Busy January with dissertation to hand in, interim assessment, arrival of Japanese student and exhibition at University of Salford in Manchester a few days ago.
Being shortlisted for the Birth Rites Collection Bi-annual competition was a real joy and the cause for many sleepless nights. The prize was a month residency in Switzerland this Summer, but unfortunately I wasn’t the lucky artist to win this. However I met a lot of female artists working in the same subjects like I and it was good to exchange contact details. You never know…
We were 15 artists selected from around 65 applicants. I submitted three drawings and one fabric sculpture as an installation exploring the psychological and physiological impact of childbirth in women. The Birth Rites Collection is a collection of contemporary art solely exploring childbirth on women.
It was a real sense of achievement to see my work display in the exhibition, specially these works, which at the time of making them I felt that the matter was undermined. I think motherhood still not seen as a valid subject matter in contemporary art and this collection acts as a way of bringing the subject to more people out there.
The collector has shown interest in my work and would like to keep my work for the collection. I’ve never been in a similar situation and feels like a good oportunity to get my work out there but not sure under what terms. Should I sale it? Should I make prints of my drawings and keep the originals? How much is my work worth? Should I make a book that compiles some of my drawings? I wish we had more seminars at uni dealing with the more comercial side of selling art as this would be (hopefully!) a big part of our practice too. If anyone has any ideas that might help me to decide I will be very grateful!
These three pictures were taken in the photographic studio last December for documentation. I find it interesting to become part of the work, firstly because it serves as a mesurement for scale and secondly
New drawing. First one done in larger paper and using sculptures and forms I have recently done as inspiration. The result is a composition of voluptuous sculptural forms. The colours used evokes feminity and makes the drawing vibrant and visually attractive. The pink colours might suggest a liking or the acceptance of myself as woman.
This new way of drawing has proven to be succesful in my current practice and it seems that I have found a rich seam to mine.
I not longer feel restricted with just my imagination when drawing, the scultpures also informs the drawings and viceversa.
Experimenting with this form at home whilst making my new piece for the Christmas crit. Half way into making this kind of animal mouth with sharp teeth I thought that I would be a good opportunity to play with work in the house, outside the studio, in a new location.
Tomorrow 7th December is my crit. I’m not sure if I’m ready, not only because the work has not been finished just yet but also because I haven’t had a chance to think more through the process of making about what this “mouth” with teeth means to me, or better say how I’m going to talk to the viewers about it.
It has been a tough week with Lola having chicken pox and having to do the cardboard structure at home as I haven’t been able to go to uni. I only finished this afternoon all the modroc so hopefully tomorrow morning it will be all dry and I can paint and stick some pink fabric to it.
The inner tube is quite confusing even for myself but I was keen in experimenting with it. I have come out with an idea so it all works in harmony. Tomorrow I will make a tube shape with black fabric and I will glue it to the inner tube, so there is going to be like the mouth with the teeth is coming out of that fabric body. I’m aiming to suspend the whole thing, mouth with body with fishing line from the ceiling to the heigh of the viewers eyes for a major impact.
I expect the viewers to be confronted as they enter the seminar room, by this big mouth with pointy teeth and a long body like a snake.
Like the title says I would like to represent the moment when a woman is just about to be verbally or physically attacked by his partner as she enters the household. I aim that the viewer would be quite shock to see this massive mouth in their faces, I’m trying to make them feel in the situation of an abused person, to feel the fear of what is behind the door, what is going to happen when I get home? are my actions or what I say is going to awake the monster?, am I in danger? what’s is he going to do next? is he going to kill me?
I do hope to have time to get the fabric, glue it all together, make cardboard circles to hold the fabric into a tube and then suspended from ceiling. This is something very new that I have never done before so I’m really keen in finished the way I can imagine it in my head.
I also need to think in questions that I would like to ask people so I gain the most of this crit…
Where to start???
I wish myself luck…
