We had a meeting 15/01/21 to discuss as a group, what we are planning to do for our Interim exhibition which is coming up in February. (15th-19th February 2021). See notes below.
We’ve decided to each chose a room in house to work in/display our work in: a dolls house, we think it will also reflect our current situation – art students stuck at home having to work in unusual environments. I have chosen the domestic space of the house: kitchen. Where women were/is tied too due to their gender which will play with the representation of my work too. I have begun to trialed different imagery for the projection, the bodies below aren’t readable. So far the breast projection works best, see further below.
Reflection 23/02/21: The breast imagery worked well as a kind of mirror imagery of the sculptures, it created distortion yet depth to the sculptures, space and projection.
These are some images I have been working with in projection, see below. As I have said the breasts sculptures hadn’t been working in my practice, was struggling to create effective work with them for what I want to explore – body image and the gaze, but they worked well in relation to the kitchen/display using the setting to my advantage.
Reflection 16/03/21: This exhibition allowed me to see where my work wasn’t quite right, but with Are You Watching? it was extremely successful. It allowed me to adapt a space/reach a goal with a certain path in mind – the kitchen. I have tried to work in kitchen before e.g. Baking wasn’t as successful however, here the projection/clay breasts work well with the style of filming we were all doing as a group.
I do like the moving projection of Up Close, over the breasts, see film, yet it’s unrecognisable. For Congruous I want the imagery to recognisable. Reflection 29/03/21: It was refreshing to learn how to adapt and change my work for an exhibition/working with a group.
Linder Sterling’s collages pieces were a large inspiration for this combining the female body with the domestic appliances – how they become one through the eyes of the male gaze/gender roles. I liked this aspect to her work, the appliance is the environment. I reversed this, see below, Untitled, suggests the objectification women face that is present in the kitchen.
Reflection 26/01/21: I am currently working with this experimentation placing women (breasts) in the kitchen space on the island in, in front of the oven/projection, exploring the idea women are food to eat.
Reflection 29/03/21: The use of the clay breasts looking like ‘desirable sweets’ – was a comment from a group crit, 24/11/21, about the breasts from Only Touch With CLEAN Hands, this is now being used more intensely/physicality through icing, in Sweet Tooth B&W.
Linder Sterling, Untitled, 1977.
Linder works with “continuous provocation, the denunciation of a world that confines human beings in absurd categories and that still isn’t exactly a fair fight.” (Pacciardi, 2018) especially in response to the way women are bound to the confines of the kitchen. And, imagery that is known from the males POV, pornography suggesting this objectification is all women are used for – food and sex!
There’s this over lapping of imagery present within my piece for Interim. Martha Roslers Hot Meat inspired me, see below – my favourite works of hers. Similar to me, she places the body on top of the kitchen appliance and only the intimate areas, suggesting there’s this depersonalisation that comes with sexual objectification of the women. – This depersonalisation is how I have approached the display for this exhibition too. Looking at how women, like on the cinema screen, are used for their “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey, 1973, p116)/their body using their breasts as they’re most know for.
Martha Rosler, Hot Meat, 1972.
Roslers film Semiotics in the Kitchen is also a piece I have thoroughly researched and seems to be somewhat relevant here, the physical setting of the space. Instead of using collage/photoshop in my images, I have decided to change the environment of the space for the breasts and shown the physical change and adaption of these breasts, as well as my art practice and experience of my degree.
Alongside the practicality of the sculptures, Womanhouse was another piece of art work that inspired me to work in the kitchen, Eggs to Breasts was amazing to see the sculptures being displayed across kitchen walls and ceilings etc as well as the gradual development of eggs to breasts. Inspired me to use the projection in a productive way – imagery that there is more breasts present than there is/displaying them up the sides of the walls, surrounding the oven. The colour/vibrancy of the projector gave the breasts life. AND Risk’s Pixel Forest – is present in my work suggests the use of transforming the space into not just a kitchen.
Vicki Hodgetts, Eggs to Breasts, 1972.
Posters! – Elgin has created a final poster, we all critiqued some posters that were made by my self, Kieran and Michaela however we decided Elgin’s would work best for the exhibition, continuing the path of a doll house theme kept simple, see the poster/logo below. Our title = Congruous. Congruous means ‘in agreement or harmony’ which sums up our class. We all work to the confines of our home/room due to the same situation of COVID.
Online exhibition – decided to do a day take over for each of us to control the Art Station’s Instagram account and connect to the viewers by showing some behind the scenes action of us propping/making/painting and creating these pieces for this exhibition, artists work that has inspired us.
Reflection 21/02/21: Jane is going to do the take over as it makes it less complicated instead of all of us trying to control the account.
I had an idea for us individually to add our images to a poster in the same style as our main one, to use use for ourselves to display the exhibition on our social media platforms e.g. show who is taking over that particular day. See my individual poster below.
I’ve been given the role to film/edit the material for the video of the exhibition – each having a film for opening door to room and then to artwork. These are currently the films I have of the space so we could get a feel for what the walk way would entail. Reflection 01/03/21: After reviewing with my class, we discussed going the long way to see more of the work – as I did this, the work grew/spread out more in the environment, it developed quite quickly/drastically.
