Swansea Trip

All the way back in September, of 2014, within the first few weeks of my first year in University, we took a trip around Swansea to look at some art. The work that was situated around Swansea was a programme called Art Across The City. Some of these pieces are still around Swansea even though this project began in Spring 2013. As I live around the Swansea area, I spend a lot of my time in the city itself and travel by bus to get there, I pass many art works along my way. They may have been here for quite a while but I still find it very pleasant to pass these every day. I feel like they add a lot of colour and interest to the city and displays the interest in the arts the community has. I love that Swansea embraces this culture.

 

We also visited some other exhibition spaces which included Volcano, Mission Gallery and Swansea Museum. There are a lot of spaces and opportunities in Swansea that provides a variety of art to the community.

Appropriation: Final Images

I realise I didn't show my final work I produced for my Appropriation Project that I really enjoyed and wanted to share 3 as I found it a very exciting project. 

The concept of my work is to express myself through my images, approaching the subject of religion from a feminist point of view. I want my images to be successful in context, aesthetics and my own judgment on these subjects (religion and feminism).  
To create my images, I used the medium of digital editing, through Photoshop. I chose this particular method as I am very confident and skilled at working with Photoshop, and for what I wanted to create, I felt there was no other method that would have furthered or enhanced my images.

Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger is a conceptual artist that addresses cultural constructions of power, identity, and sexuality. Her works that question the roles of women in society are what inspire me most of all, especially for my project. Her use of text and relation to the imagery is a quality I’d like my own works to include. I think this relationship is a very difficult one to get right, but when it is can be very powerful. Her clever use of text overlapping he imagery to further her point is incredibly inventive. 

Guerrilla Girls

Guerrilla Girls are an anonymous group of feminist, female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world. They hide their identities with gorilla masks as they believe that their identities aren't important, more their work is important. 

Here are some previous posts on this project showing more of my inspirations for this project:

Julien Pacaud
Victoria Van Dyke
Hannah Hoch, Marcel Duchamp, John Heartfield 

Installation Workshop: Projection

This was the final video I used for my projection. I used old footage that I had shot previously for a project, but was not used, which I thought I could use for my projection and well as shooting new scenes. As I wanted to capture the outdoors, and include memory/dreams, I produced a kind of story to project which flashed back and forth to images of nature and back again. I used the idea of 'flashbacks' to project my memory/dream theme which I very much wanted to capture.

      As I was also thinking of my previous idea of projecting on the black blinds, making it look like a home movie, I thought this had the same effect on material on a 'washing line'. It reminded me of this because you had to project on walls or fabric to see the home video. Obviously you wouldn't project outdoors, however this just gave the illusion of a family setting.

During the project, it was suggested to view the installation from behind, where the fabric was much more layered and created more of a dream look by making the image more distorted and created a sort of film over the projection. I really did prefer this effect much more. It was also suggested that adding small detailing like hanging shocks or a t-shirt on the line would make it more of a family experience and would refer to this more, which I thought was a great suggestion, and would definitely add to the projection if I was to further the project. 

I really enjoyed these sessions as I have never worked with projection installation before this. It was a new experience which I found very helpful and gave me ideas to work on in the future.

View from behind the projection.

K. William LeQuier

K. William LeQuier is a glass artist that creates these incredibly moving and beautiful sculptures. I was blown away at how amazing these sculptures are and had to share them on my blog. They almost seem like they are real in a sense, like they have been frozen in time. They remind me of Japanese art, especially of the very famous The Great Wave by Katsushika Hokusai. 

The Great Wave by Katsushika Hokusai 

Katsushika Hokusai Comparison 

K. William LeQuier uniquely conveys the raw emotion of a single moment in time with each of his sculptures. The power of his work is in the quality and expression of three-dimensional sketches carved from glass. The fluid movement of the glass and the complexity of layered intersecting lines are evocative of both the harmony and the random forces found in nature. - Source 

I find them so moving and captivating, they almost transport me into a different world, which I love about art. I find this to be an important aspect to photography especially the arts. This is exactly what I want to capture in my own art.

Artists

Here are just a few images of artworks that I wanted to share in one post as there aren't many. They are by no means new artworks, but images that have always stuck with me.
Enjoy!

Kumi Yamashita

View large image here

Light & Shadow

I sculpt using light and shadow. I construct single or multiple objects and place them in relation to a single light source. The complete artwork is therefore comprised of both the material (the solid objects) and the immaterial (the light or shadow). - Source

The first image is very captivating and I personally love the connection it creates between the female body and fabric. The curves in the body and fabric have created this connection and it also makes a scene within the image as if the woman is laying on these sheets. For my latest project, I am working with fabric and the movement it creates with the human body, so I just found this particular image interesting.

