My exploration of new techniques, materials and approaches has not been without its failures. Some works and ideas have fallen by the wayside, they just haven’t worked out. I think becoming a better artist is less about improving technique and more about improving decision making and becoming a better editor. It’s ok to have misadventures and mistakes as long as you can recognise that they are misadventures and mistakes. Talking of which, my little diversion into coloured pencils. What was I thinking of? I’m sure some artists can make good use of them, but I’m not one of them. This little nightmare was brought to you by myself and caran d’ache aquarelle artist’s colours. The results were the combination of a poor choice of subject matter and primary school techniques in pencilmanship. A neat, pretty and cheerful looking man smiling back at us telling us nothing. Way to go Katie.
My intentions of not showing every homeless person as desperate and without hope went a little astray with this one. Of course my intentions remain to show something approaching the breadth and depth of people out there in this situation, but I still have to be discerning in my choice of subject. Perhaps it may be that I have taken an interesting person and my treatment of him has taken that away, but in reality I think I was swayed by the shear appeal of the man’s face. Anyway I don’t think any approach, technique or medium could have solved a poor choice. While I’m being critical I’ve got to say I made things worse by my very neat colour within the lines approach to depicting the face I had chosen.
Then when you think things could not get any worse I introduced ink as an attempt to resuscitate a dying portrait. When attempts to revive the patient failed, I made the courageous decision to tear away the mid-tone in the face and the background to provide some point of interest and a flicker of life. Instead I was left with the flat lining artwork, it was here where I had to say my goodbyes and accept my defeat.
Sometimes you may have to leave what seemed a good idea alone. Move on and learn from your mistakes. From the beginning my first mistake was the face and expression I had chosen and then perhaps my treatment of it lacked visual and psychological depth. I am however glad that I had chosen to experiment with this medium if only to rule it out for the immediate future. My technical ability at this point in time with colouring pencils is simply too limited. For me this medium does not have the texture, strength and power of the more robust materials I have been using.
Again I don’t want to portray every homeless person in a stereotypical dishevelled and ragged appearance as this is just not the reality, but I’ve got to say that here my technique also let me down. Looking on the bright side I recognised a work that was a loser and decided to cut my losses and share them with you.
At the start of my project my aim was to work with three agencies. Some of these ventures have been more successful than others, there have been problems in communication and also in meeting suitable subjects to create appropriate work. Many of the people I have met have been unwilling to take part in this type of project. There are many issues involved in this, such as the protection of an individual’s privacy and identity. Psychologically some people found the thought of being pushed into the spotlight deeply uncomfortable. For others legal issues were a factor – they simply did not want to be recognised by the law for various reasons. There seemed to be many more reasons for a person not to be involved in a project like this that to participate. However, overall my contact with these agencies has been hugely positive. My understanding of the effects and causes of homelessness has increased hugely, the knowledge I now have has contributed to my project a great deal and the insight and experiences I have had have proved to be invaluable. Working with a single agency alone, I would have a very narrow view of homelessness. Each agency seemed to specialise in certain issues surrounding homelessness for example:
The Soup Kitchen dealt with the issue of hunger and well-being, looking after another person’s basic health needs with volunteers to deliver food, clothing and bedding prioritising those in greatest need. With visits from an NHS nurse to deal with any basic health issues.
The Community Resource Centre encourages and provides information for people to try and find their own way out of a homeless environment and lifestyle. My experiences with them so far have been restricted to mere observations of the way they work and the people that use their services.
Progress has been slow with working on a one to one basis with the clients. Finding willing participants has been problematic, however, the insight it has given me has been greatly beneficial to my work. As my work is very much more concerned with the sheer scale, breadth and diversity of people effected by the homeless issue, I have not found this to be too much of a problem as working from secondary sources is proving to be much more effective and rewarding. Homelessness is not just about rough sleepers, it is about families facing eviction, the elderly, young people, people with jobs, people going through various upheaval in their lives. Through secondary sources I am finding access to these people, their lives, stories and problems.
Does size matter?
The Degree show is drawing closer and perhaps now is the time to start making a few decisions.
In my previous blogs I have mentioned scale and the possibility of working to a small amount of large scale works or a larger amount of small scale works.
