YEAR 2 - THE THOUGHT BEHIND THE WORK
24/09/2021 - 24/09/2022
PART 1
My initial inspiration for Unit 5 was a summer storm over Southbank; how I felt in the moment as dark clouds swooped in over the Thames. In those couple of hours in the rain and lighting I saw the world in a slightly augmented way. As people scampered away, hiding from the imminent rainfall, leaving central London deserted, the atmosphere became uncanny and almost dystopian. London as a liminal space.
I wanted to paint this experience so started thinking about the energy and ‘vibe’ of the situation. How could I translate it into shapes and colours? The temporal dissonance between the raindrops and the lighting? How would that space look if it was to be recorded? Making the invisible visible?
I continued to make sketches inspired by these ideas floating in my head and came up with organic blobs and spiky forms.
Benjamin Reichwald (aka Bladee) and Dubuffet paintings inspired me a lot. The way Reichwald was able to create an eerie nostalgic atmosphere though his paintings. The use of soft pastel colours lend his work a dreamlike and euphoric feeling, the paintings like a direct translation from his music; he had been able to turn something invisible visible.
In contrast, Dubuffet used hard industrial materials such as coal and wire to make abstract portraits that felt dystopian and cold due to connotations of the materials.
I wanted to play around with the feeling of distorted nostalgia much like Reichwald paintings. I approached this by researching the definition of liminal.
The term liminal refers to a transitional initial stage or process, the space occupying a portion at or on both sides of a boundary or threshold. The ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the transition. Why do these images feel so oddly familiar? They give a feeling of kenopsia, the eerienes of places left behind. The feeling is emphasized with unnatural florescent lighting.
I continued to express the energies I saw in objects. The shapes I came up with felt very organic and natural. I was a link between the shapes and vegetables such a mushrooms and ginger. How could I alter their material feel?
I experimented with ginger by making casts of it and using a range of materials to recreate the same ginger multiple times. Taking away the gingers organic purpose and binging its ‘shell’ into the foreground. The idea of erasing its individuality and soul by creating multiple copies. I still want to further develop my work with ginger in the future.
For the exhibition project my group explored the idea of creating an alternative space and a post human world. I was again drawn to the idea of dystopia; a barren concrete hostile landscape built on an inhuman scale. Millie’s work juxtaposed mine, displaying a world where AI and humans worked together to create utopia. Both dystopia and utopia were tied together with a relentless metallic ‘heartbeat’ from Joanna’s work.
My thought prosses during this unit followed my virtual worlds seminar step by step starting off with the flow of life energies and connections, moving onto liminal spaces and artificial worlds and ending with what there is to come int the future. I want to continue to experiment with these ideas in a range of materials and forms.
PART 2
My initial inspiration for unit 7 came from organic curves of Art Nouveau furniture I saw in Paris. The objects intertwined in perfect harmony between function and formality creating a nostalgic eeriness about them, the familiarity of a functional piece of homeware almost strangled by delicate vine carving was fascinating. They felt like objects from a fairy-tale. After visiting the Francis Bacon exhibition, I saw echoes of this feeling in some of the mark making, a natural flow of self-expression.
I wanted to create a work that felt like an extension of myself. I started to reminisce on my own childhood, particularly the long summers I would spend in Southeast Asia. On reflection I saw a part of my childhood that I had previously overlooked. A fascination and love of the cultures, particularly Japanese, had led me to turn a blind eye to the gaze many men would lay on me and my sister when we were young. As a child both my sister and I were called dolls frequently and were asked to have our picture taken with strangers, the majority of these people meant them as compliments however, many felt dehumanising or as if we were some odd fantasies. As I have grown older, I have looked at memories and situations and grown an awareness to them.
I was very interested in this idea of reliving past moments and memories, I wanted to explore it further and see if I was able to build a ‘fake’ environment, a fabricated nostalgic memory. I have always loved the rainy season in Japan; the hot muggy air makes way for torrential rain, the rain doesn’t last long, when it’s over the sound of cicadas becomes almost deafening, the sun breaks though clouds, bouncing off rusty telephone boxes, mosses atop stone shine now dampened from the downpour. This is the feeling I wanted to recreate; an experience so familiar that exists nowhere but could exist in so many different locations. How can similar memories merge, almost becoming one?
For unit 6 I explored Lacan’s mirror stage theory and how it can be related to the digital world we live in. Do we now have a third mirror stage from when we look at our online persona that we have built? Growing up in the digital era I now have an online presence as well as a real-life presence, I have photos and documentation of every stage of my life. Has the online platform changed how we look back on our past and view ourselves? I wanted to convey this thought through imagery and sculpture.
“Forward to Yesterday”, my unit 7, required us to research and put together a film program. Throughout this unit whilst I was compiling media, I was constantly looking back at some of my favourite films and animations growing up. The nostalgia and comfort I got from rewatching and revisiting my past made me want to explore these areas more.
I used lots of prints this term and I hope to experiment with how I can drape and contort the physical version of edits I have made to further convey the topics I continue to explore.