Hello everyone!
This is a very quick update with what I’ve been doing over Christmas. A lot of people are celebrating the end of their dissertations in their posts so I’m not going to talk about that. The only thing that I will say is how much of a relief it is to be thinking creatively again.
So what have I been doing over Christmas you ask? Well to be honest I tried to do the odd piece of art work and that’s about as far as I got. I haven’t really thought much about my studio work, I only took a few pictures which you can see on the side of this post.
What I aimed to do was think about my work in a more conceptual way. Having a specific meaning, or a feeling, behind a piece of work is something that has strongly appealed to me recently. I guess it’s because feeling is a uniquely personal experience, you feel what you feel on the inside and whether you choose to reflect that on the outside or not that’s up to you and what you’re feeling.
An artwork can express a feeling or convey something of which you can’t explain with words and this is what I’ve been trying to experiment with. Through this emotion and feeling I have thought about the many different ways in which people can react to artwork, the initial reaction and the afterthoughts. I remembered the first time I walked into a certain local gallery and the feelings which resonated with me. Having had more time to travel over Christmas (Only to London and the surrounding areas) I was awestruck by all the people that I came across. It made me wonder about how individuality is important inamongst all the beautiful colours of the world. I know that I probably sound ridiculous right now but that’s my attempt at explaining what’s been going on in my head over the past few months.
Back to my art work then, I continued to edit my portraits and experiment with the use of text. This is something I aim to build on in the next few weeks.
I want my work to appeal to the individual. Perhaps I better give it a few days and make another post when I’ve done some more experimenting?
Watch this space…
Collaboration
I’ve been asked to collaborate with someone, it’s strange because I never thought that I would take part in another collaboration ever again (I’ve done more collaborations than solo projects) but being asked by this certain person I can’t say no. Actually when she first asked I couldn’t say much, I was honestly flattered and since then my brain has been on nonstop overdrive.
The certain person is called Val and she’s a tremendous artist who specialises in painting. We talked quite briefly about working together and what it would mean. To give you the basics Val wants to make her work more emotive, something of which (she feels) my work has. She was touched by my blog posts especially my last posts on bullying and she wants to portray this feeling in her work. I’m very open with my own work and I was surprised that she wanted to draw/paint me so I excitedly accepted. What we’re aiming to do is to have me sit for a portrait painted/drawn by her, whilst at the same time I’m documenting the process, though when I’m sitting for her I’m in my full get up. It’ll be interesting to see if I what I feel can translate into Val’s work and how it will look. From what we’ve talked about she understands my concepts and ideas so I really can’t wait to get started.
With a collaboration it’s exciting to wonder where it may go and the journey we’ll take to make the work. I’ve never worked with Val before though I have no qualms about doing so; I suddenly feel the rush of inspiration you get when you chance upon a new idea. In the meantime though we’re going to enjoy Christmas first then arrange a sitting (A mock first sitting hopefully!) before getting stuck into the real thing.
Before I leave the blog for Christmas though I want to post up a couple of ideas/concepts that I’ve had for the sitting. My first idea is sitting for the portrait in the black space using portable lights to lighten the room – this could produce a strange atmosphere and could also make the sitting a little more exciting as well as intimate. Though my second idea is using the white installation room with no lights which could be better for colour – I’ll discuss the room ideas with Val and get back to you all on that one!
My main concept for the sitting will be looking beautiful, so I will show up dressed in a completely beautiful getup. Hannah’s agreed to do my make-up for it so that’ll be really nice and exaggerated. (Note to self must buy fake eyelashes and other unnecessary beauty products) I’ve just got to think of what to wear, I’m feeling like I should completely remove myself from my comfort zone and don a dress/skirt combination – this’ll probably be whatever I can get my hands on in the January sale. And if I do this it’ll mean heels too, I’ve still got my wig too but I might get a brown one to see what that would look like (more like my hair colour right now). I’m also considering a sitting of me normally and a sitting of me being beautiful but I’ll sketch this idea out over the holidays.
That’s it for now, I only wanted to post something brief – So for now watch this space and have an amazing Christmas! I’ll update you in the New Year!
Are you green with envy yet?
Am I green with envy yet?
I’m waiting for you to be jealous. I want you to wish that you were me.
I want to stop feeling jealous. I want to stop wishing that I were you.
If I could be anything in this world
If you could be anything in this world
Who would you choose to be?
I certainly wouldn’t choose me. I’d choose you. I want to be just like you. Please can I be you.
