My Future Plans and development within my practice

Whilst being off University for the summer I am intending to become an artist assistant for two weeks to gain some experience on how an artist works outside of education, how they budget time, money, materials and how they set up or decide on work for exhibitions. I have started by looking for artists who are based in Manchester and I have let two of my tutors who are also painters based in Manchester who may be able to get me in contact with someone who is looking for an assistant.

I will also from the 20th May be working in Hillcrest Grammar School as an artist in residence, I will be looking at some of the children's work along side the teachers at the school to be able to get an insight on the teaching and the educational schemes. I have also been offered a small studio space where I will be able to paint and show the students the route I took after finishing school, how I work as an artist still in education and the my use of painting techniques and art work.

I have been contact with the Whitworth Gallery to volunteer there to be able to gain an insight into contemporary art practice because in my own time I find I prefer to look at historical art work so I think it will be a good experience for myself to work within a contemporary gallery so I am seeing more often the work being produced by current artists.

Within my own practice I am intending on broadening my knowledge  by re-reading John Berger's Ways of seeing and Manet and the object of painting by Michael Foucault, from there I will look at other books I would be interested in looking at.

I intend to continue with portraiture  under the influence of artists such as Joshua Reynolds where I found his work when seeing the Wallace Collection in London, I am interested in the thick textures he creates within the oil paints and the merkyness of his images like in 'The strawberry girl', I am also interested a similar texture made by contemporary artist Edward Atkinson Hornel who's piece 'Autumn' was displayed in Tate London, I intend to learn how to create there textures. I have also become facinated with  how the artist Eric Fiscl's use of imagery within his paintings to be able to create an emotion within the viewer, its an aspect of painting that I would be interested in working towards and interacting with the viewers more.

In relation to my own practice and the development of it, I have begun to think of moving the paintings from my exhibition forward by learning from the parts of the painting that worked and what didn't. So from the influence of my piece 'Yellow wallpaper', I have begun to look at taking away the woman out of the painting and focusing on the wallpaper textures and designs in more detail, I have began to draw out some different designs after being influenced by William Morris's wallpaper designs as well as working onto old pieces of wallpaper. I have also began to build more canvases but I have decided to experiment with different oils to make my half chalk gesso solutions eg safflower oil, linseed oil etc...  to see the difference in the ground as I found with my last lot of canvases that the oil perspired from the surface of the primer underneath the painting. So I want to see the difference with the different oils as I liked the ground colour and texture of the half chalk gesso. With these canvases I intend to remake the original image of 'Girl with feathers' and repaint it in different ways to discover how the use of paint can play an important part within the creation of a painting and what the paint work can display, for example, painting the birds as a full resemblance of a bird rather than a line drawing, or painting the woman's hair very thinly with individual strands oppose to the thickly applied paint I did in the original. Because of the drying time of half chalk gesso I have to wait two weeks to start this so at this moment in time I am still applying the grounds, but I have stretched 4 canvases so I have a range of canvases I can work onto rather than waiting individually each time for the primers to dry, so they will not be ready in time for the assesments.

In relation to future plans of my art work, I want to look not only at secondary research of galleries, books and internet, I also want to look at primary research and relate that into my practices ideas. I have been analysing over my own work and questioning the reasons for the creation of my paintings, what works, what do I feel and why. After looking at Eric Fiscls work, I am interested in the power of an image and the relation to the viewer and the emotion it can create. In relation to my own work I am interested in how to create a powerful image and I think instead of painting full portraits, a close up image can be more powerful or have more narrative to it, eg

If the painting was more close up, it begins to show the little self confidence within the person, which when questioning myself, thats what my paintings do boil down to, as I have very little self esteem and think quite low of myself. I also find it very difficult to comunicate with people as well of talking. 

Another artist that paints close up images of women is Gwyn Jones

Even though I was focusing a lot in presenting a self portrait within the paintings for Blankspace, I think I need to push myself to look at a broader range of research and feelings of emotion. I thought long and hard about what I felt really passionate about that creates a very strong emotion. I realised how intently I listen to the news when it relates to missing children or raping's, the whole concept of this is very delicate and a sensitive topic which I think I will have to be very careful about the way I go about researching to the subject. I have began to do some research into these topics and see where it takes me.

