(via mugwumpian)
As a team we worked to curate this exhibit measuring the distance from the floor to the piece keeping them all the same height and the distance between the pieces. I really felt my work was positioned in a good place as it was at the end of a wall next to an unused door being a piece you could stop and look at (an end of a section). My work was placed next to a series of 6 framed work in which were smaller than my A2 print which i found worked well also as there was a contrast between my pinned piece into the boards and these black framed series. I really felt that just the one piece was enough and i didn’t need to prove anything by setting up a series of images. The work only needs reading on its own and with more of these the viewer would be confused.
On deciding on what to show in this coming exhibit, i prepared by printing everything in a smaller format which i hung next to one another to see not only what they look like in print but if they would work as a series or alone better.
I also needed to consider the conceptual strength and the personal opinion when it comes to exhibitions, what i wish to visually represent with my name.
After careful consideration i realized my prints do not work strongly as series. This is due to the difference in conceptual meaning and the difference in the visual aesthetics of the pieces.
My final decision on the exhibiting of the piece is the most recent in which i have created ‘nostalgic contemplation’ in which i wish to change the name due to the hypocritcy of the name to the concept of automatism being that i am ‘contemplating’ and that would make all thoughts conscious. I wish to rename the piece ‘Parallel’ due to the idea that Matta had on automatism being when the conscious and the unconscious run parallel to make automatism.
Hidden feelings about nostalgic past, the hidden becoming revealed, minor or large feelings about past events or places being shown in one layered image is exactly what ‘Nostalgic Contemplation’ is about.
The image is made up from taken photos which have been shot whilst on my shoulder. I had four images taken like this from my home and home town. Within the editing process I felt the images merged meant nothing, looked aesthetically bad and lacked substance. After leaving this for a while, I was looking through some old images that I haven’t seen in over a year now (memories lodged in my subconscious) and I decided to add 2 of these to the image.
The image now has become swirls of cream, swirls of colour and mirages of structure. The colour in the image has such mixes from dark to light and different ends of the spectrum it really blends but showing some forms if looked carefully.
This work once again merges into another one of the earlier projects ‘memory’ but this piece is a remembrance that has just been made but still nostalgic.
I keep bringing up this argument about how my work isn’t reaching the subject of automatism and my work being randomly generated or uncontrolled however I feel this piece specifically is a representation of automatism. Matta said that automatism is when the conscious meets the unconscious and runs parallel, within this image I have struck that by bringing old forgotten/hidden memories that were hiding in my unconscious and bringing them to my conscious elevating this work.
‘Box’ is a layer of images taken from around my current house. It includes the rooms I use the most and taken at ‘random’, the images reflect this constant procrastination and action of doing things around the house. As someone whom is unemployed and spends a lot of time within the house I feel kind of trapped in the box I call a bedroom as there isn’t a communal area which to do work or any other activities. So the images used are from the bathroom, my room and the kitchen. The images weren’t viewed as I was taking them and taken quickly on the spare of the moment (this is debatable however).
There is a division of light and dark through the image and the light comes through the windows from the outside layered over my pets cage giving this conceptual idea of being trapped and the positivity is outside of the ‘box’.
I enjoy the forms that have been created within the layers, as with all the pieces from this automatism project they become slightly surreal in their nature of low opacity. However this work needs more substance and further development to express the more automatic way of working or the less controlled way of working.
My work so far has been very journey based using layers of photographs that are less controlled in such a manner that I don’t even look through the viewfinder. Throughout the series I’ve tried to lose more control over what images I’m taking but keeping control over the editing process to create surreal layered images.
I enjoy how some of the layers blend into one another and distort or obscure the image and subject. With the use of high contrast and the opacity of some of the layers the images have a feel that they’re created using the medium of painting. With this paint like feel to them it adds texture and contrast to them, this adds to the blending of all the layers making the viewer involved within them all at once. To fully see into my images it requires the viewer to look around the image and while doing that they see new little additions they didn’t see on their first glance.
Time is distorted within the image; a sense of time is lost through all these photographic memories within a journey. I can relate this to looking back on events and the landmarks I remember that happened but due to memory many come at once distorting a sense of time.
