Cheri’s Creative Blog

Recording artwork created during an Art Foundation year

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FMP end of year Show

Here are some images from my exhibition. My theme was memories and I decided to explore this by experimenting with a wide variety of mediums. I particularly enjoyed using charcoal which I used to create drawings inspired by childhood memories and moments I spent with my mum. I used copies of old family photos to create collages and abstract figures. One of my favourite pieces in my exhibition is my sculpture on the far left in the first image. To create this I attached a paper cut out and then scooped away the silhouette and I really like how the shadows fall. This has been a difficult but rewarding project. It has been hard to keep pushing myself to create during this pandemic but I am grateful for being able to have been on this foundation course as it has really kept me going. Furthermore, it is very satisfying to see a project to its conclusion.

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Cuts that heal: Barbara Hepworth's hospital drawings – in pictures

In 1948 austerity Britain, Barbara Hepworth put down her chisel to sketch surgeons at work in the operating theatre. Here's a selection of t

Article I found whilst researching Barbara Hepworth's drawings.

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Etymology and Symbolism of 50 Flowers | kremp.com

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https://www.franzmarc.org/

Link to an article I used for research into the work of Franz Marc. I am looking into German expressionism and am interested in the visual language Marc created with symbolism and colour

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Who’s Afraid of Modern Art: Vandalism, Video Games, and Fascism

A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token...how often it must be impaired b...

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FMP Research

Today in college I was reading this book on German Expressionist Woodcuts. My project is about memories and the feelings they evoke and I have been looking into the work of Kathe Kollwitz as she also deals with similar themes such as coming to terms with the past. There is something quite creepy about these woodcuts, the subjects in Kollwitz's work particularly appear to be in some form of psychological agony. I want to convey feelings of loss and absence in my work and this book has inspired me to design my own lino cuts.

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Gehard Richter Documentary ‘ My paintings are more intelligent than me’ 

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Conflict in Art

On April 26th 1937 fascist forces bombed Guernica in the Basque region of northern Spain. This was one of the worst civilian casualties of the Spanish civil war as 5% of Guernica’s population were killed in one day. This prompted Picasso, who was living in France at the time to create art.

Guernica is one of the most famous anti-war paintings ever created. It is a monumental 8 meters long which increases the shock value as  viewers are overwhelmed with grotesque imagery from a painting which demands to be looked at. On the far left of the painting there is a woman in anguish holding her dead child. Because the style of the painting is influenced by cubism and surrealism there are multiple perspectives and all the bodies appear distorted and disfigured. Even when cubism is used to depict everyday items in can be disorientating and so this painting is made even more shocking. The confusing and chaotic style does not allow the viewers eyes any peace or even a slight break from the violence. The fact the painting is in black and white is interesting as our eyes are not directed around the image with colour but rather we have to navigate through the devastating images depicting destruction in monochrome. Picasso does not want us to passively view the painting so we are visual challenged by it as a means to properly engage with it and its message.

Underneath the mother cradling her dead child, is a broken statue of a soldier, unable to protect civilians with a shattered sword signifying defeat. This emphases the fact that the causalities were mostly civilians as German fascists were aiming to also cause psychological damage by targeting innocent people. This painting is effective at conveying with accuracy, the emotional torment of targeting civilians and prompts an emotional response from the viewer.

The Composition is squashed with people and animals who are suffering.  The figures feel trapped which created a claustrophobic feeling even though the painting is massive. The size combined with overwhelming composition only increase the intense emotional impact of this painting. Picasso filled ‘Guernica’ with imagery and motifs such as the white bull which supposedly represents Spain and is a nod to their culture of Matadors. Furthermore the inclusion of animals in art work hints towards the actual day of the bombing which was market day when the streets were filled with animals and people.  

In this artwork Picasso depicts the real victims of war. Throughout human history we have spent more time at war than at peace and to an extent we have become desensitised to images of destruction and conflict. Therefore Guernica is a powerful reminder of the true face of war and will, without a doubt remain an evocative Art piece.

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Dead Dad 1996–97 by Ron Mueck is a sculpture made from Silicone, acrylic paint and human hair. With these materials Mueck managed to achieve an almost shocking realism, this is juxtaposed by the fact that the sculpture is a 2/3-life-sized. Its dimensions are 20x102x38 cm. The size of the sculpture emphasises the fact that death is diminishing and that no matter how realistic the art work is, the essence of Mueck’s father as a human is gone forever. This causes us to reflect on male stereotypes enforced by society. The male form is rarely shown naked and so the vulnerable positioning of this sculpture is disquieting, at least at first glance. Men are expected to be big and strong yet this piece shows Mueck’s father small and exposed and even powerless. This Art work invites us to question masculinity and our relationship with male bodies. Such a raw an honest depiction of a dead man has a completely different effect than If it were a woman (due to women’s bodies being over sexualised and used excessively as marketing tools in the media). There is a further contradiction in this piece being that the natural form is constructed out of silicone which is plastic and will never fully decompose like a real cadaver would. This visual confrontation prompts viewers to think about their own relationships with father figures in their lives

