#01
My work has previously encompassed the idea of other worlds, alternative, parallel worlds, if you will, to our own. Asking ‘what if’ questions and deliberately changing familiar scenes into unfamiliar, semi-futuristic ones.
I focused last semester on a project suitably titled “The Future of Yesterday”, using themes such as Steampunk along with Sci-Fi and fantasy to change the city of London into an entirely different world, giving it the retro feel of the early 1900s, but then craftily adding flying cars and floating pathways. Needless to say, it was a bizarre world to behold.
Much like my focus now, I created concept images for the project using my laptop and graphics tablet, giving myself a rough base to create some larger scale paintings from. This became a series of five paintings that were very kindly put on display for a week in May (2012) by Frank’s Bar in Norwich, so I think I can call this project a success!
Over the Summer I stumbled upon the book “Faeries” by Brian Froud and Alan Lee (2010, Abrahams: New York), which at the time I bought because I have a personal interest in Folklore and the like, but it got me thinking about my own practice as well. I have this fixation on other worlds and how they are created – be that through stories, or in this case, art.
I’ve started to look at the idea of Escapism, now using Folklore and the concept of the Fae to create the almost surreal worlds within my work. I am looking into the telling of stories within artworks, how artists use well known stories and characters in their pieces, and how these often mischievous little creatures have invaded our own worlds from when we were children – they did for me at least.
I’ve borrowed some books from family members that we read to me as a child that are purely made up of poetry and pictures about the Flower Fairies, all done by Cicely M Barker, whose work I fell in love with when I was little, and still adore today, despite being over 15 years older than when they were first read to me.
I am, however, also going to look into the darker side of the stories as well. The kidnapping faeries that prey on unsuspecting travellers, using them for their tricky plans and then leaving them lost in the middle of dark forests with no hope of ever finding their way home.
There’s so many different avenues that I can explore with this while I create my work (and other world). I don’t think I’ve ever been so interested in doing research before!
