livbrett

Fine artist - soon to be studying at Chelsea College of Arts. I love to share my art and my musings, so I hope you find something interesting to take a nosey at.

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WHAT MY FINAL PIECE PORTRAYS...

It is a portrayal of loneliness, helplessness, and a reflection of the lack of connection with the world. The figure is wounded, with lots of pieces holding it together. Human beings are not one piece. We are made out of various fragments, which all together form what we call a unity. The wound symbolises the persons broken relationships. But thinking even deeper about what the wound may bring to this body. The wound allows this being to grow, a sign of change, and a gate to a new sphere, to a new and better life for them. The veins are not only there to support the portrayal of skin, but also to support the feeling of helplessness. The veins are unstoppable, they have metaphorically taken over this persons life, and now they are left feeling helpless. The material symbolises someones soul dying, it is a dying mind. Overall, it is basically showing a soulless person, someone who can no longer control their mind and body. They feel so broken that it created a wound that will hopefully be the gateway to something much greater. 

My final piece definitely links to my running theme of my project. Why do we choose to reflect only the parts of ourselves we chose to keep alive. Who am I? Who are you? What does my life mean? Why am I alive?  How authentically or rather, how inauthentically do we portray ourselves to the rest of the world? I found looking at relationships the most fascinating, and the relationship you have with yourself as well. We are always changing, keeping parts of ourselves alive, and letting other parts die. I wanted to create a visual diagram of ourselves, and maybe through that, a loss of it too. 

[oliviaart-blog1]

So here it is my final piece complete. Hmmmm... I am trying to decide what I like the most, sitting or hanging? I think my gut instinct says hanging, but visually its the creases that are created when its sitting that I am drawn to. If I were to have it sitting I would sit it on a shelf, but the hanging portrays the feeling of helplessness that I want to represent. Its the sort of sculpture that has to be seen close up to be appreciated. I will only know what works best once I start to install it next week. 

[oliviaart-blog1]

THE PROCESS OF BUILDING THE LAYERS. TISSUE PAPER, VEINS, AND RIPPED MUSLIN. I love the details and I am glad I decided to add the material and veins as it needed more elements to make it visually exciting. 

[oliviaart-blog1]

THINKING ABOUT WHY? WHY DO I CREATE THESE? HOW PERSONAL ARE THEY?

Reflecting on what makes me want to create and draw sculptures... I think they come into being from a personal urgency, a personal question which is relevant for me, not from outside. They are the result of a passionate need to get in contact with the world and community. I was also asking myself why I never include an actual face in my work? The obvious reason is probably because they are too hard to draw haha, but thinking deeper I believe its because the communication between the image and the viewer should go through the totality. If you give a sculpture a face, then it becomes immediately the reference point and makes the sculpture too easily accessible. I don’t want to direct the attention to the face because only a total image has meaning.

[oliviaart-blog1]

WHAT EMOTIONS DO I WANT MY WORK TO PROVOKE?

When hearing peoples reactions I was told that they are not so much beautiful but disturbing and moving. For me, both categories are important and applicable. These emotions I try to show in my work and to provoke a discussion about these two sides. For example, the emotion of my final piece  is in essence very sad, but thanks to its pictorial quality, vulnerability, and the apparent fragility of the material, it can appeal to other feelings: softness against the harshness of the world. My objects are malformed but they give you the feeling of beauty. In my opinion anyway. 

[oliviaart-blog1]

My previous photos of the body I had taken ( specifically the ones with the hair coming down ) lead to this sketch. I find it useful looking and reflecting upon where my ideas went from and then to. I have drawn antlers or branches even, I think it can be interpreted however you like. For example it could be Veins or even intestines. The antlers are the main aspect of this drawing and they immediately make me think of deers antlers. When antlers fall off a deer they start growing back, its not something that can be taken away. Its like a memory that you want to forget but you can't, it will always be part of you. They completely take over the shape of the body.  The antlers are obviously growing from a hole in the body. This makes me think of two things, there must be a wound and a massive hole inside the figure. The wound is a sign of change, a gate to open you in to another life. And having a hole inside the stomach immediately grabs peoples attention. It inevitably makes you very curious to uncover whats inside. Its a symbol of uncovering yourself, working out who you truly are, and connecting with yourself to form a relationship. 

