Reflection of Fine Art Practice 3

Fine art practice 3 module was quite an eye opening module as I had a 4 week project what would introduce a vary of ideas and approaches that was focused around fine art media. As part of the task I had workshops in wet photography, pinhole cameras, stop work animation and animation created in photoshop. I felt like both the wet photography and pinhole camera workshop was very interesting and I learned a lot and I now know how to develop photographs. And because I now know how to develop film I will use it in the future but I didn't do any for my actual artwork around my concept as I can only develop black and white photographs and at the moment my work is full of vivid colours, so it wouldn't be really relevant.

Photo I developed 

With animation I didn't take much interest at all, as it’s such a long process for something I’m not really interested in as I don’t like the look or the effect of animation when it comes to art, I would much rather just make an actual real video. We also had tasks to create work in groups from instructions and obstructions, but the work we produced I didn't really think was technically good as we had to create it with restrictions in mind, so you cant really make something your 100% happy with if your creativeness is restricted by rules and obstructions. 

Work created from Instructions

Work created from Obstructions 

For this module we had to influence the 4 week task in to our own work thinking about how our work can be more media based, so that you could create something but then take an image of it and the image would be your final piece of art or a even a video of your piece. The task was to get you thinking and sure did with me as it got me thinking out the box and exploring more with media. My theme of work by now changed more to identity construction and my own self image, focusing more on appearances.

At first I was just taken images and then I decided to use a different type of camera a Polaroid and collage them as in my recent work I was doing quite a lot of collage and I had recently been inspired by the artist David Hockney as I've only recently heard of him since moving to Leeds. So I had an idea of taking images of closeups of people's faces and making it in to one,because of my concept of identities. After I did a quick experiment I realised this wasn't going to work for me as it was very boring and very similar to David Hockney. 

Experiment piece 

So I decided to scrap that and I came up with making masks as that is very relevant to the whole creating identities and how we all do our selves up like we are putting a mask on.I first made a mask out of foil with make up on it, to represent how I feel like I always have to wear make up because in today's society you would get judged if a girl doesn't dress themselves up. But when I made the mask it didn't look very stable or very interesting, so because of this task it influenced me to capture the mask through an image, what looked so much meaningful when I edited it.

Original mask

Edited photograph 

 I created quite a few photographs from this one mask and it was a quicker way to produce work. Developing pieces of art this way is really good for me as I much prefer photography than actual artwork and because I felt like it worked for me I kept on creating artwork this way, as I made other masks relating to my theme but the final piece was always an image of the mask as I could edit it and make it look a lot better than in real life.

Another digital pathway I explored was projection, but because I was only experimenting I only projected the images that I previously did to see if, as an artist I could work with it and for it to look visually good. I thought the projection would work as an installation piece as an actual photograph it didn't work but in real life it looked so much better as you need to walk around the piece to appreciate it.

Projection/ Installation piece

Image projected on to the tin foil mask 

For projection to work as photographs it looks better when a solid object is being projected on. I really prefer the look of the projection on skin so I might pursue that later in the year as it would look a lot better if the projection was on more of the skin as it gives it quite a delicate and unusual look. 

Shadows also worked really well with projection as it took a solid chunk out of the image being projected, what I thought contrasted quite well as the darkness gives the viewer more to look at.

 I made masks also from latex and my own clothes as this project was ongoing with module materials and processes where they wanted to explore with as many different material as you could. So I created these mask and developed them in to more media based art by editing the photos. Working with latex was quite difficult to work with because if it was too thin then the latex would shrink up and stick together, so I had to make the mask thick and opaque.

Mask made from latex 

Mask made from my own clothes 

Overall this module has introduced me more into the media side of art that at the moment I really love. I think in the future I will keep on pursuing photography and more than likely going down the path of making video art, as I wanted to for this project but I didn't have any ideas for videos.Creating artwork that reflects me allows my work to have more emotion and meaning to it what I prefer as I want the viewer to have a connection with my work.

Strengths & weaknesses 

Strengths

• Experimenting with different medias.
• Editing photographs.
•  Developing on ideas. 

Weaknesses

• Not looking at as many media artist than I could have. 
• Not keeping up to date with my sketchbook all the time. 
• Not being able to think of any ideas for a video piece.

Reflection of Materials and Processes

Materials and processes was quite an interesting module as I got to learn new processes such as how to make paper,how to make a video using Adobe premiere software, how to glitch and edit photos by using Photoshop, the process on how to make screen prints and how to capture light graffiti and room obscura's. As well as doing workshops I've been experimenting with different materials and processes, to see what I work with best. I've been working with a vary of medias such as ink, collage, photography, paint and mixed media.