I find that I respond very strongly to the disappearance of Jessica and Holly because not only was I the same age as them when they went missing and they lived not far from my Grandparents home where I was staying at the time of their disappearance  I also remember the fear I felt and my own parents fear of something similar happening to myself as I child. I feel very emotional and sorry for these poor girls, but I also think of them being so brave, beautiful and my thoughts are with their family as I cannot imagine the pain they also went through. I am also interested in the knowledge of their fate as I'm sure the parents are too, the idea of woodlands being an unpossitive place and always being told to stay away from them is something I would be interested in studying. 

The connections by DNA of hair or other bodily parts is something I have begun to be interested in with connection to the news and the woodlands. I think with my idea of signs and symbols would begin to relate well to this subject matter and all these ideas is something I intend to pursue over the summer.

Identity of a person is the key thing I want to look at alongside a line of different ideas, I think by adding current and past events within the media will make my work more meaningful and have a broader range of response to the subject matter rather than focusing on myself that viewers won't be able to relate to as well. I am also interested in people who have been ripped of their identity and how to relate and present that. I think using events in the media will push my work forwards more.

http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/kuspit/kuspit4-14-05.asp

Blankspace Opening Night 15/5/13

Blankspace Gallery

I decided to put up our posters that were designed to advertise for the opening night of '77Hours' so when people came they would defiantly know that this was the correct gallery because it is placed in quite a discrete location. 

Food provided by Jamie's Italian

The food by Jamie's Italian was brought by the head chief of the Manchester restaurant, to set up we put tables that were behind the drinks bar and the group met them at 5.15pm, to give 45 minutes to set up before the exhibition was opened. The food was not only delicious but was also a big hit with a lot of the viewers in the gallery as firstly it was more of an instigator to get people to attend along side with the free drinks they were also able to eat for free, secondly it also kept people there for longer for the evening as they were able to eat and drink and make a whole evening of the opening event.

Drinks provided from the money at Fundraiser Night at Trof Bar

We raised £126 pounds from the fundraiser at Trof bar allowing us to be able to buy the drinks for the evening where we set up a bar in front of the food from Jamie's Italian.

Below are images of the exhibition before and during the exhibition opening:

The opening night for '77Hours' Exhibition was a great success, we had  around 200 people for the opening night and had people knocking on the door twenty minutes before the exhibition even opened. We kept the exhibition open until 9pm due to the fact that the gallery was still full at 8pm when we were meant to be closing the opening night and we still had people coming after 8pm so I think it was good decision to keep it open for longer. We didn't have a point in the night where the place was empty until we closed up for the evening and we also had the pleasure of having quite a few tutors from the university attend as well as journalists and some gallery curators. 

The Sponsor for our flyers 'OkeDream' came to the Blankspace Opening night for support of the artists

Dan who I was in contact with regarding the sponsorship of OkeDream  was able to come down for the opening night to support us and talk to the other artists as it had only been myself that had been in contact with the company.

Business Cards

For the opening night I made myself some small business cards which had my name, skills, number, email and blog on so if viewers liked my work they were able to get in contact as well as look at any other work I have done by viewing the blog. I think it is good to promote myself whilst being in education so when I finish I won't be too lost and not have made any contacts. By doing this I also can become slightly known before I leave University so then when I do leave people may have heard of my name or may want to work with me in the future. Out of the group I was the only one to make business cards for the opening night and to leave them in the gallery for the rest of the week, I thought that it looked more professional because even though we did have our emails on the back of the floor plan, viewers were able to take away with them my card with images of my work on it.

Spotlight on the paintings

Prior to the opening night we were able to put spotlights onto our work, I had to think really hard  about how I wanted to light to land onto the painting

'Girl with clipped wings' was displayed with the light shining slightly above the painting rather than directly onto it to allow a cast of a shadow, because the painting is such a light one I thought this would work better as a direct light onto it would not only make it lighter but may also erase out the delicate details of the birds on top of her head. The cast of the shadow also works well with the concept of the painting and how the woman shys away from telling the truth so the idea of hiding herself away from the limelight works very well. The light casts from the side in the angle of her view point so there is a diagonal line fluently through the piece.

'Yellow wallpaper' had no direct light onto this piece because there wasn't a specific part of it that I wanted to be enlightend and as this painting was less conceptual as the wallpaper and the woman combine together creating an imbalance of strong differences however her hair begins to merge towards the background. So with this painting the lights were cast from different angles to ensure that there was no direct light onto the painting.

'Discharged from the avery' had a direct light onto it to open up the darkened image because of it's positive concept, the woman walking away from the birds has found a light at the end of the tunnel and now is able to walk into it free. The direct light allows the image to stand out more and open it up to the viewer.