures/mirrors/coloured lights, see sketchbook page I spotted from L5 below which made me want to rediscover.

Reflection 29/03/21: Looking back its clear that I was stuck with where to go next, after working with Up Close, I felt like I didn’t want to explore it anymore as I had already done so. Currently I am working completely different to how I would’ve expected with no colour, Sweet Tooth B&W, it’s confrontational which I wanted and outwardly visualises the male dominance that is held over all women/imagery of women being a treat to consume. The B&W tackles inclusiveness at a new angle like Up Close was trying.

Abby a postgraduate student suggested a spider diagram see below. There was artists such as Pipilotti Risk who I researched and was influenced by last year who I had forgotten about – it was a good way to see where I have been/go further. From this I felt that the clay breasts are no longer working for me as I ‘m unsure where to place and install them. Reflection 20/02/21: However! They worked perfectly for Congruous as they were easily adaptable to the kitchen and the use for projection. They didn’t get in the way of the projector, but responded enough to capture its colour. I acknowledged that work for an exhibition can be different to my current practice as it all comes down to what works where.

I began revisiting the bold light colours from L5 which added realism/emphasis on the texture of the bodies. See the images below, Up Close, I wanted to make them more peculiar by adding a fluffy cushions to emphasise the natural body image: a peer thought it was hair dangling down – without the explanation of the image, maybe the viewers wouldn’t know what the cushion was. These different perspectives are adds more weirdness/uncomfortableness to the image. Sinister gaze from above? Could this be a path to explore? See immediate written notes below.

Reflection 29/03/21: I have tackled this weird/sinister approach in my current work Sweet Tooth B&W with battling different angles, colours, materials, perceptions. – Could involve sensory touches? Make the space as uncomfortable as possible.

The soft pink light last year gave the bodies a realistic and a kind approach to the form, but this year, I want to challenge this with how the viewers see the body, not in an idealised way. Yellow isn’t as glamourising as pink, it’s a very unnatural colour to see with the body. Distortion enters through a new way of not just photography but colour as it accentuates the discomfort in the image.

Reflection 15/04/21: The mention of mirrors reminded me of my 1-1 Catinca, we discussed ways to develop Sweet Tooth further and I followed the same approach as Up Close above with the angle – resembles a peep hole/gaze from a space you shouldn’t be looking in.

Angles of the camera through the mirror – show details of the material, unseen visual of the body. An angle which you feel you shouldn’t be seeing/peering into, becomes intimate, a relationship between the woman and her body. – Similar to what Saville explores in Close Contact below. The gripping suggests almost disgust/aggression with the body as she exploits the natural form. I think it adds to this negative relationship we have with the female body if it isn’t idealised. Although the body isn’t pressed against the mirror like Saville, there is still this focus on the skin being displayed in an unnatural way, one we are not used to seeing. There becomes something disturbing about the body, a perception we as humans aren’t as open to as we should be. “Distortions confront and coerce the viewer into an examination of one’s own body and the grotesqueries and beauties inherent within” (Gagosian).

Lacan’s mirror stage theory comes to mind, the body is gazing back through a mirror at itself is scary enough for the woman to see – intense relationship between body/woman which we are looking into. Cindy Sherman also works this way with the use of the gaze and the mirror theory within her work, Untitled Film Still #2. See below, Sherman is an artist I am currently researching for my dissertation and in this piece, there is a women looking at her reflection searching for something else, an idealised form? “Sherman captures the gap between imagined and actual body images that yawns in each of us” (Foster, 1996, p 148), it’s something we cannot deny we do as humans. It also becomes not just about the woman and her reflection, but also the gazer of the women and the gazer of the the image. Becomes this thread of looking which is explored within my photography, peering at the body, the gaze of the woman and her body and the gazing of the image.

Reflection 26/01/21: For my Interim exhibition the use of breast clay sculptures is rather different to these, however the lay out of the work ‘women (breasts) sitting like they are an audience at the cinema, watching themselves (projection)’ – in situ of the domestic kitchen, reminds me of the gaze/the self gaze in Cindy Sherman’s work Untitled Film Still #2, above. Very different format but similar messages.

