Yesterday was a busy day, sorting out spaces to place our final degree show, which is just over a month’s time. We discussed spaces that would be available to be used, and listed my name in a couple. just incase I don’t get the space I would prefer. I thought of some interesting ideas of what I can put into the to be confirmed spaces and I am now even more excited to see how my vision will appear. If I get a boxed room I would have a six-foot landscape portrait of myself, which will be the focal point of when you enter the space. I’m not going to give away anything at this stage but I have a clear vision of how I imagine my space to turn out. To the left of the space I am envisioning a portrait of someone who is raging with anger, someone shouting and almost to the point they’re almost pulling their hair out. Facing that portrait to the right would be a portrait of someone who beaming with happiness and laughter. When you enter the space I felt the massive scale canvases in a smallish space would fit well with what I want to achieve with the intimacy of the viewer and the powerful emotions that I’m trying to capture. With three pieces as the main focus, I am now thinking that I will add the video I created of my textured self-portrait to the left indent on the wall where there’s dark shadow, so fitting a projection would be perfect. (Which would then mean there would be elements of sound added) Planning that space out has made me finalise what I exactly would like in the degree show. If I don’t get that space I will find ways around it.
With the three new paintings that will be done, I have now thought of a new way of documenting the process. With my project developing my work is now based on my emotions whilst painting a portrait, and seeing how the paint and colours I use communicates. From the 5th May I am painting each piece 7 days each until the degree show hanging. Each day I am going to write in a sketchbook of how I am feeling that day, (keeping it like a diary) do a little sketch of anything that comes to mind and then add a take a photograph of myself each day that shows what mood I was in when I was painting. Depending on what space I get I will then decide whether I may add the sketchbook to the degree for the public to see, or create another video of the photographs of myself to show my mood toward the degree show and knowing it’s going to be all over.
Where am I?
Looking back at my blog I feel my ideas have changed quite abit as the posts keep coming. I started off painting portraits that are one tonal and detecting an emotion that may seem obvious what it is. ‘Invidia’ was my first painting and that started off something that I knew could be develped into something bigger. Looking through my dissertation again helped me develop the idea of using sound in my work. I knew I wanted to use sound in my work because that is the other big part of me, so this project has developed into my journey of my final year at university.
I have thought more about different ways of painting not just painting exactly like a photograph, but painting in a way that I actually now enjoy. Texture was something I was not overally interested in, in my work, but after people complimented it I feel differently. I still am a perfectionist to get proportions right I feel as this year has developed I have learnt not to be fussy outlining, but just paint directly onto the canvas. I did wonder whether painting like that would affect the proportions, but working free-hand it has developed alot more. I can see whats wrong alot more easier, and can resolve problems quicker.
After the first crit review I had on my work, it was big learning curve for my project. I need to paint what ever mood I’m in. After that point was made, I have done more experimentations on media, portrait styles (blurred portraits) and working with video and installation ideas.
What’s happening at the moment?
I am currently painting a portrait of my friend Emily, using a variety muddy fleshy tones. I am hoping to achieve a really dark frightening painting that has that dark element like in Boltanski’s work.
What’s next? I am going to paint three large canvases that show strong emotion, showing a lot of painting technique and hopefully create a soundtrack that fits well with the paintings. I need to think of alternatives if I don’t get the space I want. The main part that I will talk about in the blog next, is whether sound is going to work or not?
Artist Michael Landy came to UCS not long ago, and talked to us about his art career from when he had a piece of work selected on the BBC TV show ‘Take Hart’, and how his career went from that until now. One particular part about his work that really interested me was he done a series sketches of his dad and other close relations to him.
At the National Portrait Gallery a display of portrait drawings by Landy; selected from a larger group of drawings of friends and family, this is a project that occupied Landy for over a year. He drew someone every day, for eight hours, seven days a week.
Before the talk I was thinking about doing this idea to document my emotioins each day, I am yet to start this, but I am going to start in the next couple of days. The only time I am going to draw is when I feel is the right time, what ever triggers a certain emotion that I felt needs to be transcribed onto paper. Some days I feel up and down and I feel I need to draw the people who trigger my emotions, or even objects. It may not even be my whole face I need to draw maybe a cheek and toe nail. I am not going to keep the sketchbook full to the brim of friends, family and personal objects, anything that come to mind.
