University Campus Suffolk

I had this idea that I was going to print directly onto the pavement of the path leading to the art block, however recently the university has made it very clear that spray paint is a no go. I realise it must be frustrating for the university to clear up spray paint every year off of the paths outside the university due to people spraying things and not using the appropriate floor coverings, however, perhaps the university should invest its money in to creating a spray booth, fully ventilated, where spraying is allowed, anyway, I digress.

So to respect these regulations I thought the best way to overcome this issue was to create my own walkway. Working with concrete as a material enables me to take my work outside, it is weatherproof and its natural environment is outside, so to me that seems an ideal solution, create my own walkway for people to walk over, where I can stencil the words on to the slabs and lay the slabs on a bed of sand to make them even and safe.

In order for me to do this I had to go through the process of contacting the Estates department of the university to ask for their permission. They were very helpful and said that because I was placing slabs down and wanting the public to interact with them, then they would have to pass me over to Health and Safety team, as it was something I would have to run by them.

Health and Safety got back to me and they were very happy for me to do it as long as I could make it safe for the public, this would involve creating ramps up from the original pavements to the top edges of the slabs to prevent trip hazards. Somehow though I feel this takes away the main essence of what I was hoping to present with this work. It was a compromise, one I am not really comfortable with.

Newspapers have become a huge influence in my work, taking the printed stories of tabloids and using their pun filled headlines to explore the more in depth, conflict stricken stories provided by the broad sheet newspapers. Using the paper itself as a medium I have previously produced works that mirrored the tabloids shallow headlines, but also recognised their transient and ephemeral nature, ‘today’s headlines will be tomorrows chip paper’ and that is where I feel my work has taken its biggest transition. Words are forgotten, the images spread over the papers are disposed of and we move on to the next ‘big’ story. The media constantly provides endless buzz words that describe political stances and it has been these buzz words that have led me to creating a larger scale work than I have previously been used to.

The idea for my final degree show entry is about exploring not only these ‘buzz words’ but also the properties of the printed word, how fragile it can become, with a sudden change in the weather for example, the pages become wet, it starts to break up and the desire to read it is replaced with the desire to use it as shelter. The fragility of this object is in danger of becoming obsolete, as we reach a modern way of reading the news, technology is increasingly allowing us to view the news on PC’s, laptops, tablets and phones, newspaper companies produce online versions that the reader can interact with, choosing the specific stories they read but selecting it from a drop down menu and it seems that a physical connection to a paper that you once held, glancing through pages of text that transfer to fingers, is quickly being replaced with a version where the viewer has choice over the stories read.

Does this mean we will end up with people skipping over and ignoring the important news headlines?

In a way that already happens, but in the structure of a newspaper the story is in front of you already, you have to physically turn a page to ignore the story, but you will always grab a glimpse of it. True, the story is still available online but you see less of it in a drop down menu.

So my piece will encourage the attendees of our degree show to interact with it; walking freely over it, slowly wearing away the words printed and perhaps leaving the words that they are more selective over or interested in. My piece very much relies on the participation of the public; they will be the ones who choose how the work will turn out over the duration of the show. Weather will also be a part of the process, if it rains and the paint is washed away then it may be that I have to go back and create a new piece of work the next day.

During my time on the degree course I have seen my work take a transition in content. I always knew that even though the message for the artwork was never crystal clear the viewer could still take something from the humour I added to it, but in doing this I felt I had lessened the works impact and turned it in to a comical object. I never saw myself as moving in to politics as a subject but now I have I feel I finally understand my work and am producing work accordingly.

My final body of work is based around the idea of our modern society, the way that we are dictated to about how we must think and act and how politics and the government uses words and images in a certain way to keep us under control and monitor us.

But what if we were to react and rebel against this?

What if we were to become the hunters, monitoring them and taking their words and objects from them?

Well I’m so above you and it’s plain to see but I came to love you anyway… So you pulled my heart out and I don’t mind bleeding, any old time to waiting… waiting… waiting.

Now in the previous post I wrote ‘initially’ when talking about my proposal for SNIP, this is because after I was selected as an artist to exhibit in this exhibition, I was also told during a tutorial that they would like me to change my proposal…

If truth be told, I entered my proposal at the very last minute, of the last day, mainly because I was unsure as to whether I wanted to actually enter or not. It is a lot of work and it takes place on the exact same week as the opener to my degree show, surely the degree show should be my main priority? But without sounding ungrateful I really am very happy that I have been selected for this. Back to my proposal, what they really liked about my studio work was my texted based work, and as my end of degree show piece is a floor piece containing text, they really want me to experiment and explore more with this concept in the space within the barn. They explained that the reason they wanted me to be a part of the show but not with the pieces I had entered is because they felt I had played it quite safe with my concrete sculpture ideas and they felt that the text work describes me better as an artist and they want to see this idea explored. So of course I am very happy to be taking part in the show, just worried as hell as the degree show and the SNIP exhibition opens on the exact same week.