I created films to allow the audience to feel as though they are doing the looking – like how a cinema acts, audience have the control. I chose to intensify this by creating a wet looking pink aura. What is behind it? Insides? Wet pubic hair? Becomes quite abject, these are all strange thoughts that came to mind. See the images below – I am glorifying the forgotten! The wet looking pink body immediately gave me thoughts of Maisie Cousins work, especially Finger.

Reflection 29/03/21: I am exploring the glorification of women in the cinema and the male gaze, I have changed the way I do it by experimenting with different elements e.g. from Pink But Up Close works with luscious colours, Sweet Tooth B&W works with black and white. Almost suggesting if I am done dancing around these issues of glorifying women being objectified – aim to make a statement?

Cousins is an artist I am also researching for my dissertation, she explores the body in a real and raw way. She proposes the body to the camera in a natural state, “her work actively responds to destructive images aiming to address the damaging misogynistic ideals of beauty” (Boulting, 2017). She shows the natural body e.g. body hair juxtaposed with disgusting materials such as rotten fruit, slim, bugs etc. Things you wouldn’t normally or want to see next to the body. Cousins is breaking down this barrier of the clean and idealised form with grossness! Finger, see below, shows a flower which proposes a vagina with a finger almost poking it, it’s covered in a red liquid, working with the imagery of period blood. Showing the natural female body is bloody and real, brings reality and normality into the frame and back to the female body which is both disturbing but refreshing.

The images below question, is this imagery sexual? Or is the figure laying and gazing at itself? Or back at the viewer? A piece of feedback said, ‘the red/pink lights scream the gazing of the red light district’. Was this my intention?

I aim to take these images further through projection as that is something I have also really enjoyed doing this year in L6 which I discovered in my reflection – place projection in different environments: bathroom? Projection helps change the appearance of the environment they are in. Reflection 18/02/21: I projected these in the bath for Lockdown and Light submission and they created an immersive space, changing the water, the bath tub and stretching the body.

Discussing our Interim Exhibition 08/01/21: this exhibition is part of our final degree project and due COVID we are unable to use the Art Station space in Saxmundham for our exhibition so we had to reorganise. See my notes from this session below:

Instead of a physical exhibition we have had to go online with use of the Art Stations Instagram and website. It’s exciting as it will give us a new audience to showcase to, something we have only experienced with our Arlington’s exhibition in L5 and a new experience with digital showcasing. As there is 5 of us, we aim to take over the Art Station’s Instagram each day (this isn’t set in stone yet – but hopefully will be soon) and showcasing our artwork throughout the day.

Reflection 29/03/21: This worked so well, Jane handled the social media take overs and uploaded our posts we chose/gave. It gave the audience an inside in to other work we have done as well as attention to our social media presence.

Due to lockdown, we cannot go into the uni to display our work however, we collectively have come up with an idea to pick a room in our own house and use that as an installation space, to display our work in a new and different way – connects our works together with the issues we have had to face in our degree due to COVID – lockdown in our home. Independently, we have chosen a space which will benefit our work in relation to that space. I have chosen the kitchen to relate to the gender domestic roles and the female representation. I aim to use this time to experiment and explore how to present my work which will suit best.

Possible ideas/thoughts:

• Small clay breast covering the counter tops, oven, hob, dining table, walls/across kitchen etc. Relates to Womanhouse
• Projection as well as the physicality of sculptures.
• Relate back to ideas that contain doll house imagery – 1-1 with Charlotte Newson and the representations of women.

Reflection 26/01/21: Womanhouse was massively impactful here within my approach now, alongside Pipilotti Risk’s Pixel Forest. Dispersing colour around the kitchen. The projection in the crook of the oven area and island, opens up the audiences eyes to the environment I am working in, as well as  the cinematic approach to objectification of women Mulvey explores and the distortion that comes with this.

I had a thought 10/01/21 for Interim, I aim to use my clay sculptured breasts, I wanted to explore for this installation more than just the image that they ‘represent women’, to assess how the breast of a women changed through history and how it plays to expectations/ representations of women and the male gaze. Breasts used for reproduction, fertility, art, objects and sex. It’s important to see “how the ideas evolved to fit the standards and beliefs of each time and culture” (Chards, 2019), and how the eyes of the male gaze has adapted this.