I have not started the final pieces yet, so I feel documenting my emotions until the preparation for the final show would be a great way to show how the paintings I create develop into the how the paint looks, the colour etc.
Today I went into the black space in the studio and projected my video onto the wall to see how it looks in a dark closed environment. The experiment went really well however the only problem I did have was the connection between the laptop and the projector, which was really slow. I sat down on the chair and I made sure there were no distractions around me so I made sure I was in complete darkness. I had my headphones in and I was listening to the track that I wanted to be played with the video, which was the Einaudi Ambient piano piece called ‘Nuvole Bianche’. I felt almost exactly how I wanted to feel, but the only thing that did not make me comfortable in my surroundings was the chair, so I should really find a much more comfortable chair or maybe a bed?….just so all my focus is on the video and the music playing, also feeling welcomed and contented.
Looking back at my dissertation I talked about how Nauman’s room installations worked and were so effective to the subject going into the space. I looked back at the Raw Materials exhibition at the Tate Modern and the piece ‘Anthro/socio’ shows how I would like my work displayed into a dark environment but in my intimate space rather than being largely open. For the degree show, I know it’s open for the public, ideally for me one person in the room at a time would be what I would prefer but I know it won’t work that way just because I don’t want my work to be shut away from everyone else, so I may have to think about these things more. Also in terms of space I know I want a small-boxed room, but like I mentioned previously I don’t want to hiding away from everyone else. So at the moment I know what I want to paint but I need to think of my other options if I don’t get the space.
During the experiment I photograph stills of the video, I could not see any of the space around which was really effective. One thing that I was not sure about was how clear the paint looked on the wall. the video was played in HD but I think in terms of the scale of the projection it was too big. I did like the idea of the whole envionment and intimacy in the room but I am now considering whether to go with the video or let the painting and the sound speak for itself rather than a sequence of close-up stills combined all in a time framed video. Like John Cages 4’33” that was a time-based performance and I do think it’s a great way of letting the audience focus. If there was just the paintings and the sound present, the sound then becomes the time frame instead of having the video, it would then still become a time based performance.
Also in my previous posts I talked about my painting ‘Falling Into the Abyss’ at the Marylebone Parish Church in London and I talked about how I felt that I wished I painted it a lot bigger as the emotion is not that strong. I projected the painting onto the wall and on a bigger scale it does to me create more of an impact. Also I experimented this with the painting ‘Invidia’ (the green painting of my friend Laurel) and even though I was happy with the size of the painting as it was, projected on a bigger scale does look even more effective. So now I know in terms of scale I need work large, like Chuck Close’s portraits.
One final thing I have noticed the colour of the paint does not seem to matter that much now. The texture of the paint and the sound seem to be the dominant force at the moment. Colour is still really important to the pieces, but I am not going to make it obvious what the emotion is just painting blocked colour…the sound may then not be needed.
Reflecting back to the previous Bacon post, I found a video of Bacon talking about how he uses photography in his work. He was inspired by paintings by Van Gogh, Valazquez and many more artists and he also works from photography by Eadweard Muybridge. From a book I looked at in the library there was a page that contained photographic imagery of a subject he painted and there about six photographs of her face form different angles. When you see the painting next to the sourcing images you can see all the angles he painted from.
On the link attached on the bottom is a documentary on Bacon’s work on The South Bank Show and he talked how he paints. ‘Not illustration of reality, but to create images which are concentration of reality, and a short hand of sensation.’ Francis Bacon. Bacon finds painting straight onto the canvas makes it less of an illustration, because he think if he drew out the figures of the subject make it into an illustration. He thinks it’s more effective to attack the canvas with the paint straight away. I felt that this worked for me when painting the portrait of Anna and my self portrait, it was less time consuming and I felt the more paint I apply without the outline the more intruiging it is when the subject gradually appears through onto the canvas. When I paint someone I usually struggle to decide to choose between about ten images. Working the same way as Bacon would help this more.
But with my final pieces that I want for the degree show I know I eant another self portrait done potentially as the main piece to have a very detailed face of a really powerful emotion and blur out with another face (like using a slow shutter speed on a camera) to create an effect that looks like two completely different emotions. I’m quite photo shy so if someone was taking a picture of myself I would want to look away, so I know I want that to show in the painting. I need to take photos soon!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfTgEKQj0Dk
Bacon and Photography
