With the different emotions that I’m trying to capture using the medium of paint, at the moment I’m now focusing on monochrome colours and start thinking about sound. I encountered the music video titled ‘Blue Jeans’ by Lana Del Rey and it’s about how a couple were planning a big part of the lives together, but unexpected circumstances took that away from her, it then made her felt lost to the world. I took some screenshots of the video and wanted to capture the biggest emotion that relates to the story the most. The image of Lana’s face multiplied into a blurred effect work really well to get the emotion of feeling of lost coming through. Gerhard Richter was a big influence at that point and I would like to paint that way but with my own style. I like the monochrome of black used, it gives it a dark element to the video, which I then think relates to Christian Boltanski’s work. His work is about losing a sense of someone’s identity. The blurred effect of the image seems like the emotion she was feeling at the time is trying to escape from her memory but it cannot be completely erased. Some things can be restored and then that pain will go, but as Boltanski quotes about childhood:
‘I began to work as an artist when I began to be an adult, when I understood that my childhood was finished, and was dead. I think we all have somebody who is dead inside of us. A dead child. I remember the Little Christian that is dead inside me.’ (Boltanksi, n.d.)
During the start of my third year I was approached at the Atriums Arts Fair by artist Paul Fisk. He asked me if I would like to be part of the Festival of the Beats in January 2014 and I said yes.
‘The “Beat Generation” was popularized by a group of writers in 1950′s America, quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon, the “beats” were influenced by cultural aspects such as “Eastern Religions” sexual exploration and freedom of self-expression.’
‘http://www.amjbarnesy.co.uk/festivalofbeats/?page_id=99
I was asked to create drawings of the 8 beats who inspired that generation. The picure of myself with the ‘8 beats’ is the finished result. The pictures were exhibited in Ipsiwch town hall.
Whilst researching Bruce Nauman’s work I was drawn to his installation, Get Out of My Mind, Get Out of This Room. What drawn me to this piece in particular was the intimacy when the viewer is in the room. Nauman’s voice is the main element in the piece, the tone of his voice changes whilst someone is in the room. Based on the intimate feeling of being in a closed space, using elements of this idea could perhaps become an idea of a final work.
My dissertation discussed how artists from the last century use sound in their work. Kandinsky’s Composition VII, 1913 was the main focus on my first chapter talking about the movement and colour of paint and how was synaesthesia used in his work, all about the viewer’s response to the visual paint. My second chapter was about how John Cage composed his silent piece 4’33”, 1952, through chance operations and also the viewer’s reaction. I liked how Cage placed an artistic piece into a musical environment. My final chapter was on Nauman’s sound work including his exhibition Raw Materials, 2004; talking about what the difference is between a performance and an installation? For Nauman the environment where the sounds would be heard was a big part of the process, and the response to ambient noises around the area; there is no visual object to be seen, just hearing voices.
From the last two years doing my degree I feel my technical ability with portraiture is getting a lot stronger, and I would like to create something for the degree that is different to what I’ve done before. I think my technical ability is still to be developed into photorealism, but at this stage I think I need to add a new dimension to my work to make it sing out more. After performing at the SNIP Festival in 2013 as a background performer, I felt that I should think about using my hobby of music into my art. The festival was to celebrate the 100 years centenary of Benjamin Britten, and my tutor David said to me to create a song list that suits well with the theme, and that is what I did.
My thought process was to gather an array of Britten pieces, but they were more based on vocals and orchestra so my ideas at that point started to change. I was thinking about the environment I would be performing in and worked from that instead. Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi work is very minimalistic and repetitive and gives a sense of openness to the space around you. I thought this would work well in the empty barn and the emptiness of the environment surrounding the barn.
During the performance there was quite a lot of people around and I was worried that the voices of everyone in the barn may clash, most people in the space went silent, so I questioned after the performance rather than being a background pianist the performance became an installation. From the image that was taken by Laurel Berry; the projection featured behind myself was created by now UCS Fine Art graduate Josh Tyson. That could be something new I could incorporate with performing and possibly with painting using colours representing emotions.
