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Dorothea Tanning Exhibition at Tate Modern

A lot of her work uses soft brush work, almost perfectly blending her paints and colours together. This of course makes her work more enigmatic as a lot of the pieces at the exhibition were harsh or crueler than they first appear.  Not afraid of colours and different methods of creating work, some of her larger blue based pieces appear almost bubble like or draw in comparisons from artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe with a slightly floral appearance.

My favourite pieces from the exhibition were images 3/4 including Murmurs (1976) created using oil paints. The pieces include a colour palette which perfectly compliment each other, with the dark blues and greys being complimented with the lighter pinks and skin tones. The pieces warmth and depth add in a human like touch to the surrealism, which is often hard to see or find in surrealism. 

The themes and colours she uses can still be found throughout artists work globally. From fantasy based paintings and animations to water colour artists who work in a comic like style. The paintings remind me of sketches from artists such as Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli) who has drawn sketches of characters  flying in the sky on a broom stick, with a moon in the background (Kiki the delivery service 1989). 

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Dorothea Tanning Exhibition at Tate Modern 

Whilst she may have found surrealism (in New York) in the 1930s by the 1940s she had began creating powerful and statement paintings, such as her self portraits. Her work ranges from collage like prints, to large extremely surrealist paintings, to more realism based paintings, that appear more paradoxal in their content.

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Dorothea Tanning Exhibition at Tate Modern       18 April 2019

Alongside another UAL student we went to see the Tanning Exhibition at Tate Modern. 

Dorothea Margaret Tanning was born in late August in 1910 in Illinois. She was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer, and poet. Her early work was influenced by Surrealism and she’s was labelled as one of the first major surrealist artists, much later that she worked and lived.

The exhibition at Tate Modern is the first large-scale exhibition of Dorothea Tanning’s work for 25 years. It included  100 works from her seven-decade career – from large colourful and almost enigmatic paintings to soft handmade  sculptures.

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AKQA Future Lions Workshop

With a fellow students I attended a talk about a competition held by AKQA. 

The competition Brief: Connect an audience of your choosing to a product or service from a global brand in a way that wasn't possible three years ago.

Using a new app, brand or technology the goal is to reinvent the technology or app for another use. This should be connecting or engaging for the audience, as well as including the services provided and the products used. Brand relevancy was also key to the competition as a starting point for competition entries ideas. 

The winners would have the opportunity to go to Cannes for award ceremonies and to showcase their work. A lot of previous winners include work such as problem fixing, for example a previous winners entry featured an App called Hush. This app uses Apples Siri voice detecting services and creates a safe word for the user to activate if they’re in danger and cannot call an ambulance or police. Upon activation, Siri will call the police or emergency services and explain when the safe word was used, where they are in the room, the types of noises (e.g glass braking, 1 female voice or 2 male voices). The emergency services can also access the microphone on the phone via Siri to access what’s happening whilst police go to the address given and investigate. 

Whilst the talk was insightful and interesting, it was hard to engage with the wide brief of the competition. As part of the visit we also got to talk to the lead creatives about how they found their position at the company, the university to working in industry paths and how they handled being a creative after graduation. Although I’m not someone searching to work in AI or technology development, it was insightful to see how they all had different experiences but utilised their work methods the same. 

From applying to thousands of jobs a year, freelancing, getting small internships alongside working their normal jobs to taking courses on subjects they were interested in and taking more courses or seeking out help from fellow graduates. 

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WaterAid Job Application 

Following an email from a Tutor about a job opportunity to work alongside WaterAid, I made a sketch of the work I imagined they would be seeking for their project. I sent this alongside my CV as another UAL tutor suggested. 

The Job description: 

‘WaterAid is an international charity providing clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene for people in 28 countries. One of their biggest public engagements is at Glastonbury Festival and they want to commission illustrators to help create one of their features at the festival.

It’s called The Loovre. The Loovre will be the world’s smallest art gallery and will feature famous pieces of artwork with a twist –  one in three subjects will be depicted as being denied access to a toilet, to highlight the one in three people around the world who have no decent sanitation.

WaterAid are looking for illustrators to create the artwork to go inside the gallery. Could you playfully adapt a world famous artwork to show the subject being denied access to a toilet?’

The image I sketched was based around the painting: Liberty Leading The People 1830, based on the French Revolution. 

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Not Just A Shop

Process Gif of one of my Christmas card designs. 

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Not Just A Shop

After my sketches, I then went to procreate to sketch over the images, trying to keep the as minimal and clean as possible. I had a lot of sketches which led me to merging some of my ideas together. With my final 3 images I then asked friends and family, which 2 designs they’d be more likely to use for a Christmas/Holiday Card. 

The majority of people preferred the last two designs, which I then went to edit and alter as they suggested. The final two images in this post are the designs I submitted to the competition in late April. 

