02/10/2009

Ordered the shaped mirrors today, the guy at the glass works caught me off guard, and asked me which way around I wanted the mirror. It actually never occurred to me of the difference between the opposite side of the mirrors. Fair play to him for thinking about it. Before I had taken down the boards, I had gone around the shape of them with a pencil, just to be sure of the position of them when putting them back up. The thought occurred to me that I actually quite liked the marks left, and went over the marks with some black marker.  I replaced the wooden man back to his original position, and 'dripped' the paint down the wall again. In some sense, it was a surreal scenario; where once the space of creativity had been, it was now devoid of these items, however, the marks, and the re positioning of the figure, has turned it in to another artwork. It raises questions in terms of the display place of an art work. For example, do the creative energies of an artwork attach itself to the space in which it once hung? if so, could this be reason enough to leave an area blank that once housed artworks? Another question which needs to asked then, is, if this is the case where there is a residual creative energy left in a gallery, or on a wall where once an artwork was, could this ultimately have an effect on any further artworks displayed in the same space? These are indeed valid questions, which I believe are worthy of further investigations.

01/10/2009

Had a tutorial with CCS tutor David yesterday, I have mentioned to him that I have changed direction from my original first chapter, he said it usually happens, so it is not a problem. Wrote e mail to my personal tutor Mark, regarding the tutorial. A colleague has lent me one of the books that Mark has suggested I read, it is Relational Aesthetics by Nicolas Bourriaud. While the language can be somewhat over complicated at times, (perhaps this because of the translation from French to English) I understand the concepts of which he speaks, and find it very interesting and thought provoking. Along with other books by the same author, 'postproduction' and 'Alter Modern' I appear have found a Classification for my kind of artwork.I ordered some of the other books from the library today as well.

30/09/2009 Contd.

30/09/2009

I have decided to cover over one of the boards I had originally sprayed grey paint onto, with some of the metal repair tape. It is quite bright and in some respect reflective. I had planned to draw on this with a biro (I had done a small version in my sketch book, and found the effects quite interesting; the ink does not come out on to the tape, instead the biro 'digs' into the tape). I noticed that my own shadow had an effect on the board. I know this is probably something that I should have taken into consideration beforehand, but to be honest, it never dawned on me ! I then realised that it obviously has an effect on paintings too.(Again, this is probably something that I should have known; maybe I did and just forgot). This has lead me onto another process. I will get some mirror in the same shape as my boards to create a mirror image (in mirror). I suppose in terms or representation, I am in some sense questioning means of display, notions of viewing, aesthetic enigmas, ways of seeing, and even relational aesthetics. I propose to get a hall of mirrors, in my studio space, and even a magic mirror and videotape peoples interactions with these.

Another practice which I will be undertaking this year, will be the repositioning of  my studio space every day, and to take a photograph of the event. I will do this for a couple of different reasons, firstly, to change the energy in the space, IE, not to get too comfortable with the familiar, in an attempt to keep the creative forces flowing. Also it seems to bring a 'newness' to workspace, and indeed a sense of freshness to the work.As a point of interest, Mark has noticed that I have changed my space a couple of times, he is a visually, very aware person

29/09/2009 Contd.

I had a canvas at home, which I brought in to experiment on. I used blue glitter glue, which I had spread over the canvas with a ruler, and proceeded to "take out shapes" with a scraper. It was basically just an experiment to see what kind of effects I could get

29/09/2009

Had a tutorial with Mark this morning. I gleaned much useful and informative tuition from him. He is very knowledgeable in many  subjects/topics, I believe he will help me greatly in my artistic education. He has given me a list of artists' to research, which he believes will be of good reference for my work. I explained a couple of my ideas to him, and he seems to be fairly open minded about them. I expect I will learn a lot from him this year.

We went to the Wickham street studios, to see actual artists in their studios, most of them are ex students of LSAD whom I know to see. It was very interesting to hear what the artists had to say about their individual practice's, it was also good to see what kind of works they were producing. While all the work appeared to be of a very high standard, the two artists who had taken their M.A. degrees, seemed to have that something extra to their work,(coincidence?) or was it the very fact that I knew this, that made the work more appealing to me ???........ Hmmmm... Interesting

28/09/2009

Continued with blue painting. Had a materials workshop with Mark O Kelly  today. I have learned so much today. As a fourth year art student, perhaps a lot of the things I should have known as a matter of course, but I was not alone, many of my colleagues also commented about how much knowledge they gleaned from Mark today. I have no doubts whatsoever,that these tips/pointers will go a long way in reinforcing our professionalism as artists.