The concept for my degree show work, and therefore my art practice is still evolving. However, I feel it is now arriving close to the point where I’m happy with the evolution of my ideas and what the final outcome will be. Looking back at the artists I’ve explored and taken inspiration from, I can clearly see how my art practice has moved forward from the initial idea I had back in October last year.
Together with Turrell and Kapoor, other artists that have had a considerable influence on the way I use space and mediums within my art practice include a diverse of art styles and mediums used.
The installation work of Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson has encouraged me to be more adventurous to the approach I am taking in my current practice, especially seeing how he uses space and light. His installations are varied in approach and mediums used, but also very thought provoking.
The artists mentioned here are merely the tip of the iceberg as far as the inspirational and contextual artists I have research.
My experimentation of colour within the clear resin droplets rather than my original idea of the ‘droplets’ just placed on an image came about after discovering American abstraction artist Bruce Riley who works in psychedelic colours with paint and clear casting resin. He works in layers of resin and able to create actual depth, his paintings display physical space by shadows of the paint on one layer being created on the layer(s) beneath.
Similar the Riley, Chai Soong Ng works with acrylic on layers of clear epoxy resin producing 3 dimensional paintings. This build up of layers creates a volume to his paintings and space they occupy.
American Artist Tara Donovan primarily uses everyday objects to create her installations. Although the materials I use aren’t in the realms of the everyday, the elements that interest me with Donovan and her work are the general scale of her installations and, like me, she is process driven with regards to making art.
Had a bit of a lull in creativity due to necessary preparation of the next stage in my career. With plans of going into teaching and therefore the need to study for a PGCE qualification, I have, over the last few weeks been attending teaching observation days as part of the application process. Although this has significantly reduced the amount of art practice time, it has been very encouraging and in some ways inspirational. Having given presentations of my art practice and it’s journey through this and last year to various classes, it reminded me of how my work has developed and continues to develop. Not just that, but providing help and advice for creativity to the school children in their lessons made me realise how I work with my art. As strange as it may seem, I saw myself in some of the children, however for me, instead of someone advising me on the different ways to approach a project, I am the teacher and student in one.
Have just discovered a potentially new way to illuminate my Blackroom with a substance that could become the art as well … Exciting stuff.
Can’t say anymore at the moment as not able to experiment with it until beginning of April.
Experimenting with the larger ‘droplet’ by trying resin pigments. Having been told that the colour bleeds into the clear cast resin during curing, but wanting the swirling effect of marbles, I tentatively used the the special resin pigments, but also tried using water based ink to see what would happen.
The inks didn’t work (kind of expected). To my surprise the resin pigment worked brilliantly and just as I’d wanted it to. I’d mixed the pigment with a small amount of resin prior to putting it in the casting and can only assume the advice previously given was as a result of the person stirring the neat pigment directly into the casting. If I’d known that I’d not have attempted to use water based inks.
Still, great fun experimenting.
Unfortunately I think I may have over done the catalyst as the cast has a crack in it. It did start to cure far too quickly in my opinion and did become rather hot. Much more so than the previous, but granted smaller, resin cast I had produced. It may have also been a reaction to the water based inks injected into the resin as well.
The inks provided me with an interesting chemical reaction and a slightly humourous one at that!
Nevertheless, a valuable learning curve.
Having had a seminar presented by two RCA students studying MA in Fine Art, I then had a fabulous tutorial with one of the students about my degree work.
Sounds strange, but I was struggling to really believe the connection of my concept for creating large scale water droplets to my perception of space theme. To merely try and recreate clear cast resin ‘droplets’ resting on actual water droplet paintings wasn’t sitting at all comfortably with me.
Talking about various theorists relating to our understanding about space including Henri Bergson and Immanuel Kant, this tutorial helped me re-evaluate what I was doing and refocus my ideas.
While researching artists working with resin I came across Chicago based artist Bruce Riley. He paints, or more specifically he pours, a psychedelic array of coloured resins to create his art. The way he works resonated with me. Like him, I allow the materials I use to interact and so they kind of create the art, but also his use of resins made me rethink how I’d present my resin ‘water droplets’. I noticed from shadows produced through the layering of the resin emphasized the creation of space within the depth of his paintings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iuMN_y23iQ
This re-evaluation gave me the idea to use the space I have in the resin ‘droplets’, rather than adding colours and forms to the base only.