Although the sculpture at first feels quite morbid, the reaction ‘Dead Dad’ sparked was mostly positive, as it reminded viewers of their own experience losing a loved one. Death affects us all and I believe art work such as this by Ron Mueck can be quite grounding as it causes people to reflect on the events in life that we all go though. Through death all of the specific ways his father was socialised due to him being a man and all of the desired ‘male’ traits that were nurtured in him are gone. After a life of navigating the world as a man he is now dead. All of the learnt behaviours have gone and he is almost as how he was as a baby, a blank human canvas. I believe this sheds light on the futility of male supremacy and the fact masculinity is so guarded and that men fear being emasculated if they like activities which are deemed feminine and therefore inferior.

This art work interprets masculinity as something fragile and almost ephemeral. The vulnerability is a welcome deviation from the strong ‘alpha’ male narrative men are bombarded with.

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Life drawing with blue pencil :)

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Then and Now

Collage from ‘ Then and Now’ project. I was inspired by the collages of Linder Sterling and descided to create a more modern interpretation. Sterling made a series of collages in the 70s by combining images displayed in magazines targeted at me with images in women’s magazines. This resulted in visual clashes such as nude women’s bodies juxtaposed with household gadgets that were being marketed at women. Sterling did this to reflect back at society, wha society was projecting to each gender separately. The crossovers are quite disturbing however the the blatant sexist and rigid gender roles at the time even more so. Although women are still oversexualised by the media there have also been more positive images created. Therefore I chose to combine elements from what I found in women’s magazines today.

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Visit Original Link

Audio file for my animation. You can play the audio file and then scroll down and start the animation if you want to watch my animation with sound :)) 

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Animation Workshop 

For this animation I was inspired by the collage animations done by Terry Gilliam. I cut out many pictures from different magazines and newspapers. After I had decided which images I wanted to use as a background I started arranging the paper ‘ characters’ at the side out of shot so I knew what I was going to animate next. Unlike Gilliam I didn’t extensively storyboard my animation but rather I just experimented with what I could do with the cut outs I had. I enjoyed adding water-colour to some images and this looked quite cool in the animation. The time flew by as I was animating. Aside from paper I also used bits of masking tape to secure the background onto the table and also bits on blue tack to secure pieces that I wanted to move but also keep flat. I used a Magic arm to hold my phone whilst I shot the animation.

In Glue motion I stitched the photos together and then transferred this file to premier pro. I enjoyed using premier pro and although it was challenging to get used to the software, after a while I started to get the hang of things. I added audio files from the BBC sound archive. I learnt how to adjust the speed of audio as I wanted the sounds of fast footsteps and it was useful to be able to slow down some audio so it stretched over an entire segment. It was fun experimenting with fade outs of sound. However, I made a mistake and forgot to upload my animation to One Drive. The computer I was working on got wiped so I lost all of my work at one point. This happened just before the Holidays and now we’re in a lockdown and I don’t have access to the Macs.

Fortunately I still had the all the images on my phone and I downloaded an app which allowed me to put them all together in an animation. I still had lost all my sound files though which had taken a long time to find, edit and fit into my work. Kindly one of my friends who is hoping to do music at university saw my animation and said he would do the sound for it. At the moment I do not have the software available to combine the animation and audio so I have attached links to both and the idea is that the audio can be downloaded or opened in another tab in the background whilst the animation plays. I have learnt that I need to back my work up. This workshop was a lot of fun and has been a great introduction to animation. In the future I would like to experiment more with collage animations and properly plan out a storyboard. Also I think it would be interesting to experiment with animating 3D models and even create more steps. This workshop has got me thinking about the possibilities of telling stories through animation which may come in handy for my FMP.    

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Art History, Messages – Week 4

Throughout history male artists have depicted the female identity, whether it be in the form of the holy Virgin Mary or manifested as a sinful seductress (usually with no in-between). The male gaze has reduced women to sexual objects which merely exist for the pleasure of men. This, I would argue has led to a strong need felt by female artists, to explore the female identity for themselves. Art is a form of self-expression and one Female artist who makes work exploring female identity is Mari Katayama.

Mari Katayama is a Japanese artist who was born with tibial hemimelia. Her work is influenced by her experience as a female amputee and she creates work using a variety of mediums such as photography, sculpture and illustration. Katayama was bullied at school for her disability and by the time she started secondary school she was drawing on her prosthetic legs. She views art as a tool to communicate feelings and believes words alone are not enough.