Black and white photography

Mono print and watercolours 

Out of all the workshops I found the photography workshops of learning how to do light graffiti and room obscura the most interesting as I found that the outcome looked really intriguing and was different compared to normal photography. I felt like the images I captured looked quite indie and had an era behind.

Light Graffiti

Room obscura

I explored with a vary of processes but at the time I found out how you could glitch, corrupt an image by simply changing the text file of the image, what I found very interesting as it gave the image a corrupted feeling. I thought I would use this in quite a lot of my work and develop it, but when I became more knowledgeable of Photoshop and editing software I soon changed my mind and went down the path of editing my own photographs.  

A glitched image

Alongside the workshop activities I was creating my own work exploring different approaches with collage and photography that I felt was working quite well as the overall appearance of the pieces looked quite successful.

Collage piece

Material and processes ran alongside fine art practices 3 so I was thinking more of the media strand and photography, but I was creating pieces then taking photographs of the piece, then the photograph itself would become the piece. As I made these quite abstract faces with ink on Perspex, but overall the image I took of the piece worked better than the piece itself, as the image had more character because of the tones of light what was coming through the Perspex at the time.

Photographs of the Perspex piece 

After that piece I decided to create masks to relate to my theme of identity construction later to be about my own self-image. I made the mask out of a vary of materials, latex what was difficult to obtain the shape, items of clothing that I sewed together and tin foil with make up on top. I wanted to take photographs of me wearing them because I wanted the masks to represent how we construct our identity but I didn't want them to be boring and plain, I wanted them to be unique and disturb the viewer as I wanted a reaction.

Tinfoil mask 

Throughout this module I have gained the confidence to try new materials and processes through having workshops and with me just wanting to try new things in this experimental stage. By doing this module I want to take on further the use of Photography and Photoshop as at the moment that is what I’m really interested in, edited and unusual images as well as learning more about the Adobe Premiere software to start creating video pieces as I see that is the direction I want to go down.

Strengths & weaknesses

Strength’s

• Being experimental and just trying new materials even if they didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.
• Developing experiments.
• Finding that one area that I’m definitely interested in, photography and developing it further.
• Creating a variety of artwork.

Weaknesses

• Not keeping up to date with my sketchbook.
• Not being able to create many pieces without a meaning or concept behind it, as this takes time and when only exploring materials and processes I don’t really need a concept.

Reflection of Fine Art Practices 2 Collaboration

The collaboration module was quite useful as it was there to get you to communicate with other students and think about how you create artwork together. We did a few activities all in different size groups, as one we did as a whole group, then we did one in pairs, then in pairs what then later went in to larger groups. I suppose we did this to try to help with our confidence as well as to see if we could all work together. The task what we did all together I felt wasn't as good as it could be because of how large the group was because if there is too many people then not everybody is going to have chance to either speak or to stay what they thinks work or not. The piece we had to do was a sound piece using a mobile phone, so all of us went out record our own sound then played it in a sequence, but all these sounds was random as there was no straight guidelines on what we was actually doing and it just sound like a loud noise to me. Doing this has shown me how difficult it is to work in such a large group and it probably for the best not to work in such a large group again unless there is someone in charge.

Another task we did was when we had to answer 4 questions, place them down on the floor and then pick someone else 4 answers and create a piece of artwork from the answer you picked up.

 Here is what i created from the persons answers I picked up

I like this way of collaborating as you are free to interpret that how ever you want, but that piece doesn't reflect myself and how I create artwork. I would do this activity again in the future but in my own style as with this I only had certain materials on me. 

The collaboration I enjoyed was the 2 week project where we had to create a piece of art no bigger than 10x10cm in pairs, then in bigger groups curate a miniature gallery of the 10x10cm pieces of artwork that we got from another group. I preferred this activity as we could chose who we worked with so it wouldn't be awkward because of not knowing them, I prefer this because i'm not a confident person who can easily talk to people. 

Piece created with Rhian Cooke

Miniature gallery we curated as a group  

I actually enjoyed the collaboration module as it helped me with my confidence but I think I prefer creating artwork by myself because you make artwork what you actually want to make where as a group you have to compromise and use a selection of everybody's ideas even if they don't work well. 

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths in this module

• Working as a group, using a vary of everybody's ideas to create the piece. 
• Listening and taking in information.
• Adapting to the task quickly and being able to have a finish piece by the end of the session. 

Weaknesses in this module 

• Not being as confident and giving as many ideas as I wanted to.
• Making work that I wasn't overly happy with, it could of been a lot better with more care and time. 

