Final Summery
Throughout my final degree project I have wanted to really capture and sum up all my past an pervious work that I have create over my time at ucs. Over the summer last year I began to realise that all my work where based around my own personal thoughts and feelings. So for me this final piece was all about pushing myself to new limits.
I began by digging deep to see what really makes me tic as an adult and how my brain works. I have always been very body conscious ever since I was little, I have always wanted to change the way I look. When I was younger I was obsesses with my hair being curly I hated it and wanted it as straight as I could get it. I then went through a stage of think I was constantly fat and over weight (which is something I still struggle with). The stage I hit as an young adult was not leaving the house without makeup and only a few of my closest friends and family have ever seen me without any. It was almost like a ritual before I left the house even now at the age of 21 I have only ever left the house without makeup on a handful of time. I still find it very challenging and uncomfortable.
This makes me really angry at myself, as I have always been interested in body image and have watched a lot of programmes about people having plastic surgery go wrong and botching their bodies. Also programmes about people with disfigurements and how they go about their daily lives with this disfigurement that they cannot help and cannot do anything about, that’s when I get angry at myself and try to make myself realise how lucky I really am.
So for me this final piece was all about pushing myself to them final limits, and taking myself out of my comfort zone revealing my true self. I wanted to show the audience what it’s like to be me and what I face in the morning, when I apply this mask of makeup that hides my true self. I chose to represent my dressing room as for me this is a very private room in which I spend hours sometimes transforming myself into this masked more confident person. Also my work is personal and about me but also I think it’s something the audience can relate to, at some point in everyone’s life they have stood in front of that big scary mirror and thought yuck what is that looking back at me. This piece was just about me showing that it is okay sometimes to just be YOU or even ME..
The image of me looking at myself titled ‘self-reflection’ is about standing up to myself and looking at myself square in the eyes and saying I don’t always need to look like you. I chose to print the image big and it really stands out and grabs the audience’s attention I wasn’t them to see how I am looking closely into my own eyes and the pain that hides behind them. Again I was trying to push the boundaries of myself and making any image of yourself large scale is daunting especially ones without makeup on that reveal what you really look like. I
So I think I have really summed up in this degree show piece everything I have ever wanted to say, really to myself and to show to myself and the audience how I do hide behind this mask but also how I have dealt or not dealt with body image and the way I look. Either way I am very pleased of the outcome and it has given me a conclusion to all my previous degree work.
Final piece/ Degree show
I have finally added the finishing touches to my final piece; I have put it all together and can finally see the outcome of all my hard work that I have put in over the past few weeks. I must say it is well worth the pain, sweat and tears to see it all done and exactly how I had imaged it when I first had the image in my mind of what I wanted to create. It has all come together really well and I am so pleased with the final outcome it is exactly what I wanted, and I have recreated my own dressing room. I have really tried to think of every little detail about how I apply my makeup and how I remove it and that all important process of masking myself and unmasking. I have tried to make it as personal as possible so the audience can really delve into my mind and how it works when it comes to my own looks and body image. Also I want the audience to really relate to this piece, to maybe understand where I am coming room and see what I am feeling. For me what will really be interesting is seeing other people’s reactions to this piece.
What I have chosen to show is very personal and private and for me to share this with an audience it is rather hard. However that was always what I wanted the outcome to be about me pushing myself to them limits to feel that uncomfortableness that other people feel on a daily basis I am fortunate that I can cover and change most of the things I don’t partially like about myself, others cannot do so. So over all it is a brilliant outcome that has also helped me help myself. (Since doing this final piece I have left the house on more than one occasion without any makeup!!! Sound silly but for me this is a huge deal, so I think I also owe this final piece a thank you to).
Today I have gone in and put up all my degree show up and ready in preparation for assessment next week. I look so good to finally get my idea made into reality; it was amazing to see it all come together.
I started off today by putting my print on the wall, it was really large so I struggled to put it up as of the size of it. It took two of us to do one side at a time. It took some time also to get it level and flush against the wall because of the size of it. I choice to use pins to hold it up as this was the only way to be sure that it would not fall down. I would have used Velcro tape but I only use some on the edges to keep the side flats.
The next bit was to get the television level and flat on the wall. This was a very time consuming task as it was rather had to get it up on the wall and make sure it was all level with the dressing table. Also to try and get the television to fit perfectly inside the frame, this was also difficult. This finally got sorted and we managed to get the frame in line the dressing table was coming together.
I then put the mirror up on the wall and the dressing room started to come along even more, I also bought in my shoes, bag and clothes which I have in my own dressing room at home. The rug also cut the edge of the dressing room really nicely it cordoned it all off so you could see that the dressing room and the print are not all one big piece. The best bit was laying all my items down onto the dressing table to see what it would all look like. I tried to make them look as used and not as placed as I could. This I what I really wanted to achieve and I am happy so far with how it looks I just need a few more little touches, such as the images around the edge of the frame and my labels to go up.
As my degree show becomes ever closer I have finished off my frame and got it ready to be put up on the wall. I have finally got it done and it is now ready to be put up on the wall.
I have made my frame for my television by hand to make sure it fits exactly around my television that I am fixing to the wall so that it will look exactly how I want it to. I started by measuring around the edge of the television to get the exact dimensions, I then had some wooden MDF bored cut to make the frame. It was the painted white so it would blend in with the wall of my degree show space. The next bit I did was buy light fixings that I attached to the frame, this took a lot of time as each light fitting had to be wired up and wire had to run around the inside of the box. This took some time and I have to get some help in to make sure this bit was right and that the electrical bits had all be done safely and properly. Once that was all done and all light holders hand been wired up and screwed down, I then had to by my light bulbs so it was all ready to put up around the television. It is now ready to be put up for the degree show.
Mike Nelson
Michael “Mike” Nelson (born 20 August 1967) is a contemporary British installation artist. He represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2011. Nelson has twice been nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001 and 2007.
Nelson’s installations always only exist for the time period of the exhibition which they were made for. They are extended labyrinths, which the viewer is free to find their own way through, and in which the locations of the exit and entrance are often difficult to determine. His “The Deliverance and the Patience” in a former brewery on the Giudecca was in the 2001 Venice Biennale. In September 2007, his exhibition A Psychic Vacuum was held in the old Essex Street Market, New York. Essays on Nelson’s projects, ’24A Orwell Street King’s Cross Sydney’ and ‘The Deliverance and the Patience’ have been written by artist/curator Richard Grayson. His major installation The Coral Reef (2000), was on display at Tate Britain until the end of 2011. It consists of fifteen rooms and a warren of corridors. This work and its showing at Matt’s Gallery earned him his 2001 Turner Prize nomination.
In 2011 The British Council presented I, Impostor, a new work by Mike Nelson conceived and created for the British Pavilion at the 54th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia.
Nelson’s large-scale sculptural installations immerse the viewer in an unfolding narrative which develops through a sequence of meticulously realised spatial structures. The weaving of fact and fiction are fundamental to Nelson’s practice, and his constructs are steeped in both literary and historic references, whilst drawing upon the geography and cultural context of their location.
Throughout his career, Nelson has constantly returned to and re-examined territories within his own practice, and his new exhibition for the British Pavilion followed the success of his first major solo presentation in Venice in 2001, The Deliverance and the Patience, which was shown as part of the collateral programme at the 49th edition of the Biennale.
I have really enjoyed looking at his work and how he has used installations to express what he wanted to say in this art work. I think they work really well and they are really powerful pieces this is something I want to bring to my own work.
