University Campus Suffolk

Prepared some frames recently to display these cup things in.

Have been advised by a couple of people that perhaps less cups in the frames is better than cramming as many as I can in.

So as well as thinking about the amount that will go in, I need to think about the colour arrangement. For the auction, I made a couple that had a cool and warm tonal composition and I think perhaps this is the way I will go for the show.

The reason I’ve decided to put these in the show at all is because I know that they’re quite visually striking pieces, they’re decorative, whereas the other works which will be around the corner to these are not and this contrast is quite refreshing. I also like the strong impact of them in a smaller space, the frame, rather than having them cover a whole wall. I kind of feel that they sum up the the context of the larger pieces that will be around the corner from them, but in a more aesthetically pleasing way. They are not paintings but objects, but in comparison to the wooden painted boards, these display their objectness by containing individual pockets of paint, instead of a monochrome surface. Although they look vastly different, their relationship to the other works are intrinsically linked, they are trying to say exactly the same thing.

I have tried some various compositions; light and dark, warm and cool, as well as random, which I haven’t photographed, but which doesn’t work anyway.

I’ve added some pictures here of the various ways I could display them.

I’ve also tried a variety of amount of cups in total in each frame.

As you can see, on some I’ve filled the entire frame, which I think is far too much. It’s too busy and distracting, and I think takes away from the individual differences between each one.

Although I don’t think that the “Dark” variety works at all, I do quite like the “Light” one with 8 cups. I am intending to have three frames in total, two are rectangular and the third a more or less square, so I could use the cool, warm, cool composition, or try a cool, warm, light display.

Made this new work recently, made from two boards of wood exactly the same size and shape.

Drew this idea in my sketchbook of propping up some boards against a wall and painting them, using the typical blue as a background and white ontop, so that the white flows from the bottom of the front board upwards, spreading into the second board behind it. The pictures explain it better.

My idea was probably influenced by Thomas Schutte, whom Richard Taylor suggested to me. (Picture attached)

I feel this piece epitomises my conclusion following the research into Ellsworth Kelly that I undertook during the dissertation; his ability to maximise the relationship between work and space.

Unlike most of the other pieces I’ve made, this actually takes up a fair bit of space, and I like the idea of people having to purposefully avoid walking into it.

I also really enjoy making things that don’t fully belong on the wall, they’re not in a frame but they’re not on a plinth. They’re between these two things. They’re betweeny objects. Between paint and object. Or, pobjects?

On reviewing the images, perhaps I should add some more white paint to it? The board that leans against the wall could be improved by adding some dripping white paint to the top of it, so that it appears that the wall starts to merge with this board.

Anthony Caro; Interior and Exterior, Karen Wilkins, 2009

A work by Caro can be as exuberant and linear as a Barcelona balcony or as severe and planar as a medieval sarcophagus. He has conjured up intense feeling by making one piece of steel touch another and told turbulent histories by forcing clay, wood and metal to co-exist. Caro remains eager to try materials new to him, curious about the formal, structural and expressive inventions they will stimulate, continuously challenging his own discoveries, exploring their implications but refusing to settle for known solutions.

These sculptures demanded to be experienced in relation to the body. If we are to appreciate fully works such as ‘After Olympia’ (1986-7) or ‘Xanadu’ (1986-8) we must walk beside their extended length, measuring the full extent of the sculpture with our stride and confronting the series of intimately related steel structures that make up the whole as if they were individuals whos presence we test against our own corporeality.

Occasionally, we are granted a tantalising, oblique glimpse, as in the slanting views allowed into the recessed top of ‘Night and Dreams’, yet even here, the thickness of the few visible edges and the solidity of the rest of the sculpture combine to deny us a more intimate experience. Innerness becomes not an option but a potent, evocative abstraction; only visual entry, never physical penetration, is permitted by these enigmatic sculptures and even that, rarely with severe limitations.

Caro’s abolition of the plinth in his sculpture…. was a seismic event. By removing the structure upon which a sculpture stood – and which, arguably, defined a piece as sculpture – Caro challenged audiences to reconsider the space of a sculptural work; no longer did the sculpture exist within the bounded terrain of the elevated, plinth-based world; instead, it shared the space of the viewer. Audience and work were grounded on the same plane. (Smith, 2010:10)

Anthony Caro; Small Sculptures, H.F Westley Smith, 2010

Been thinking about a potential piece for the degree show, but am still unsure as to whether I want to actually display it as a stand alone work.

If I did it, it would be a whole wall full of small circular individual paintings made from the bottom of the plastic cups you get from the water dispensers. I started doing these at the beginning of the year, basically using the cups to wash my paint brushes with, and allowing the leftover pigment to settle at the bottom and dry.

I had a picture of them taken for the catalogue, where I stuck a small square of them on a white wall, and the impact they gave was quite strong. It was only after that that I considered them as an actual separate piece of work.

But now, I’m not so sure. I tend to think now that they don’t really communicate the same formal attitude that the other pieces I’m going to display will. They come across as being playful and fun, and I’m not quite sure that that would be a good addition.

?

My work has developed such a lot through this year, and although I’ve really enjoyed having this change in direction, (making the “paint boxes”,) I can’t help but feel that I’m doing something wrong by not painting in my studio upstairs, but by now spending my time downstairs in the sculpture studios, preparing the wood and fixing it together.

It seems such a change from doing what I had been doing at the beginning of the year, but it is a natural progression, I haven’t suddenly jumped from painting to sculpture.

What I like about the “paint boxes” is this change. I like the projection they have into real space. I like the fact that it would be harder for a viewer to ignore these, that they have to respond to them in some way, they can’t just walk past and blank them so easily.

But once these are finished, what do I do now, once I’ve run out of tins, what else can I display? Or do I not display anything else, but try to evolve them into a more minimalist work, like the paintings before them?