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Not Just A Shop

One of the biggest perks of working for this competition, is that, as someone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas and grew up Muslim, I could create a more general Holidays and End of Year card, which is something the collection seemed to need. Artistically the card competition was very open with genres of work you could use or include for the card.

I began to gather inspiration for the competition by looking at plants and flowers, which is something that Not Just A Shop featured a lot in their Shop. After considering plants and flowers, I wanted to delve a little more specifically into Winter and Autumn plants, as well as what the southern hemisphere experience as their Christmas plants. I also found some Vinyl Art which had a warm colour scheme that I was drawn to.

Whilst living in England, it’s easy to forget that other countries have different plants rather than snow falling on Holly, Winter Berries, MistleToe and Ivy. This led me to loosely sketch plants that countries such as the Phillipines, Brazil and Western Africa use for their decorations at Christmas.  Plants included;

-Amaryllis in Southern Africa, 

-Helleborus niger,

-Herbs such as Coriander and Basil,

-Pumpkins, 

-Gladiolus, 

-Tomatoes and Potatoes in the Philippines.

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Not Just A Shop 

We visited the shop in High Holborn to view the cards and work currently stocked, and to inspire us. Alongside this the head of Not Just a Shop discussed the details of the competition;

The competition is only open to current students from all UAL and only up to eight winning students will each receive the prizes of:

A royalty payment for use of their design (6% of the retail price less VAT, plus additional payments if they are reprinted);

Six packs of professionally printed cards.

Whilst at the Shop we got to view the shop and ask questions about current work there. I learnt that whilst Not Just a Shop is part of UAL and aims to sell student work that they have less than a dozen students who are actually featured in the shop. A majority of the shop is actually made up of graduate Artists and other brands. Whilst this is mainly due to the quality of work, it seemed pointless having a UAL run shop that didn’t actually support UAL students.

The above images are examples of previous Christmas card winners, a lot of the cards were highly illustrated and colourful, with the exception of some photography and typography based cards.

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  Not Just A Shop X Tate       Christmas Card Competition 

In light of an new artistic competition with Not Just A Shop some current DPS students, alongside some new DPS students visited not just a shop for their annual competition. 

Every year they (Not Just A Shop) invite current students to design a range of limited edition Christmas cards to be printed and sold in UAL’s High Holborn Not Just A Shop space. Unlike previous years, this year they are collaborating with Tate who will be selecting, producing and selling the winning entries in their museum and gift shops from July 2019. Alongside this the cards will also be sold in not just a shop from November 2019.

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Dulwich Picture Gallery Hoarding Competition 

The illustration itself: As a majority of the Classical work in the Gallery is of landscapes or includes very detailed European landscapes, I focused on an illustration that takes imagery from Jungles and Forrest. This not only widens the subject matter than I could draw and include but would also work well alongside the themes of the new Pavilion that will be a major part of the hoardings location. With the Architecture of the new Pavilion using West African patterns and colour palettes, I wanted the illustrated hoarding piece to not draw away from this. Rather than distracting from the use of light from the new Pavilion, I wanted to add in another element of light.

With the fairly busy and 2D illustration, I considered an 3D element of having a moon, either made of LED lights, glow-in-the-dark paint or reflective paint that could use the light in the open space or add in another element of light. Alongside the bright and kaleidoscope like new Pavilion, this would create more interest to the piece. I took inspiration from the Gallery for the Moon as a lot of the pieces in the Galleries collection are of a darker colour palette, either form the ageing process or a reflection of the paint at the time. The Moon is also a key element of my piece, so as to play with another aspect of light that the Palace may not. It overall creates a more children’s book like piece, which would draw in interest from a younger audience and schools. Having a very Tanzanian/East African illustrative style, such as the large exaggerated nostrils and ambiguously coloured characters, I hoped that the piece wouldn’t make anyone feel unrepresented and instead be a fun outlook and subject matter for the Gallery.  

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Dulwich Picture Gallery Hoarding Competition

A majority of my inspiration for my piece was based on encouraging children, and schools to visit and be attracted to the Gallery more. This element would also bring in a wider audience, such as parents and teachers too. 

Wanting to use similar themes and thoughts as the Artists in the Gallery, I emerged myself into their manner of drawing women as well as plants, but interpreted this into a more modern style and one that is different from the ‘norm’. Recreating the aspects of old Renaissance paintings into a medium and style that is more familiar and comfortable with current society, this now being digital drawings.

“The Colour Palace will be an inspirational space for everyone to find themselves in art – in line with the Gallery’s founding principles.”

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Dulwich Picture Gallery Hoarding Competition 

Competition Brief:

To support emerging creative talent through the Dulwich Pavilion project and Gallery programme

To commission a new mural piece responding to the Gallery collection.

To offer engaging artworks which attract public interest and relate back to the Gallery’s collection.