The element of having a giant hole inside is reminiscent of my child hood when you had a doll or an action figure and would rip its arm or leg off and all you see inside is a black hole. Its reminding you that its just a doll, and its not alive. You forget thats its not living until you see the darkness inside. 

I wanted to reflect on this piece as it was a turning point leading to my planning for my final piece. 

[oliviaart-blog1]

Reflecting on these drawings, I have noticed that because I have subtly drawn two people per drawing, it will Influence the way the viewer sees it depending on where they stand. For example if the viewer is standing to the left then they may not notice that there are two figures, however if they stand to the right then they would. I love the idea of the viewer discovering more elements as they walk around and get closer.

[oliviaart-blog1]

These are my planning Sketches, I am trying to figure out what position O want them to be in, and depending on where the viewer stands, will their perception change on what it is? Deciding on a final piece has been really difficult as I have so many different ideas that I would have loved to bought to life.

[oliviaart-blog1]

Final piece update

So far for my final piece I have made the whole sculpture, casting my body in tissue paper, and filling it with stuffing. I love how this has turned out but it needs something extra to give it another dimension of interest. Veins are a big [art of my sculpture and I want them to stand out even more so than they are now. I originally put embroidery thread on the inside of the tissue paper, however it isn't making a dramatic impact that I wanted. I feel if I am going to add veins then I may as well go all out!! So to finish my sculpture off I need Netting material to cover the top of it, and find elastic material to hang it with. 

Then I will finally have finished this ridiculously time consuming sculpture.

[oliviaart-blog1]

Session Aims

So far I have my sketchbook work complete, apart from...

A tiny bit more research to document such as my survey, and also drawing out my final plan for my sculpture. 

I also need to finish off the finishing touches of my sculpture. Note - find net material from fashion, and also add veins to outside of sculpture. 

[oliviaart-blog1]

Final Piece

My final plan is a life size sculpture of my own body, casted from tan coloured tissue paper and filled slightly with a layer of wax for stability and thread to create the veins. My sculpture will be hung using stretchy fabric and attached to the ceiling. I want my figure to appear imperfect, sexless, and headless, inhuman and breakable. I want it to appear helpless due to it hanging, yet contoured because of the curves.

[oliviaart-blog1]

SURVEY

Please could you spare a couple of minutes to answer some questions on my survey.  It would be much appreciated. If you can't answer all of them don't worry, any information would be great! 

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/JC8RMGV

[oliviaart-blog1]

Here is an example of the most painful experience of my life

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Making gif’s from my tissue paper experiment with pva glue. I am looking to make a more professional video of the peeling process using the photography studio. These are just little experiments to see how effective video is.

[oliviaart-blog1]

Feeling v. inspired by the amazing work of Esmay Wageman. She has created a project which challenges the way we portray the naked body its called ‘second skin’.

‘We keep linking the body to something sexual and experience it as something shocking.  Second Skin tests the taboos of the online world through skin tone tinted latex bodies. It’s about tackling censorship and searching for new ways of experiencing what it means to be naked. The base of this series is inspired by creating a ‘problem-solving’ product which wouldn’t break the social media guidelines, but would still give the opportunity to show the naked body. It explores the boundaries between nudity and non-nudity’. - Esmay Wagemans 

Even though her ideas aren't what I want to explore, her ways of working are inspiring me to test new materials and to explore more exciting ways of working that provoke a strange reaction. 

[oliviaart-blog1]

Aims

To continue to work on analysis of my work in my sketchbook. Plan next stage of development and experimentation. Looking at peeling away layers of paint to then develop further with use of different materials in sculpture lesson tomorrow. 

[oliviaart-blog1]

Creating a scene for my project - all from my imagination - which explains the bad blurry drawings. Looking at communication for my project, so I decided to base it in busy environments such as coffee shops ( in my element ) and on a tube. Its fun to draw from your imagination sometimes as it has sparked new ideas for my project.