So now our journey comes to a brief halt. Suddenly I found myself asking the question “Why?”
Why did I want to explore beauty? Why am I bothered? What do I have to say?
All these questions produced one simple answer because I wanted to feel as if I could be worth something. Behind the charade of giggles and the inappropriate hacking up of posters I’ve realised that I projected my image onto these celebrities, I wanted to look like them. I wanted people to feel as if they can be just as good as anyone else. I wanted to show just how beautiful I could be. Yes you could say that I’m vain or I’m an attention seeker or whatever words spring to mind but in the end we all want to have our voices heard. I’ve always been one to put up and shut up, if someone told me I was ugly I would believe them. Heck if you’re told for long enough that you’re not worth anything you will believe it. I’d always had trouble with bullying particularly because of my appearance I was always the girl whose glasses were just a little too big for her or the girl whose nostrils warranted a camping trip. I was always told; that people would flag me down because my teeth were so yellow they’d think that I was taxi, that double doors were invented for me, that no one would marry me because I’d never fit down the aisle. I’ve never said this to anyone before but I feel like now is my time. I’ve learnt that I’m just as beautiful as you and I can do anything I want to do. I’ve found people who love me and think I’m beautiful even when I tell them to shut up. And if I can be confident in myself then so can you.
This raised the question; Am I beautiful yet?
When do I get to be beautiful? When will I think I’m beautiful? Do I look good enough yet? Can I take your breath away?
I’m posing the narrative as a question because I don’t have an answer. It’s up to you to decide. I want people to look at my work and think how in the heck did that happen? Ew! She looks awful why an earth does she think that she’s beautiful?
So I set up a photo-shoot. I wanted the process to feel very intimate so I used my computer webcam as a viewfinder for my camera which I turned onto myself. I exaggerated my make up so that it would show up better on the camera and draw attention to the eyes because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Through the editing process I was able to experiment with different ways in which to make myself beautiful. The first I edited my eyes to look brown because I had read in a magazine recently that people with brown eyes are the most attractive. I made my hair darker, brightened the colour of my lips and eye make-up, hitched up the contrast to max, played with the shadows and lighting until I got to this final image. (See Figure 1) I added the question to the bottom of the image because I still want text to be relevant in my work.
After that I edited a series of images which took several weeks, adjusting the layers, experimenting with the question layout and colour, editing specific facial features (Darkening the eyes or adjusting the skin midtone), building up the multiple layers, changing the colours completely.
So as promised in this post I will talk about my recent work. Since the last time I posted I have done so much work therefore this post might have to be split into two.
Since my mirror images and my red scarf colour editing I have evolved my ideas into one solid question. I really thought hard about why I look at beauty, why I want to define it, why I try to change myself in front of my camera lens. And the answer is probably the most honest thing I have ever said.
But before I tell you the question I want to show you the journey I made to get to this point that I’m at now.
Firstly, I started to take photos and edit them continuing my process from before. I thought about narration and my thoughts returned to the Snow White fairy tale that I mentioned before. I thought about the damsels in distress and the dashing knights coming to save their fair maidens and this got me thinking about how I interpret fairy tales. See I think we’re the heroes of our own stories though we are also the damsels in distress, we have a human experience which can often leave us in a limbo of unknowing. So I expressed this thought through cropping my eyes and creating a narrative of my own. (See Figure 1)
This led me to experiment with an image of me asleep, I instantly imagined Snow White and how the poisoned apple forced Snow into a deep sleep. So I changed the colour of my hair and lips trying to give myself a more feminine appearance though at the same time I kind of wanted the image to look cheap and tacky because our idealised images of fairy tales are fake and unreal. I then layered some text onto the image taking a snippet of the Snow White story from a family fairy tale book of mine. (See Figure 2)
I realised that I liked using Snow White as a way to experiment with the relationship between text and image but I didn’t want to be drawn too much into the fairy tales and connotations to the story. To be honest, I know that Snow White is over used I felt that way once I had finished this piece and so I started to think of other ways to explore the notion of beauty.
From there I went back to the sketchbook, experimenting with drawing over my typical week’s schedule and writing over my drawings. I started to research Bill Viola who my tutor Robin recommended to me because of the way in which he worked. To keep it short and simple (because I want to dedicate a post to him) he would take notes and write things which then influenced his projections. This made me think about doing a projection again so I thought up different ways in which I could show my work.