Breasts: shape, size, colour and distance from each other on the body, are all aspects every women is insecure. Each aspect can reflect if they are sexy/‘in trend’ with that breast shape in that moment or not. “The representation is also a reflection of each culture’s understanding of the role of women in their society” (Chards, 2019). It will always control how breasts are perceived/interpretation of the male gaze effects how women feel about the breasts. This is why I think it would be interesting to use these clay breasts in the kitchen for representation of women in both the domestic role/sexual objectification – using the female gaze POV to confront.

Ancient Egyptians’ breasts were ‘regular size’ and used to present “their power and their ability to provide life” (Chards, 2019), yet in sexual situations they were pictured as small. Suggesting men’s opinion on breasts were favoured. Ancient Romans were seen as ideal to have big, perky breasts which were emphasised with the use of a band around this bust. “Women with big perky boobs were highly popular in the empire” (Chards, 2019) also with a small body. Recent times, within the 1920/30s, you were seen as ideal if you had flat breasts and again by the 50s it’s expected to have the pointiest breasts to be favoured. The 80s and 90s were all about large perky breasts.

• There’s a massive change from year year to year, and also due to the porn industry, page 3, play boy, fashion, magazines, social media… The list is endless… it damages the real outlook on natural women and their bodies. This is something I have discussed within L5 within my pieces’ US. With fetishisation, breasts have developed into an ‘object’ of desire. They are “generally fetishised as a crucial part of any “desirable” woman’s body” (Thorpe, 2015). Men and women will always have different perspectives/approaches to breasts, is it the act of the gaze that further affects the way women feel so insecure about their bodies?/sexualised for?

Reflection 14/04/21: Pornography is currently having an impact on my current practice of Sweet Tooth B&W which was lightly addressed here so early on. Pornography industry is getting worse and I don’t think will ever stop, this continues to play to male gazes’ expectations of life/women.

Owens is an art critic I’m analysing for my dissertation in research of Barbra Kruger’s Your Gaze Hits The Side Of My Face – “evil eye” (Owens, 1992, p195) of the male/gaze, that turns women to stone = object – Medusa aspect, except the gaze of viewer instead has the power. This shares the way I use clay in the breast sculptures, the gazer of them makes them objects. – Interpret physical sculptures with projection?

Reflection 06/03/21: This aspect worked well with the way I filmed the breasts in Are You Watching? I started from afar and got closer throughout the film, allowing people to only see round objects to begin with to connect the objectification women have.

Currently I am creating more clay breasts to work with for Interim. They’re going to continue to be sizes, shapes and pierced, un-pierced. None of them are the same and each carry their own identity, like the reality. See below, they are in the process of being made – I need A LOT! (I underestimated how many I will need, CUBED all over again). Reflection: 29/03/21: The placement of the breasts in the kitchen intensified the domestic roles within society’s image. I chose not to paint the extra breasts as the projection gave them their own colour and light. 

Interesting to note Jenny Saville works with “vivacious explorations of the naked female form” (culture trip, n.d.), I found Saville in 2015 at collage, it was Propped, 1992, see below, I had never seen the body laid out in this way before, it was disturbing as I never get to see bodies displayed like this. But also refreshing, to see a body displayed and painted so comfortably. The use of the blues/pinks brush strokes gives the body normality, realness. I want to use this aspect in Interim somehow – accentuate the colour more, pink projection? & the confidence in placement.

Saville looks at the natural and “unapologetic” (Gagosian) imagery of the female body. What is titled by society as, imperfections, of the body. She suggests the frankness of the flesh and shows the body for what it is no sexual imagery through a females POV which helps us women see the reality of the form. This is what I want to carry through into my practice but exploiting the sexual aspect which has come from the gaze, like Saville does by “raising questions about society’s perception on the body” (Gagosian). – how it’s relation to space changes its perception of the body.

Reflection 14/04/21: The bold coloured projection worked well in Are You Watching? and my previous works, but interesting to see that I still have the strong visual of objectification now, through black and white and performance of eating. – almost a drastic change, but it isn’t?