19/01/2009

Assessments over now t g. We had the opening night of our video exhibition "A sense of place" tonight, it was a great success. There were great works by all my colleagues, such diversity, and all from 'painting' students. I am very interested in using this medium in my studio practice.

10/01/2009

My "airbrushed beauty" is coming on well, quite "Sasnal" like. I used a cool blue for the background colour, and a warmish green/white for the facial colour. The painting is progressing well, although it will not be finished before the assessments. I added a strip of silver tape to one side of the face, and hope to add a photo frame to the right of the tape, with a missing person photograph.

10/01/2008

10/01/2009

I added the photographic images to the watercolour paper which had the jigsaw shape on. They look very effective. I used bleach on the some of the photographs to dissolve the facial features. Again, recognisable as people but not recognisable as individuals. On other photographic images of missing people, I used white gesso painted on top, to cloud the image, again, this was a highly effective procedure. I placed some images into frames with the words; missing friend, father, mother on them, a reference to the missing souls.

10/01/2009

I have deceided to add a thin layer of white gesso over the top of my missing person painting, to further enhance the ethereal qualities of the painting. I was going to change the tones on the facial area, and define the features but I believe the "mask like " effect is perfect for what I am trying to portray, ie, recognisable as a person, but unrecognisable as an individual; devoid of recognition.

09/01/2009

I completed the rough cut for my video piece, also added one part of the sound track. This is a work in progress, which I hope to finish after the assessments.
Got some more images of missing people and got the photographs developed.
I received my "mirror jigsaw" from the plastics company, it has far exceeded my expectations, I'm really happy with it.
I am going to call this piece a worry jigsaw. I will invite the viewer to look into the mirrored jigsaw, and notice the many parts that make up the whole person. (I will arrange the jigsaw pieces side by side, not like a completed jigsaw, obviously the viewer will see their reflection in many pieces)If the viewer has any worries, fears etc, I will ask them to focus all these concerns on to one piece of the jigsaw, and when they are content that all their fears and worries are focused on that one piece of jigsaw, I will invite them to remove that piece from the puzzle, refocus on the jigsaw, and feel a sense of release, as though the worries and fears have now been taken away. Research on art therapy at a later date.

09/01/2009

On the 16/10/2008 I painted an item while it was on a wall (see blog for that date) When I took the image down, it left a vague impression of a jigsaw shape. I have been thinking about this accidental art (for want of a better description) for quite some time now. If I intended to make these marks on purpose, I could have said that I have made an artwork IE. they were purposeful mark making. So I asked the question, could I call it an artwork, if the mark making was (as it was in this case), accidental? Andy Warhol once said "great art is what you can get away with"I have to say that I would not be comfortable with this kind of philosophy, in other words, yes, I probably would have got away with calling it a work of art but my conscience would not rest easy.
Anyway, what I decided to do was to use this accidental art, and turn it into a purposeful piece, I painted the white areas within the jigsaw shape, and 'cleaned up' some of the lines of the jigsaw shape itself. I intend to frame the piece, and use it as part of my work for assessment. As for the theoretical aspects and concerns of this and for using an actual wall for the piece, I will investigate at a later stage.