Traces of Faded Memories: January 2014

My theme for the AS coursework unit has been “environmental neglect”. The idea of my theme took some time to develop. At the beginning of the course in September, my ideas on what I should base and develop my art work into, were very vague. I knew that it had to be based on memories, traces and faded. Because these three words can represent and have a lot of different meanings, to help me narrow down my ideas, I created a mind map, to give me a starting point in my sketch book. What I personally found rather unusual and difficult, was to work in an expressive way that wasn't neat. At the beginning I tried to keep everything very tidy and very neatly drawn, however this didn't allow me to be expressive, it just made me over think my work and it was a slight waste of time. Although this was a problem at the beginning, as I worked into my sketchbook, my work and various experiments became more “energetic”. This was really good because it allowed me to discover new techniques and new ways to make work look interesting and more theme related. For example I have done quite a lot of collages, that at the beginning were okay, but not very interesting and striking, simply because I overdone them, they were just not working, because they looked too ordinary.

As I started developing my theme ideas, and started taking photographs of relevant subjects, I started to improve on collage making. It turned out that less was really more, I stated to understand that simplicity can be quite eye-catching and powerful. It is much better and more effective to do less on collages, remembering to concentrate on genuine composition that would grab attention and finer detail mark making, like scratching the surfaces, layering, painting etc.

Over the course of this unit, I explored a variety of artist and their techniques and work. In the beginning the very first artists I looked at were for a blog homework activity, about how different artists use tone in their work, I looked at work of Samuel Bak, Emil Nolde, Arthur Boyd Houghton, Leon Golub and John Bellany. However I never looked in any further into any of these artists work. When it came to the task of doing collages in the styles of different collage artists, I worked in the styles of Michelle Thompson, Giovanni Sesia amd Linda Vachon. I chose these artist simply because their work caught my attention, because for instance Michelle Thompson makes her collages look like pages from a vintage book, Giovanni Sesia's work has this specific thing, of writing in the background, black and white colours and a main subject in the middle of the collage.

After the various collage artists, I began concentrating on a more well know collage artist Robert Rauschenberg. He was an artist who created his work with non-traditional materials. I really like his work because not only does it just look wonderful, it also contains a strong meaning and story behind it. To me personally, work like that is so much more fascinating. I also wrote an analysis about one of his collages called “Overdrive “ and then I looked back at the artist I have explored before, and compare Robert Rauschenberg's style of work to Giovanni Sesia's. This was surprisingly useful as the analysis made me think about the techniques, tones, shapes etc. that the artists use. Also it helped me to start and develop my analysis skills like how to properly analyse an artist, using correct art terms etc. I later created an album cover for a chosen band (Florence and The Machine) using Robert Rauschenberg's style and techniques. This included using lots of media, like bright paint, water colours, images and I used a technique I previously learnt in class, that involved cello-taping the top of a photocopied image, and then with a sponge, rubbing the paper off, so that the cello-tape would absorb the ink from the image, leaving behind a copy of the image on the cello-tape but only translucent.

Other traditional artist that I looked at were Joseph Mallord William Turner and Michel Keck. I think their work helped me discover different ways of painting without the need of being clear about my work. What I mean by that is, that for instance one of Turner's paintings called 'Norham Castle – Sunrise' is actually blurred and it may be hard to tell at first sight what the main subject is about. Similarly Michel Keck's “Searching for A Distraction” her painting is very much confusing when I first look at it, but when I observed it better, I can start to understand the theme or meaning of the work. These two artist have actually helped me, as in my final piece my work contains lots of marks and lines and colours like Michel Keck's painting, and the main subject of my final piece may be hard to understand, just like Joseph Mallord William Turner's.

(Above paintings called Norham Castle by Joseph M.W. Turner and Searching for A Distraction by Michel Keck)

Out of all the artists I looked at, the one's that influenced me the most were Blu, Emily Leonard, Andy Chen and especially Gael Stack. The street artist Blu really challenged me because of his fine lined images that were colourful and very bold. It was hard to find media that would allow me to create those fine lines. And honestly even though it did not work out, the experiments in his style especially in conte- crayon, allowed me to realize that I should use it in my final piece.

(Above on the left “A Stuffed Cake” by Blu, and on the right are some of my experiments of how to draw the cake.)

On the other hand Emily Leonard's and Andy Chen's styles, allowed to really experiment. For instance Leonard does a lot of landscape paintings where she blends the paint to create tones, shadows and light etc. that combined together give a 3D effect. I also tried to paint with the idea of creating tones, mixing various colours and making different marks. Although I thought it was going to be easy, getting the colours to look right and blend together, was quite challenging, but overall it helped me when doing my final piece, as I used lots of media together to add tones and colours to my image. Andy Chen's style helped to inspire my work because of the way it looks so natural, firstly because of the more organic materials he uses, like glass, wood, hessian etc. and due to the colours he chooses for his work overall.

