Back when everything was normal, I was an artist who carelessly explored every corner of making without thought or planning. It was all left up to how I felt on a particular day, the weather, what I had in my bag or where I was. Post apocalypse, planning is something I now have to factor.
Questions arise in my mind while skipping out the door and these slow me down; have I got my laptop, my camera and everything else I might need to make something with me? I am going to need to employ planning, discipline and procedure into my normally explosive and spontaneous process.
This might actually help my documentation process (almost non existant) and my presentation (hello digital sketchbook) and it will slow down my thinking (blog!).
I will need to prepare and digitize, while also adapting to this new and alien way of making.
I hope I won’t need to get a bigger van.
Image of me (Elgin) in my new Ford Transit, 2020.
27/05/2021 –
There was me thinking I’d need to use my big van to transport large paintings – its funny how we can change our fundamental way of working in a matter of months!
After a tough year, one filled with huge changes for us all, I think I have come out the other side a more confident and competent person and artist. Working at home made me view the ‘canvas’ in a new way which I would never have considered before. I love working directly onto architecture in an immersive way, making one-of-a-kind murals in which the audience participation is key. The way in which the paint or chalk is applied to different surfaces allows for a distortion of colour and texture, each one worked into the structure in their own unique ways. Moving my body around spaces, creating abstract lines and overlapping colours is something that will be central to my practice for the foreseeable. Leaving ethereal traces of colour and line, mark making my way around a space is addictive and something I look to pursue as a practicing artist once I finish my degree.
Evaluation
This year my work has advanced in scale and confidence from working on surfaces to working upon architectural sites. The nature of my installation work has expanded to fill rooms and spaces which is very exciting. The scale of my work has become more important to me, which the audiences experience of the work a central thread to how it is made. As we have moved online, my documentation of my work has had to progress and has developed through the use of film, such as in the Congruous exhibition and furthered to the use of the 360 degree camera to document Transient Convection (2021). Site-specificity has become an important part of my work, more so as I have moved to painting directly onto architectural surfaces. Throughout L5 I explored the use of installation by showing multiple works at the same time in my studio space, this progressed through the use of site-specificity and making work in response to a space. I have started to work using the space rather than altering or adding to it, this means that the work is only viewable in that specific space. This adds to the audience experience of the work as it cannot be shown in the same way in another space. Each work is site-specific and can only be viewed in that space, it could be remade in a different space but I would have to respond to that architectural site, meaning it would be replicated again. This reflects the ethereal nature of my work, and the move towards the notion of traces. I have throughout my practice embraced the idea of chance, through research of the surrealist works of Max Ernst and John Cage I look to continue that through my work for the foreseeable. Although during COVID how we view exhibitions has changed to be more virtual, we still have to consider the audience when making as, in my opinion they are the central reason for making art. For example, when my work 322 Days (2021) was shown in The Waiting Place, it was shown as a virtual exhibition that one could view through a VR headset. Although this was effective to view the works individually, it was not a representation of the scale or how the work would be hung alongside others in the physical gallery. Through visiting Olafur Eliasson’s Experience exhibition in 2019 (at the Tate Modern in London) I realised the importance of audience participation and how a person experiences your work makes an impact. I researched Walter Benjamin’s theory of experience through the terms of Erfahrung and Erlebnis, and how through the use of social media and electronic devices, the way we experience art has changed to be one of passivity and more fleeting as we scroll our way through, consuming art at a much quicker rate. Eliasson looks at the revival of Erlebnis, that is a deeper, longer lasting Erfahrung. I believe that through creating immersive experiences in installations, much like what one would experience through Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room – Filled with the Brilliance of Life (2011-2017). That is, an experience that cannot be fleeting, that requires the audience to stop and be in the moment -that is something I have developed to appreciate and look to continue to work with in my practice.
Once The Waiting Place exhibition had opened at the ArtStation, I went to visit in person, which was the fist time I had been able to visit an exhibition due to COVID this year, so I was very excited!
I was able to see my work ‘322 Days’ (2021) shown alongside 85 other artists in response to the idea of waiting. This was a mail art project and I was thrilled to be invited to be involved.
