Engaging With Art - Critical Writing Forum

Critical writing forum for 'Engaging With Art' and 'Independent Studio Practice' BA class by Nera Granić . isp - ewa - inspiration continuing into the next semester at Exhibition Project blog

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Thoughts on classmate’s project

Having missed this post during December, I’m working on it now (I believe this is the only missing one). I might actually have a better perspective now, after seeing more of my classmates’ work.

The one whose work I’m most familiar with, is Pavlina, this was at first mostly because we were neighbours, but later also because we were spending a lot of time in the studio, as others had mostly digital projects or projects with a large digital component. 

I remember that her work was, at first, supposed to be a performance, I’m still unsure if that is the case any longer or not. These things can change very easily. I saw a lot of her experiments with aluminium, glue, plastic, foam, plants. She made very interesting tests while trying to find something to fit her vision. I believe she came close with the model of a plant she made.

There were some hiccups that I was aware of, mostly due to critiques and brief chatting during our working hours, but she managed to really move forward with the materials. Masking tape wasn’t something I expected, but it turned out looking pretty magnificent and alive (which is something I felt she was going for). Her presentation at the studio clued me into more of her work I didn’t know about, since my eyes were mostly on her masking-tape work. There were images, photos I believe, some video work and an entire sketchbook of possible designs for her creations.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how her work progresses.

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(20.1.2016.) - studio presentation

It took me a while to clean eerything up and clear the space, but I think it looks good. Hopefully the video I took is good enough quality for the documentation requirements.

I also put my sketches/studies and some old tests on display.

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(20.1.2016.) - third head last day (part two)

It was the best I could do, given time constraints and my sickness, but I’m really glad I finally got to use the fabrics; I’ve had them for a while, but always kept them for the ‘next piece‘. It’s a risk, but I need to learn to take them sometimes.

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(20.1.2016.) - third head last day (part one)

Well I wanted to see how far I could go with this, due to time constraints and a bit of spontaneity I decided to use various fabrics I accumulated over the years and simply twist them around and tape pieces to the wall instead of using paper-mache. Supergluing took the longest I feel; I hope this one will last these two days and that there will be no complications.

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(18.1.2016.) - fabric and paper mache

I’ve decided to let some fabric tendrils hang as a callback to the second head, so i can better incorporate all three.

Fabric detail looks really nice, but as this head is supposed to be even higher up, it won’t be quite so visible unfortunately.

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(16.1.2016) - textile mache (part two)

Main issue now is that it just won’t dry quick enough for me to go throguh with the full idea. I’ll do my best to finish it, but my eveloping cold is starting to get in the way.

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(16.1.2016) - textile mache (part one)

Started trying out the idea suggested during Critique. This fabric looks very nice. I love how the detail stands out even if its a bit tricky to actually slather it in paper-mache given the quality of the fabric.

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Thoughts on Papercraft

I’ve never really sat down to write about it extensively, but maybe I should have. Papercraft opened a new door for me. I’ve always felt that I was meant to fail spectacularly in traditional mediums, aside from pencils, colour pencils and maybe charcoal really, everything else seemed to fight me. I’ve tried clay, painting, ink, lithography, etching, linocut…

I’ve tried a lot of things, but never papercraft. This was mostly because I felt that would obviously just be an extension of things I couldn’t do before. I knew I never had steady hands and that my patience and frustration got the best of me. I didn’t expect to like papercraft. I didn’t expect it to go as well as it did.

Pretty early I started looking up professionals, like Anna Highfield, Diana Herrera, Kako Ueda, Hina Aoyama, Chris Natrop, Rogan Brown, Nahoko Kojima and Kara Walker. This was just the beginning, they introduced me to paper cutting and a bit of sculpture, things I never thought I would be interested in. I was swimming through Pinterest posts, but it was only after the first Critique that I turned my attention entirely to paper sculpture.

Hina Aoyama

Chris Natrop

Rogan Brown

Nahoko Kojima

Kara Walker

Pinterest swallowed me, I don’t think I ever really stopped to look at artist’s names; I was simply looking for inspiration, just to get myself moving, to invigorate.

Chezlin  a DIY Youtuber was one of the first, the one whose template I downloaded for my project another was Dan ‘The Monster Man’ Reeder. Then came Bert Simons, Sher Christopher, Will Kurtz, Lori Hough …

Dan Reeder

Bert Simons

Sher Christopher

Will Kurtz

Lori Hough

All these ideas surrounded me, but I knew I had to restrain myself, because last time, or last couple of times, when I overreached I ended up disappointed. I think that is another reason I’m so much less stressed this semester, because I’m much more familiar with my own nature.

Paper-mache gave me some freedom to explore and taught me how to accept mistakes and move onwards, instead of reworking and fixing the same thing over and over again. It was a struggle I have to admit, because I’m used to leaving things, but considering them sketches, not following through, not really letting things go. It was painful, but it had to be done so I’d learn it really wasn’t as scary as I thought. Perfectionism is like that, making mountains out of molehills.