I wished to entirely let go of the creation of the images by taking photos without viewing what I am taking; like the subconscious to the eyes, the things I saw but didn’t take in. In the image ‘S.t. James’’ I didn’t take any of the photos at all this entirely pulled myself away from controlling what I want the viewer to see, although I still have control over the editing process itself, the physical act of the image taking becomes an involuntary action to me. The act of creating forms, lines and expressions and even subject matter becomes automatic through this involuntary process of automatism. Where I do take the images many are taken while I am walking making the subject matter ephemeral and quite randomly processed where I am not entirely in control.
This work is a layer of five images which were taken in S.T. James’ Park on a picnic recently. The work is structured around journeys or events but within these images they have become less controlled as I didn’t take any of the images myself. I am trying to step onto automatism from surrealist influences having less and less control of my work each time. Regarding automatism the surrealists would use their subconscious to gain influences and create work whereas I am looking at control within creating the work.
I also wish to look more into assemblage with the influence of Joseph Cornell and Dale Copeland both known for assemblage. I used assemblage a few years back but wish to revisit it, maybe using items from journeys.
Currently I am working in a style which relieves my control of the images I photograph but I am struggling with the boundaries when it comes to locations and subject matter. I wish to find other ways on letting go of control within my work such as allowing others to make the decisions in which I would make, such as I recently completed a piece in which all the photographs used to describe the journey were taken by others when I was present. I am also looking into more three-dimensional work in the respect of assemblage. This all started off with the movement Surrealism and Dadaism within the context of automatism and seeing if I could bring this within my own work.
So using a contemporary conversation method such as Facebook, Twitter and British University Artists websites I wish to create a network in which people can tell me what they want. The question will be something on the lines of “What would you like to see next? Give me an item, colour, place, anything at all?” and from this I would create a layered photographic piece of work out of (minimum) 4 images (each being a different suggestion) or alternatively create an assemblage, collage or three-dimensional sculpture.
I know of one illustrator who has done this before (Johanna Basford) over Twitter but the way she did this was for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and through all the images she sold prints. Being a less established artist I feel I need to use more social networks but also this will give more of a broad spectrum of ideas from all different people.
The main idea of this is to create images that involve the viewer more, it means I have less control over the subject matter apart from this concept and the editing but it means the viewer collaborates with me being able to see what they want in the image. I think the work itself and the interaction would be interesting.
I shall contact British University Artists Website and set up a Facebook group then perhaps a twitter hash tag. I think the promotion of this is mainly important as this is what will get my ideas so I may contact Johanna Basford and see if she can give me some tips on this project.
The form of the bath is like a coffin, a comforting place in which no thoughts happen, you let go of everything. You also go ‘brain-dead’ in the bath, disconnecting from everything around you and everything that has happened in the day. It’s a pod in which you can relax in, no disturbances, just comfort. It’s a private place in which you lock the door behind you so no-one else can see you at your most intimate and bare.
Personally i only bathe than shower and there’s nothing better than going underwater with my eyes open. Just wallowing in the water feels stimulating to my body. The fact that water is such a strange material that cant be held easily like sand, really interests me too. Volume, mass, reflections, distortions it’s all just interesting too me. Something which our body is such a large percentage of, we have to consume a large amount but it could kill us by drowning is also quite interesting - almost an overindulgence of something that leads to death.
I’m calling this one ‘Private Mass’ It’s my own personal place of mind clearing and thinking. I link Mass to church and in my religion church is optional and it’s more about thoughts and connections. Mass is also linked to the mass of water and volume. I also like the idea it could be misread as private mess and this could in itself link to the place i go when i need time on my own and space.
I find this piece aesthetically perfect, i just feel that maybe the death side of it is too severe as it dosent entirely surround that idea. I use water and the view into it alot in my work in the last year and a half and i find it’s a real strong subject/material to work with.
This is a journey to somewhere i hadn’t been before in east/central London. It was for a dance/performance piece and i hadn’t any ideas of what the piece could be like either which added to the event and the feeling. This ends up being what i would imagine if i was to recollect the journey through memories.
I find what works best in these images is the fact that the composition in the original image has been destroyed and the leading lines stop the viewer and they can’t pin point a position in the image any more, too look at. It even becomes quite aggressive on the eyes an overload of colours, lines and subjects. I think this is quite a good representation in itself of the human brain; just an overload of things to remember.
The only thing i’m struggling with is developing this process further and what to take next. I think i need re-brief myself and redefine conceptual meaning within my work. Maybe give myself more constraints to work round or even let myself go loose and have no control whatsoever with what images to work with.