“Creating and living are the same thing for me,”- Katayama

The installation art pictured above is titled ‘You’re Mine ’. To create this work Katayama produced a plaster cast of her entire body and then used patchwork leather to cover it. All of the stitching was done by hand and the hair in the mannequins wig is her very own hair. Where her face should be is a dressing-room mirror with lights similar to the types of mirrors actors and actresses use for makeup. With this piece Katayama is exploring how she felt growing up and she felt she had to mimic others to be truly accepted. “It expresses the idea that I’m absorbing things like a sponge from people who look into the mirror.” The light emanating from the face is rather unsettling but at the same time it draws you in. Through this art work Katayama is able to effectively communicate her message. The mirror forces us to reflect on how we view ourselves and how we view her body which deviates from ‘traditional’ beauty standards. The pose is slightly sexual or maybe it only appears that way because women’s bodies are over-sexualised. This work captures her individual experience and a woman and I think that’s beautiful.

I find it interesting how she uses her own body as an art material and believe this is allows her to go deeper in exploring her own female identity. There is something very liberating about the fact she is using her very own body to make art. Not only is she prone to face scrutiny about her body due to being a woman but also as an amputee. Japan does not have a great record with people who have disabilities and therefore it is even more incredible that instead of hiding her body away, as her culture pressures her to, Katayama empowers herself by transforming herself and her prosthetics into art. Her message is that all bodies are perfect as she says ‘All human bodies – including ones like mine that have been altered by human hands – are perfect’. I believe this message is still incredibly relevant as new developments in society such as social media have only exacerbated the pressure of beauty standards.

In an interview Katayama talked about how she was taught so sew at a young age by her mother and grandmother. She knew how to sew before she could even hold a pen to write. Sewing is often seen as an exclusively feminine activity and Katayama has incorporated this technique in much of her work, not to show female fragility but rather to communicate strength and connection. For example she hand stitched the leather in her art work ‘You’re Mine’ which is testament to the amount of effort and detail she puts into her art.

Every woman experiences their ‘female identity’ differently and I believe Katayama’s work beautifully encapsulates the fact that all bodies are perfect.

https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/the-female-gaze-the-contemporary-artists-who-took-back-female-identity-in-art/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sESC5HKI4w4

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/mar/06/mari-katayama-japanese-artist-disabilities-interview

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Ceramics Workshop 2

The next session was a week later, this meant our designs we finalised and that the clay had dried out a little. This made it a lot easier to work with as it was not as soft as last week so we didn’t have to worry about distorting it as much while handling it. This week we concentrated on adding a spout and handle to the teapot as well as cutting out the lid. I began with cutting out an angled circle in the top of my sphere. It was quite difficult to do this however there were circular biscuit cutters we could use to impress a circle on the top which helped a lot. I smoothed out my clay with a damp sponge which helped give the surfaces a nice texture.

I experimented making different handles for my teapot but I was finding it hard to work with clay as I twisted it because it was hard to keep it a consistent thickness and also the edges started to crumble a little so I decided to go for a more simple and smoother handle design which would probably be more ergonomic as well. To make my teapot more interesting I began carving out wavy lines and the smoothing them out with a sponge. I plan to paint horizontal lines across these bumps to create a little optical illusion with glaze. For finishing my lid I just gently smoothed out the slab of clay I originally cut out from the top of my teapot and then keyed and slipped a rounded bobble of clay to the top. One thing that I found particularly hard about working with clay is the dryness/ wetness. The sponge was very useful for keeping my clay a good amount of wet and prevented it crumbling as much but too much water made the clay even more hard and slippery to work with.

For the spout I rolled out a fresh piece of clay and then carefully pushed the craft knife up it and then a stick of wood to hollow it out. This was a challenging process and it took a lot of time but it was worth it. Attaching the spout and handle was hard too and also took a lot of patience and time. Finally by the end of the session I had completed my teapot. I now has to be fired. Because of lockdown we missed the final session so I have not had the opportunity to see my fired teapot or add any glazes to it. Hopefully in the future I will be able to finally finish my teapot. This session was a lot of fun and I am excited about the thought of working more with ceramics maybe as part of my FMP. Even though I haven’t been able to glaze my work it was still eye opening to see the work of other students around the classroom. I will definitely be using the skills I learnt in this workshop in the future. Overall I was really surprised by how fast these sessions went by. 

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Das Bauhaus - 100 Jahre Designrevolution | Karambolage | ARTE

Volker Saux erzählt uns die Geschichte einer sehr wichtigen deutschen Kunstschule des 20. Jahrhunderts, das Bauhaus.Autor: Volker SauxRegie: Louis RigaudAbon...