I’m sure I’ve said on here (and if i haven’t it’s been playing on my mind) that I want my works to be more visually refined than they have been. I’m not pleased with my crude use of gaffer tape and quickly cut lettering and have already made the decision since assessment that i will spend some time developing a more precise aesthetic in my work.
Whilst visiting the IKON GALLERYtoday i saw a show which had some really interesting links to my practice. It was RON TERADA’sfirst solo show in Europe and featured posters, signs, text work and a sort of relational environment consisting of beanbags for viewing a video of a turntable playing a record, also in the space was a pile of records to be taken away with the viewer.
There were quite a few things from this exhibition which raised my interest, firstly the relational space itself was really interesting and i felt the methodologies used for public interaction with a highly produced product to be taken away is something i need to consider when making new work. However the work which most caught my attention was his “welcome to Vancouver” sign, having tried working with signage before and then seeing TERADA’s sign i realised i was working with the symbol, image or idea of a sign and need to work more with the realistic form of a sign to be pleased with my use of it as a method of communication. Hence another thing I plan on doing over summer is to examine actual signs paying attention to the ways they are constructed, installed and observed as well as paying attention to the typeface used and other such details.