Images of The Waiting Place exhibition including my work ‘322 Days’ (2021)
Link to the virtual exhibition: https://l.instagram.com/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fhubs.mozilla.com%2FrtjWZYE%2Ftwp-entrance&e=ATPVAK5sOwYrjvDr0qkg37G-7JJ-TCCTSF9Sni65CZfRAXjc-hpL7gziNDf9j8QQKLeShmlZuA–VXGUzN_kJw&s=1
Link to the Waiting Place Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_waitingplace?utm_medium=copy_link
Images of My two prints submitted as part of the group portfolio for the final year BA Hons Fine Art students this year, 2021. Submission of 30 limited edition prints, made using the Riso print machine at the university.
Left: ‘Roobarb’ (2021) Riso Print, Elgin Thwaites
Right: ‘Blue Razz’ (2021) Riso Print, Elgin Thwaites
I really enjoyed the process of making these, Initially i was unsure of what i would make for this project as i do not usually work with prints. However, I had taken some close up images of my work on polystyrene ‘Suspense in Yellow’ (2020) which i decided to play around with on photoshop.
Initially i work on them in black and white, the original image distorted and bitmapped. I then zoomed into different areas of the and drew on them to make the ‘Roobarb’ print. I liked this process and it was comparable to the ink drawings I made in L5. I then decided i would like a gradient behind the ‘Roobarb’ print which would allow the colours to play off each other.
I played around with the colours available at the time and decided I liked the yellow and blue for the ‘Blue Razz’ print. I also decided to go with the yellow and pink as I liked the way they were so vibrant on the off-white paper. After playing around with the paper for the ‘Blue Razz’ print I decided I would go with the off-white paper for both prints.
27/05/2021 – Finalising and signing the prints today was really great. I decided on the titles to reflect their bright, sugary sweet colour ways.
I came up with the title for the portfolio, ANOMALY. I liked Shauna’s suggestion of a new normal, but I wanted to play off this, using the fact that this year has certainly been different to any other year I’ve experienced (and we, as a group). So I had a think and played around with some titles but came up with ANOMALY which was agreed on by the group. Finishing this has been a great achievement for all of us and a really clever way for us to remember our time together at the UOS.
Images of ‘Transient Convection’ (2021) Elgin Thwaites.
This is the final outcome of my degree project. I think that it is a great achievement and really brings together everything that I have worked on over the last three years developing my practice at UOS.
I decided to crit ‘Transient Convection’ (2021) in its working state. At this point I did not have the title for the work so I have yet to receive feedback on that.
After working on the idea to include polystyrene to the final installation (mural, painting) of ‘Transient Convection’ (2021) I changed the idea from having coming from the walls down into the space to actually affixing the polystyrene ‘sticks’ to the ground where a person would move around them, rather than moving them themselves. I was not sure about including them at all, however I decided to leave them in situ for the crit, as I find crits to be most useful when I include something I am not sure about. After the crit on May 19 2021 I took on the overall audiences view that even though they had been deliberately placed in junctions of colour on the floor, the scale of them was the main issue they had with them. I agreed with this, however on reflection I found that the painting seemed to work better without them, as the colour on the walls and floor was strong enough to hold up on its own.
Images of polystyrene ‘useless plinths’ (2021) in the ‘Transient Convection’ (2021) installation.
After this I decided to photograph them in a separate space.
Image of ‘useless plinths’ (2021) in the studio.
I felt that the issue I have with these works is the scale. I decided that if I were to show them, I would add to the collection, making some to the scale of a human and even larger, reaching the roof space of the place i was exhibiting in. This would allow for a more immersive installation and for maximum audience participation – they would be able to move around the space, tower over and be towered over by the polystyrene.
The title ‘useless plinths’ came to me as Srin described them in a way which made me think of them as employ plinths in a space, but they’re made of a material that wouldn’t work very well to actually hold something on. The fact that the work has been painted directly onto the polystyrene makes them a canvas in its own right. I think they would work well being shown like this.
Images of the scale I would like to achieve with this work in the future.