I have been studying how other contemporary portrait artists are working and the thoughts behind the presentation of their work.
One artist I have been looking at is Jef Aerosol whose work is closely related to my cardboard portraits. Aerosol has worked in a variety of scales which he manages to exhibit together in a coherent manner. His larger scale works are exhibited alongside clusters of small individual portraits. Of course the larger scale works take on an iconic form where the focus is very much directed at the person portrayed, their importance and individuality. Whereas the clusters of smaller portraits are perceived as a group of related but different individuals. Which effect am I aiming for? Obviously homelessness is a huge issue affecting a huge amount of people. Do I want to portray the issue in this way or do I want to explore the effects of homelessness on more personal levels, where I can investigate the very unique ways in which different people are affected.
On an even more monumental scale are Chuck Close and Yan Pei Ming. To work on this scale is appealing however for my show there will be issues and restrictions concerning the space allocated to each student, this is a pressing issue which I need to address very soon.
The large scale portrait has an undeniable power, however the viewer needs space to move around these works, to step back and take these works in as a whole. In an area of restricted space this would be very difficult or even impossible. One possible answer is to display a large number of small scale works displayed closely together in an installation style, similar to Yan Pei Mings ‘Wall of Portraits’ or indeed like Christian Boltanski’s haunting installation of photographic portraits ‘The Dead Swiss’.
There are possibilities of displaying both a large portrait and a group of smaller portraits juxtaposed with each other. The contrast for the viewer between seeing one person large scale and monumental to a number of smaller portraits covering a similar area interests me.
Will the viewer see the portraits as a group? Or will they pick out individuals that they empathise with? Will they be drawn to the more iconic large scale piece? Or would the variety of people portrayed in the smaller works be more powerful due to the sheer breadth and depth of the different types depicted?
For the purpose of my show, issues of exhibition space may totally rule out a large scale work. I would no doubt have wall space to display a large scale work but would I have the required viewing distances?
Meanwhile…
I have been further distressing the cardboard as an experiment. I have completely torn a piece of corrugated cardboard into 9 sections and have used a variety of methods and mediums to create a portrait.
These have included:
*Biro
*Acrylic Paint – BlackWhite
*Charcoal
*Cardboard
*Pencil
*Colouring Pencil
I have been giving more thought into the language of cardboard and my treatment of it. Tears, distress and damage, missing pieces, dislocation, staining, deterioration, these all offer me opportunities and options to bring added physical and psychological layers to my work.
So far am happy with the results of this approach. I am considering the possibility of scaling the work up using much larger pieces of cardboard, this will perhaps take more planning but the prospect holds a lot of potential.
The question is, which has more impact, a small number of large scale works or a large number of small scale works?
Is this way of creating a portrait more powerful than the traditional approach?
I must not lose sight of the fact that the subject matter must take precedence.
Back to Reality.
Looking back to my previous blog I was about to embark on a realist work in oil on canvas. The image I have used is a still from video footage of a homeless American man during an interview on the streets.
Over the past week I have begun to paint the face loosely with a thin acrylic wash, building up the shapes and volume of the face with light and dark tones. Having started the painting with a loose acrylic wash I can already see that some areas of the face could be left completely unpainted with background showing through. This element of transparency reminded me of an article I had read during my research where a celebrity photographer Perou spent time with some homeless young people in Liverpool and Manchester, asking them to choose significant locations from their life stories. He photographed the young people in their chosen locations and used a transparency tool to edit the individual, making them look almost invisible and ghost-like.
This transparency and invisibility is a common feeling amongst people who find themselves homeless and is an element I wish to explore in this painting. I aim to leave as much unpainted as possible leaving only enough painted areas to make a recognisable portrait. This lack of visual information makes the viewer work to make sense of the face forcing the viewer to look at the subject for much longer than they usually would. The overall transparency of the image represents the everyday experience of the neglected and ignored. In contrast the painted areas will describe and explain a part of who is actually there. I have chosen to paint in the eyes as the eyes are obviously the most important area of contact, an opportunity for the viewer to make a connection with the person I am depicting.
The images attached to this blog show my most recent progress.
Link to Photography Project by Perou – http://www.theguardian.com/society/gallery/2011/nov/18/perou-photographs-youth-homelessness