  

Review of a strand specific artist

Bill Viola is a well-known video artist in contemporary art, I find his work so interesting and unique, because there is such a meaning and era behind his pieces that make you want to watch them or go and see them, because they are so different. His artwork mainly focuses on human experiences such as birth, death and consciousness so they tend to grip the viewer straight away as his pieces discuss such important areas of life. I looked and researched about his work as I wanted my work to hold as much meaning and depth to it than his, as I always finds it attracts the viewer so much more, so I started to give my work more meaning and relating it more to myself.

Nantes Triptych, 1992, Video and mixed media,
Duration 29 minutes and 46 seconds.

Recently went to The Tate Modern where I got the chance to see his video installation of Tiny Deaths what was amazing everybody who walked into the pitch black room was nervous, scared and had no idea what was going on until flashes of projections came on 3 screens at different times with sounds that was unknown. Seeing this in real life it has made me want to go in the direction of video or installation art as I’ve always wanted to get a reaction from a viewer and Bill Viola got a fantastic bunch of mixed reactions from the viewer because of how unusual and scary his piece was but the viewers would be for sure talking about this people for quite a while.  

Tiny Deaths, 1993, Video, 3 projections, black and white and sound 

Images taken from: http://www.tate.org.uk/

Websites that supported my work

For my Artwork I looked at quite a lot of websites for artist research as well as searching online to find new interesting artists that could influence my artwork. To help me with my work I always take inspiration from other artist but quite a lot of artist don't have their own website, meaning that you would have to get research from a website from an art page or a website from a gallery. I tend to use the Tate website, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/ as I can search for nearly every artist and they have so many pictures of their artwork as well as having so much useful information about their practice.

But I also go on the Saatchi website, http://www.saatchigallery.com/ as they hold a lot of pictures of artists work that is handy to get accurate details of their work such as measurements and the year the piece was created.

But when I research artists to support my work I always try to find if they have their own website or a an website dedicated to them.
For example two artists websites that have recently supported my work:

Bill Viola 

http://www.billviola.com/

 David Hockney

http://hockneypictures.com/home.php

Tate Modern

In the Easter holidays I went to London and whilst I was there I decided to go to Tate Modern to see there collection displays. I was actually surprised on how much new artwork they had since I recently went, as I didn't think they would change the displays so soon.

I was really excited to see actual pieces of art of Rebecca Horn, as I've never seen any of her work in real life, but I used to do a lot of artist research about her whilst I was studying my foundation degree. Her work is very unusual and I love how she creates items to then take photographs with the item as well as her, as this is the thing I do in my practice. 

Annette Messager artwork was also there and these scary face like sculptures was very inspiring when it came to my practice as they was quite similar to the work I've been recently creating, so it gave me even more ideas for the future. 

Annette Message, The Pikes, 1992-3 

Nam June Paik, Bakelite Robot, 2002

I was also very surprised to see work by Nam June Paik who was an artist I researched last year in my foundation course. I find his artwork very interesting and modern. In level 5 this is the type of art I want to make as I want to experiment with video art.

Tate Modern was great but my favourite piece in the exhibition was Bill Viola piece Tiny Deaths. This was the first piece of Bill Viola I've seen and it was amazing because it was dramatic and spooked the people who went in and viewed it. I have recently been researching Bill Viola for inspiration for my work as I want to experiment with video art in the future and I love his work as it always gets a reaction from the viewer as I cant explain how scared and confused the viewers was of his work when I was there.

Art related jobs

They are many jobs that are art related, but to get these opportunities you need to live in a city that thrives on artwork, because I live in Skegness when i'm not at university I would more than likely need to move away from home and into a city as the only art related jobs that are going in Skegness are, a painter and decorator or an art teacher.

I did a bit of research of art related jobs that are available now to see if they would be quite easy to find in the future and all I had to do was go onto http://www.indeed.co.uk/ and type in art related jobs and quite a few opportunities popped up. Here are just a few examples that I found around Yorkshire and London but they was a wide range of jobs on the website. 

Because I joined Leeds Visual Art Forum (LVAF) they weekly post jobs that are available in Leeds what will be useful in the future when I want a job after my degree. Below is an example of just one of the job offers that come up on LVAF.

In the future I would love to work in a city, but I would prefer a job maybe as a curator of a gallery or a tutor teaching the arts to mature students as they are what I would be interested in but the jobs above do sound interesting as well. But I suppose I would have to think about it more carefully after my degree and just apply for as many art related jobs as possible as I know its quite competitive to get a job that's art related because of how many people have a Fine Art degree.