Year 3 Degree Project by Elaine Hedges

I have many ideas in mind for my future works, all of which this blog has helped to inspire me, helped me experiment with and helped me reflect on.

Firstly I will be working with Solid colours interacting with Patterns and overlapping each other as my experiments in the past have shown me that this is a very good thing and works very well and looks good too. It can be extremely versatile and extend my work beyond its very simple boundaries that its currently at.

Second I will be experimenting with interweaving the paper cuts, very much like a weave that you would find in textiles. I feel this could especially work if the paper cut were square in shape and would also look good against the solid colouring that I will be experimenting with.

And Thirdly I will be experimenting with 3-Dimensional shapes and lighting. To me there is no reason why my work should always be flat and 2-Dimensional as it can go further than that. Because of how intricate my pattern are it lends my paper flexibility that it didn’t have before allowing me to work it into shapes that it couldn’t be in previously and I feel it would look interesting to the viewer to view the paper cut at different angles rather than just flat.

I feel this also can be helped by my looking into architecture as that isn’t viewed as flat either and it would be an interesting comparison.

So these are the tasks I shall be working on for the next few months and hopefully will work and be present in my degree show.

When looking back at my past works and how my work has developed in the past year has really made me appreciate how far I’ve come in my medium and how much further I can go.

When I first began it was with quite simple cut outs, usually inspired by nature or clockwork and was always on a singular layer. I found it very difficult at the time as I had never worked within the paper cutting medium before and it took quite a while to grasp at the different papers that I could use, the different techniques available to me and also the different tools available to me.

The sharpness of my scalpel became incredibly important on how precisely I could cut out each piece, and the thickness of the paper also.

If the paper was very thin, such as  newsprint at 45gsm (the thickness of the paper) which I used in some of my earlier work, then it was much more likely to tear and break even when the scalpel was incredibly sharp just because I myself could not put very much pressure on the paper.

Whereas I also experimented with very thick paper, slightly thicker than card and found that I was damaging my wrist because of the pressure I was having to exert on the paper just to get the scalpel through it, often having to cut over the same line 2 or 3 times. This blunted my scalpels much more quickly and when using disposable ones they snapped, becoming useless even if they were not blunt yet.

At the end of my first year of using the papercutting technique I was becoming very bored with the influence of nature on my paper cuts and found that concept very limiting. Through this I explored different options and found that Pattern would become my new choice as it was practically limitless on what I could create with a pattern.

I also started using Colour this year instead of staying in the Black and White niche that I had put myself into. Colour has given me an amazing platform to work from as I can convey the colour choice into my concept. Using jewel like tones to give the appearance of a more islamic inspiration, or more muted colours for a gothic inspiration.

I have also begun looking at modern architecture as inspiration as pattern is used constantly not just in the appearance of the building, but the actual design and construction of it too.

Finally Completed my Triptych which was posted about quite a while ago.

I felt that by making 9 of the triptychs that it would look most interesting like that, due to the different colour variations, similarities to each other and symmetry by making it 3 by 3 and having 3 layers, keeping with my theme of symmetry.

I feel like they work well together, some of the colours and patterns are very similar but were created in the moment and at the moment of creation.

By creating it as a triptych I feel it has worked well as a poparty kind of style, similar to Andy Warhol’s own pieces which are created in different colours.

I feel that it would look interesting in a cubed layout 3 by 3 style against a white background, bring out out each layer of colour and pattern this way. I can also mix and match the different colours however I want them to look too.

I feel that adding anymore than 3 layers would over complicate it as then it would disrupt some of the other layers and make them less visual to the viewer. Parts that I would want exposed could potentially end up hidden which is something I want to avoid.

Karla Black’s work I really admire because of the draping style that is prevalent in her work, drawing from artistic traditions such as expressionists painting, land art, performance, to formalism.

Her sculpture are always large scale and are created from everyday substances such as cellophane and paper to create these abstract formations.

According to the Saatchi Gallery, ‘Black chooses her media for their tactile aesthetic appeal: the familiarity of the texture of cellophane or the scent of cosmetics bridges the experience of tangible matter with the intimacy of memory or the subconscious. ‘

Gallery, S. (2015). Karla Black – Artist’s Profile – The Saatchi Gallery. [online] Saatchigallery.com. Available at: http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/karla_black.htm

Similarities between my own work and Black’s is the physicallity involved in both. To create either work is to interact with it on every level, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It is a very intense and intimate process that has a large scale result at the end. Both are performances as both can be seen to have had a vast amount of time and energy put into both.

I admire the draping style in her work because it is something that I want to experiment with in my own work, as explained in a previous post. I have experimented to a small extent with the layered of my work and the different positioning and colours but haven’t taken it to such a large scale, Yet.

Kara Walker is another artist whose work is derived from craft materials. She is known for her large scale tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes that are influenced by American controversial racial and gender tensions. Her work addresses specific themes of power, history, race, sexuality, repression in a very concise way

Her work I’ve felt has inspired me because of her use of lighting and silhouettes but also in how her concept is the most important aspect of her work.

Her work’s are all beautifully cut and presented and her use of lighting and colour in the background is key to how her work is portrayed.

She draws from historical sources of information relating to racial discrimination and tensions, from slave labour in America, the abuse of Black Workers on farms and the racism that is still apparent today. She creates the silhouettes to depict different scenes of what had happened.  These scenes were created by composing the images in reverse in order to flip them over once they are cut out and adhered to paper, canvas, wood, or directly to the gallery wall with wax.

Sarah Kent, Visual Art reviewer writes that ‘Instead of sharing genteel pleasantries, though, she dishes the dirt on the plantation-owning white elite. Her top-hatted gents and southern belles may dance and caper, but they reveal their less amiable side as they or their henchmen abuse, torture and kill the slaves they fear and despise.’  (Sarah Kent, 2013)

Kent, S. (2014). Kara Walker, Camden Arts Centre | Visual arts reviews, news & interviews | The Arts Desk. [online] Theartsdesk.com. Available at: http://www.theartsdesk.com/visual-arts/kara-walker-camden-arts-centre

The format that Walker, historically uses is classified as a craft but she makes it her own with the concept.

Kara Walker stated that ‘I was really searching for a format to sort of encapsulate, to simplify complicated things…And some of it spoke to me as: ‘it’s a medium… historically, it’s a craft and its very middle class.’ (Walker, 1999)

“Conversations with contemporary artists” (New York: Museum of Modern Art 1999) http://www.moma.org/onlineprojects/conversations/kw_f.html

Concept in walkers work is highly important as is the skill involved in creating not only her silhouettes, but also her drawings. But conceptual art can be heavily criticized.

The issue with conceptual art is that it can be heavily criticized for its reliance on its concept rather than the level of skill involved.

Ben Davis states that “The appreciation of contemporary conceptual art, on the other hand, depends not on immediately recognizable skill.” (Davis, 2009)

Artnet.com, (2014). Ben Davis explains why people hate “conceptual” art. – artnet Magazine. [online] Available at: http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/davis/in-defense-of-concepts11-24-09.asp

Davis explains that contemporary conceptual art has more meaning, depth and intelligence to it than what is initially recognized at first glance. Conceptual art is not just about its aesthetic view, but about knowledge, history and thought provoking ideas.

The art versus craft debate it very prevalent in this and something I feel extremely strongly about. To me craft and art are very much the same thing, both can have concept it is just about how you identify as yourself as an artist, and neither should be penalised for how they identify. Walker’s art speaks strongly to me of this as her art symbolizes how unfairly penalised people have been throughout history for their title. Skin and art.