Regardless of how the grading goes I think my time was well spent.

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Fractal - my thoughts on thesis by Roman Bartoš

It was very interesting, I’ve only had passing interest in fractals so a lot of this information was new to me. The promise of discussion of man-made and natural iterations caught my eye in the abstract and I was looking forward to that

In the beginning I felt that it could be too technical at times, maybe that is because I know next to nothing on fractals, but it distracted me a bit; images helped as well since I probably couldn’t have pictured it from the text alone.

It’s the technical terms that really distracted me though; it’s just not my field really.

One of the other things that bothered me was when you got to the artists you started putting the images lower, after a paragraph or so, I would have found it easier to read if you started with the image, but this could just be down to personal preference.

I won’t go into grammar because even if I’m seeing some typos, you’ll probably get all of that in feedback from your tutor, but I do think that you’re supposed to italicize titles under Figures.

I was also confused on page 19, when you wrote that Escher’s work was not intentional, but on page 18 I thought you kind of said that he was exploring it intentionally?

Even if it wasn’t called ‘fractal’ at the time; later on the same page about Dali, first writing that unlike Escher who ‘drew fractals without knowing it’ Dali drew them knowingly, but second sentence after that you say that he ‘could not have been aware of any Fractal theory’ so this is confusing me a bit; seems contradictory.

When it came to use of fractals in different cultures I was wondering what separated them from patterns? Is there anything? Because I felt that that first image, of a wedding garment, was more of a pattern for some reason… maybe because the rectangles weren’t decorated in the same manner.

I suppose many traditional clothes of many cultures use ‘patterns’, but they don’t often repeat in the same manner as ‘fractals’ do.

Examples from nature feed nicely into your conclusion about fractals being a natural phenomenon that humans are trying to re-create.

It was a good read that made me think so I liked that part, despite the confusion.

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Second Critique (12.1.2016)

In any case I was right about the Critique giving me essential feedback.

It has come as no surprise to me that the second head got better reviews, but some insights really struck me and made me delve further into the message of the work itself.

Both my work in Studio Practice and Engaging With Art deals with my struggle with perfectionism and how it affects my work.

When looking at the first and second head one next to the other it is obvious that while second head is messy and ugly it has much more personality and much more of myself in it that the first.

Second head also took me exactly 17 days, would have taken me less actually if I wasn’t so hung up on the first, first head in comparison, took me about three months all together and I still couldn’t let it go. It is the second head that is the better work.

Main advice of my teachers and colleagues is to move on, move on to the third head. Third head which I’m now planning on macheing with fabric, just to try out another venue and see if it can be done and how it would look like.

I’m learning how to let go and how to not be afraid if things don’t turn out perfect and I think I’m on the right track simply through this experience.

Thank you everyone for your opinions and humorous critique!

Honourable mentions for the ‘Exploding Unicorn’ and ‘Rainbow Sheet’ as well as the association with animal cruelty. :)

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(11.1.2016) - Second head, paint splatter and antlers (part three)

At first I wanted to repeat the word ‘perfect‘ in yellow inside the antlers, but then realized it wouldn’t be visible enough. With some feedback from a colleague (Pavlina) I decided to go with red, but didn’t really do the entire antlers because I wanted to wait for feedback from the Critique before doing anything else.

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(11.1.2016) - Second head, paint splatter and antlers (part two)

Of course, the issue with the wall is still a problem, but not as much as it was with the first set of antlers, mainy because I didn’t use as much masking tape.

Another issue was just that the paint pushed throguh the tape at some points, but that is negligeable and doesn’t take away form the work.

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(11.1.2016) - Second head, paint splatter and antlers (part one)

I’ve been thinking this move over for a bit. At first, Iwanted make these antlers as precise as the previous ones, but then, after really looking at the third head I thoguht that something like that would just repeat the mistakes of the first set.

In the end I decided to go with my hunch, my feeling, my instinct, or whatever it was. I’m liking where it’s going.

I taped making tape on the wall so that there would be empty lines left after my little paint throwing.

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(10.1.2016) - finishing up the third head

Two images of final hard paper-mache for this head. Ear tips, back of the neck, any gaps I can find,...

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(10.1.2016.) - second head tendrils (part two)

It was kind of liberating to work on this piece. To let it go the way the materials wanted rather than trying to control it and force it into my exact vision. This really shows me that I can learn how to continue past initial disappointment, like I’ve had with this head.

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(10.1.2016) - Second head tendrils (part one)

I started adding more colors, watering the acrylic down and letting it drip down without too much input from me.

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(10.1.2016.) - painted antlers and paper strips

Wall flaking is an eternal problem of these antlers, so what looks like its going to be little work turn out to take an hour or so, due to constant re-painting. At least the painted paper strip looks crisp and clean.