Here is a revised version of my proposal for SNIP… As you will read, I have gone completely AWOL from my original proposal.

I would like to explore the area of ground within the barn. My current studio practice consists of casting concrete and using text as a medium; my choice for working with the concrete is to address its use in modern day construction, where once true care and time were taken in constructing buildings out of hand tools and timber, those processes have now been replaced with large scale castings out of concrete for speed and ease of completion.

However for my SNIP proposal I would like to put forward the idea of exploring the ground within the area of the barn using text. The floor for the barn is a large span and as there is ample space for the chosen artists to create work within, I would like to focus on the floor. My original proposal was to create concrete sculptures, however after talking with the selectors and curator they felt my text work was stronger and they would like to see this text based work to feature, so taking their advice and preparing a new I will be producing a text based idea for the floor of the barn.

Following on from the idea for my degree show, I will be taking words and phrases that we have been exposed to from the media in all formats and creating large blocks of text. The specific ‘Buzzwords’ I am using will echo the words used within the media to describe government actions, although these words are never explained to us, we have to choose whether to accept these words and their suggested meaning or reject them from our vocabulary. The words will be site specific for the particular environment and sprayed onto the floor using chalk based paint, the paint will act as the news print in the sense that the viewer will be encouraged to interact with the piece in the form of walking on it and slowly wearing away the paint like newsprint on fingers. What I hope will happen is people will choose words and phrases that they are particularly interested in and so over the course of the exhibition, certain words will stand out as perhaps favourites and others will be worn away.

They laugh at me and my life, my life as a duck, but I don’t get worked up, it’d my life… as a duck.

Last month I was accepted for an exhibition taking place called SNIP, the exhibition is in conjunction with SNAP festival held at Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh. SNAP takes place alongside the Aldeburgh music festival and features internationally known artists who explore a theme each year. This year the Aldeburgh festival is celebrating the centenary of Benjamin Britten and this is the basis for the work taking place at SNAP this year. UCS has managed to acquire a listed barn just down the road from SNAP where it will hold its own art exhibition, SNIP. Proposals for the exhibition were open to all year groups with a similar theme of the centenary of Britten being used in the brief. Below is my initial proposal for SNIP.

I would like to explore the area of ground outside of the barn. As you drive up the dirt track you are greeted with the large barn on your left, the grass covered ground outside and around the barn is where I propose my ideas will occupy. I have two main ideas for this space, both taking the notes from the opening prologue of Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes and displaying them on the grounds in front of the barn.

My current studio practice consists of casting concrete; my choice for working with this material is to address its use in modern day construction, where once true care and time were taken in constructing buildings out of hand tools and timber, those processes have now been replaced with large scale castings out of concrete for speed and ease of completion.

My first proposal is to cast the repeated three bass notes that introduce the Peter Grimes opera, the three notes are repeated three times so as people arrive at the barn they will be greeted by nine concrete bass notes arranged standing on the grassy areas outside the barn. I see these notes as an introduction to the SNIP show, just as they are used in the opening scene of the opera, in a deep hard concrete, like the deep bass notes they are sung in. I feel the juxtaposition of the harsh concrete with the hand carved wooden barn will address our advances in construction over the centuries and also acknowledge Benjamin Britten’s work.

My second proposal is also to cast notes into concrete but instead of having the individual notes as the casting, I will be casting a large block of concrete that will mirror a piece of sheet music, taking the notes and using their outline to create a negative space, allowing light to shine through the music note holes. This can be placed and secured within close distance of an entrance door to the barn and be viewed from both inside and out, allowing the light from outside to burst through the music note voids and shine through into the barn. It will explore the space around the barn as well as impacting the inside of the barn too, from a viewer’s perspective. It still addresses modern day construction and celebrates Britten.

I have also been working with CCTV cameras within my studio practice and noticed mounted deer antlers above the entrants on the inside of the barn. I have been working on the idea of the hunter being the hunted in relation to our current society and the way the government keeps tabs on us with constant CCTV monitoring, I have taken the subject of the CCTV camera and mounted it in the same way a trophy kill is mounted. I would like to propose a third idea of replacing the deer antlers with one of my mounted cameras as a nod to the barn and its history.