Some of my experiments, in the style of Emily Leonard (left) and Andy Chen (right)

Out of all the artist my biggest influence that really inspired me and gave me the idea for my final piece was an artist Gael Stack. I really admire her work, because it is almost so simple yet very strong, and very expressive, and I liked the whole idea of not having to be too neat or careful when working in her style, as she scribbles over the top of her work, draws other things over her drawings, and even messes up her image by leaving smudges and fingerprints etc. Her work also influenced me to use a lot of mixed media for my final piece as she uses lots of it herself, like: ink, graphite, oil, coloured pencil on vellum etc. Even though her work is not specifically related to the environment, I think that her style and technique of being more expressive and allowing work to appear more messy, can link to the concept of neglect and urban decay, because the outcomes of her drawings are all based on her own decision, and the outcomes of how our environment will be looked after, is also our own decision.

Here is what her work looks like (Forty-one songs #10) and also my attempted experiment.

I was also influenced by the way she uses Chinese symbols and drawings in her work. Similarly in my own final piece I included Japanese symbols that had meaning relating to my theme of environmental neglect. For example, some symbols represented words like neglect, environment, damage etc. I think using symbols was a more interesting way to include these words on my work, rather than just writing them in English. I also looked at some environment quotes that I could include in my final piece, a quote that I personally found most relevant to my theme was "What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another. - Gandhi". I think it really explains the idea, of how people are careless and don't understand that by ruining what is around them, they are ruining the environment for themselves, so either way they will remain affected. Because by disrespecting what is around them, they show that they disrespect themselves as a person.

During this coursework unit I used quite a lot of different media. For instance I tried working on a plank of wood, which turned out successfully, in the perspective of making marks with different tools. I also used the main media like paper and cardboard. I really like the cello-tape technique with the paper, as well as when we got a printed image covered it in a specific chemical and then pressed the image down on a plain piece of paper, and the image almost transferred onto the plain paper. Personally I really liked when we got plain fabric and applied this paper dye kind of thing onto the fabric by applying heat with an iron.

Theme wise, it took me some time before I realized what to base it on. I always had a thought of doing something with the outdoors, but nothing specific. I started taking pictures for my blog and they were just genuinely pictures of ugly or old things I seen around places. But then after doing some work like the analysis of Robert Rauschenberg's "Overdrive" that had influenced me to think about how people don't care about things, I decide to base my theme on environmental neglect. I don't think that this theme is that personal to me, I just liked the idea nature being abandoned, and man-made things being destroyed by nature or human activities like damaged concrete, rusty metal etc. or just how natural objects, like trees are left with traces from aging. So after deciding on my theme, I started to relate my work, by working from my personal photographs that related to my theme. I began to notice that my theme also links with aspects of urban decay, which can be defined as “process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude.” This can be anything like abandoned buildings, inhospitable landscape etc. This helped me to base my photographs on objects that have aspects that make them appear old e.g. rust on gates, broken locks, broken windows etc.

My final piece

The main piece was the image above on the left. It was a collage of this photograph (bottom left image) Overall I feel like my final piece did not turn out as I planned it originally. I think I may have overdone it and rushed it, without really considering the amount of time I had been given. I think another problem was that I chose something quite easy to do, because I just felt like it was too simple for me, and maybe if it was to be more challenging, it would have turned out better. It's also a shame that I may have added to much media over the whole thing, because I wold have rather preferred if it would have turned out to look like one of my previous attempts, that was simpler but more effective looking (bottom right image)

For my AS exam I would like to improve by;

Doing LOTS of experiments, so that when it does come to my final piece, I know that what I'm about to do will work well and look okay. Instead of messing the whole thing up, by overdoing it.
Choosing a theme more personal to me, because although I enjoyed my theme, I feel like it was hard to make it personal to me at times. I think for this unit overall I found it quite difficult to think of a very good theme, and I lacked original ideas, which is why I chose to do about the environment. Next time I really was to choose a theme more relevant to me, because it would allow me to be able to produce better and stronger quality work. I think just as a whole, when a theme is relevant and personal to you as well as unusual and interesting, it is more motivating and exciting to work with.
Continue to challenge myself to do something out of my comfort zone that I may find difficult to do, because by working on my weaknesses like painting etc. it would help me develop my skills more.