To build audience awareness of the Pavilion and its key messages.

After a quick briefing at DPG, and visiting the space, I was instantly intrigued by how people ‘find’ or see themselves in Art and Galleries. With the Gallery aiming to become inclusive and enticing to a wider audience, I started to focus on a nostalgic feeling of how I saw galleries at a young age. With no one in Old Masters paintings looking like me, or mirroring any aspect of my identity, even as a woman, I wanted to create something that a younger generation would either see themselves in or not feel excluded from.

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Art Lab: Today at Apple with Alva Skog

Alva Skog is a Swedish illustrator based in London, UK. In 2018 she graduated with a BA in graphic design from Central Saint Martins, UAL.

A group of DPS students from the 0602 collective and third year IVM (illustration and visual media) students decided to go along to her talk at Apple Convent Garden to learn more about her style, process and how she’s grown from graduating last year, to now being featured in The Guardian and Apple. 

Whilst she talked us through her process of working on an iPad and with the Procreate app, she showed us time lapses of how she uses a warped sense of perspective, often exaggerating hands and feet to help her illustrate a story or news article.

She also explained that whilst her work often includes characters, she personally tries to make these look as gender fluid and diverse as she can, alongside fitting in her clients wants and needs from their briefs. Skog  explained that  in her last year of University (CSM Graphic Design) she was questioning more and more what she should do with her career after studying and started to apply for competitions, live briefs and going to more talks. This helped her expand her style, not only by listening to harsh criticism but also by gaining confidence in what works best for her in her own style. 

She then led us through a workshop and encouraged us to draw and experiment in a similar style as her, as she walked around the room giving us advice or teaching us little tips and tricks. At the end of the talk we each showed our work on the screen as people gave advice or words of praise. 

As far as workshops and talks go, this is definitely one of the most insightful platforms a few of us have ever been to. Rather than a small collection of some University workshops and talks that can feel over curated, tense and judgemental towards your work, Skog and the Apple team managed to curate a talk and safe space for artists and art enthusiasts to create and be productive in, all whilst teaching us more about a piece of technology thats becoming more and more highly desired for digital work. A few of us noted that this method of teaching and workshop tutorial was far easier to follow and be creative in then some of our past University experiences with workshops.

https://alvaskog.com

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‘SPORE’

Illustration and Visual Media Year 3′s Interim Show, 5th March

Whilst I’m currently on DPS and not participating in the current year 3′s final year shows, I went to support my peers and see what type of work everyone was creating. 

The room was filled with mostly classic illustration like mediums, from posters, screen prints and etches, however a lot of the larger and more interesting pieces were from students who ventured away from the ‘norm’ that you’d expect from an illustration course. From hand drawn animations that made visitors cry and laugh, to small hand bound booklets, zines and comics. 

Whilst a majority of the students displayed one major piece, some of the most interesting work came from people who made small collections of pieces. Such as a series of printed fish or diary like illustrations, to more digital and lucid like digital series. 

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All The Ways We Could Grow:

Instillation and art by Jessie Kaulbach and Spoken word by Travis Alabanza (curated by free word centre) 

Based around being a minority in some sort, from religion, race, sex, gender and preferences, the opening night of All The Ways We Could Grow was an insight into how, specifically, Travis Alabanza felt growing up as a member of the LGTBQA+ community. With spoken word displayed on the walls with large vinyl stickers, as well as mirrors on parts of the room with lipstick written confessions, the room was small but impactful. With no one in the room being a copy of anyone else, the night was full of diverse conversations and non judgemental comments.  

The highlight of the small collection was a corner section of the room being transformed into a bedroom. With intimate items in the theme of ‘pink’ and a ‘safe space’ aka a bedroom. 

The loud text on the wall, sometimes in wave like patterns, made the room come alive with storytelling as well as in visuals.

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A getaway to Amsterdam:

One of the most memorable stops in Amsterdam that I experienced was visiting the Van Gogh Museum. Whilst the Museum itself was fairly new and curated in it’s experience, the real show stoppers were seeing Van Gogh’s work in real life. From early sketches, love letters, and half finished pieces, his work spanned and caused a variety of emotional responses. 

From the beautifully aged blue Almond Blossoms creating a nostalgic and almost ages polaroid like feeling to the cross cultural pieces that touched on Japanese wood cut prints, feeling natural in his style of work. The Japanese pieces in particular had a strong sense of passion and heart, not only in the strong sense of brush marks, but also to the vivid colour palette which still remains as bright and sensational now. 

One of my favourite quotes from Van Gogh about his inspiration from the Japanese Arts:

“And we wouldn’t be able to study Japanese art, it seems to me, without becoming much happier and more cheerful, and it makes us return to nature, despite our education and our work in a world of convention.”

Vincent to his brother Theo, 23 or 24 September 1888

https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en