Ángela Burón

View large image here

More, 2014

I love this image because it is very simple and effective. The small changes in the image, the distortion and the layering make it a very creative and attractive piece. I came across an artist Dries Bonte during my Fugitive Testimony/Dream Task and this reminded me of his work. I'm very drawn to simple, creative images and I found this one in particular well acomplished.

Bertil Nilsson

While browsing through Tumblr, a great place to find artists, I came across these amazing images by Bertil Nilsson. They come from the exhibition Naturally.

Naturally was born from that inspiration to explore, both the landscape and our role within it. Working with the naked figure in nature is straightforward, there is an obvious connection with our natural history. I’m interested in what happens when I introduce cultural elements – colour, shape and dance gestures – to question that relationship.

Naturally is also a personal journey of exploration. My interventions took on a theme of tension between order and chaos. I like to align, structure, analyse and ultimately control – in a visual sense – the world around me. The dancers with their free expression confront me with an opportunity to let go of a bit of my control and let the chaos unfold. In a way the dancer in my work also comes to embody my original childhood playfulness.    - Source

View full sized image here

I just thought this work in particular was so very powerful. I especially love the top image, and I could imagine this as a printed art piece on my very own wall. 

After finding these images, I then began to look at more of the artist's work and found myself very much inspired for my new project. I was looking for images, artists or just performances that could give me some information on expressive dance as I was thinking of trying out these figures for myself in my own work. It was very lucky I landed upon this amazing artwork.

Installation Workshops: Work In Progress

After finalising my video, I began to work with the idea I had of creating a dream-like, memory space. I wanted to create layers within my space to represent broken memories, or demonstrate the experience of Hypnagogia and Dreams. This is where my two-dimensional projection becomes three-dimensional. The layers added a more interactive experience and made the image come to life.
I decided to use some fabric for my final piece as I felt it added the the dream effect I wanted to capture. This made the image float, movable and become visual. The white fabric also added to the look by making the image stand out.

I found that brightening the image on the projector really added to the aesthetic also.

As I still want to bring the outdoors in, I made this look like an outdoor setting by making it look like a washing line, like using pegs. The audio of my video, which you can hear here, helped me greatly in adding that ambiance. 

This was the brief set up I created to get an idea of what I would do. I placed some string across the room and hung some white fabric over it with pegs. A very rough 'washing line'.

My Setup

Lower Angle of Projector

I then moved the projector on the floor and decided to make the fabric move, like there was some 'breeze' indoors. This added more movement and added to the outdoor effect.

Installation Workshops: Ideas

For my installation task, I had the basic idea of bringing the outdoors indoors, creating a very real experience for the viewers.
Olafur Eliasson is an amazing example to look at. His Weather project has always stuck with we, and I find it to be such an incredibly piece of art work. I find it interesting how people reacted to the piece, the fact that everyone is laying down and almost seem to be sunbathing is astonishing. I also like the fact that this work is incredibly photographic, and really does look like the sun setting.

Weather Project

In this installation, The Weather Project, representations of the sun and sky dominate the expanse of the Turbine Hall. A fine mist permeates the space, as if creeping in from the environment outside. Throughout the day, the mist accumulates into faint, cloud-like formations, before dissipating across the space.  - Source

Now, my work is clearly very different from Olafur Eliasson's, but I want to capture a sense of outdoors and a different kind of setting in the space given. 
During my first session of the installation workshop, we worked with other students to help and experiment with each others work and see what we came up with. I began to experiment with the blinds that covered a window. 
I thought this would gave me a look of old family videos captured on a vintage cinecam, where the video sometimes break up or have black lines running through them.

I realised that on certain parts of my video, it looked like a window which I found pretty interesting.

In this same session, I found that putting trees or water in places that you would normally see them, such as having this same scene overhead onto the ceiling really brought the outdoors inside. I found it quite fascinating. I also tried putting water from a moving river onto the floor, just to experiment to see what would happen.

I realised what I wanted to produce for the next sessions and for my final Idea. I wanted to bring the outdoors in and make a video based on memory/dreams inspired by the old family movies.

Inspiration: Monia Merlo

For my individual practice I have begun to look at one photographer in particular for inspiration and a starting point for my project. Monia Merlo’s work instantly captured my attention and became my initial inspiration in wanting to create images very much like these. As a base for my project, I intend to focus on the female body, and the relationship with the surroundings. I want to capture the female body in very composed positions while working against, or with natural surroundings, as well as buildings, architecture and possibly creating some sort of message or relationship between the two.

Monia Merlo is a fashion photographer often featured in Photo Vogue. Even though these images are editorial, I find them incredibly beautiful in the sense that they seem to hold narrative in them as well as being aesthetically beautiful. 

I'm also very inspired by these images in particular and how they are presented. I'm thinking of creating work to present them in this way.