Term 1 Formative Assessment Statement

Posted: December 10, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Subject | Leave a comment

This year, I have been researching visual advertising techniques and methods and analyzing how these techniques are applied to animal welfare campaigns. Writing about my findings has inspired me to produce work of the same theme; animal exploitation awareness.

I have been using my newly gained knowledge to try and create art work which may make the viewer question or rethink their stance on animal welfare. I have been trying to do this by using advertising techniques such as shock, ambiguity and interactivity.

It is important not to disgust and offend the viewer to the point where they no longer want to look at the images, or even hear the message you are trying to convey. This is a problem with many gory and graphic campaigns intending to highlight the horrors of animal abuse; people find them too traumatic and ignore them, thus the message goes unheard. I wish to avoid this by trying to produce work which is powerful and eye opening but not too unnecessarily graphic; sometimes, subtleties can be more effective.

I have created a number of pieces. Initially, I began with collage work which I ‘hid’ inside small envelopes and invited people to open these envelopes and interact with the piece in order to see the art. I moved on to create ‘warped’ images of toy animals by moving the toy as it was being scanned. I find these very visually interesting; the toy is ambiguous and not quite recognisable whilst the isolation and surrounding blackness reflect the emotions of an animal trapped in a laboratory. I am also creating sculpture works using these soft toys; ‘mummifying’ them in ‘relevant-to-the-animal’ materials, and have produced a number of drawings of these pieces.

Term 1: Philadelphia Wireman

Posted: December 9, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Contextualisation | Leave a comment

During this week’s pre-assessment tutorial, I showed the work I had done since the previous tutorial with James. He suggested getting a few, or even just one, of my scans printed larger on quality paper. He also suggested building up my duck sculpture even more, and appreciated my idea of including used lighters, bottle tops and plastic rubbish (as seen in ‘Midway Island’) to do this, as well as possibly using bird feces and feathers found at Roath Park, or wax and oil which are detrimental to wildlife. James said I should collect more soft toys and create more of such sculptures.

James proposed that I look at accumulative art, which are sculptural pieces created by continually adding materials to amass together and become a sculpture. There is an example of this at the Artes Mundi. I intend to visit this piece.

He also mentioned that I should look at/research the history of prisoners chewing bread in order to make sculptures (I could also look at other ‘outsider’ art mediums), the books “Voodoo” and “African Art that Conceals and Reveals”, and the Philadelphia Wireman.

Philadelphia Wireman is a name given to an unknown artist. His works – thousands of small-scale abstract wire sculptures – were found by accident by an art student after his death. His motives and reasoning for these works are, as he is, unknown.


These pieces incite intrigue and curiosity – especially since nothing is known about them or the artist. To me, these pieces reflect entrapment. Perhaps the artist was isolated and alone; trapped in his house with no way of expression besides his own art works. Trapping and restraining everyday objects and bits of rubbish within thick wire is inspiring to my animal sculptures. I may try using wire within my sculptures to echo this entrapment.

Term 1 Subject: Distortion Drawings

Posted: December 5, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Subject | Leave a comment

I wanted to use my previous scrumpled paper distortions to create drawings. I decided to try this by first tracing over the images. I couldn’t find any suitably thin paper, so I used some discarded plastic which I found around the studio.


The distortion worked better on the lion and tiger; I don’t think I distorted the lemur or deer enough for it to be effective. I decided to try continuous line drawings of the lion and tiger, as tracing over the image proved tricky as the paper beneath was folded and bumpy.


These were more effective, as I had more control with the paper being flat, but also less control; continuous line forces you to work with whatever line you have created, whether it is ‘right’ or not and therefore allows for even more distortion.

As well as these images, I wanted to try distorting images by drawing on more plastic and then crumpling or folding the plastic. I didn’t have any extra plastic, but thought clingfilm may work.


I used a mixture of images of relevant animals (those which are often used for experiments) and drew them onto clingfilm with fineliner. These, I then stretched, crumpled and burned the plastic in order to distort the animals. The burning and distorting reflects the exploitation and abuse of animals by humans.

Term 1: Affordable Art Auction Piece

Posted: December 2, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Subject | Leave a comment

SAMSUNG
In order to raise money for the degree show and catalogue, we have been fundraising in a variety of different ways, one of which is the Affordable Art Auction. Every student (52 of us) was to produce a piece of art to fit a specific size frame. These are then to be auctioned off at G39.

The piece I created is a continuous line tiger on a background splash of orange/yellow watercolour. Initially, I intended to produce a piece of collage work, but I started experimented with line drawing again recently and thought that, if it were me buying the art, I would appreciate an actual drawn or painted piece instead. I kept it minimalist, with just a splash of colour. I decided the topic should be animal related, as I have spent this year focused on animals and animal rights.

I also made a few other experimental pieces when trying to decide what to put in the frame.