Degree Final Year Blog

Here is some work I submitted for the Fine Art Auction my course held on the 10-03-2015 at UCS Ipswich. The auction was held to raise money for the Fine Art Degree Show which will be happening in the beginning of June. It was a successful auction, with almost every piece of work being sold. This was the first time I have submitted a piece of work, and also to sell a piece of work. It didn’t go for much, but to me that isn’t the importance. I’m really grateful that someone was interested in having a piece of my work, let alone bid for it!
It was a great evening, with amazing team work from my fellow course mates. A successful evening all round!

Here is some photography work by the artist Glyn Davies. He used nude models and took images of them in the welsh landscape. I was really intrigued by this work as it used the landscape of my home. It is very raw material, and by using nude models I feel it personifies the landscape, and shows the intimate relationship between landscapes and human’s. Both are most beautiful when at their most natural. The images also demonstrate the small scale of human’s compared to the incredible landscape/universe. This is what draws me to a landscape, as it makes the problems and worries of everyday life seem insignificant in comparison. The work Glyn Davies created was the result of a three year project exploring fragility and vulnerability when human’s are exposed to the elements of the natural landscape.

He said: “The landscape is so huge or the weather is so incredible. You’re standing on a knife-edge ridge on a mountain and you somehow need to put scale into the images. Partly (for) the scale and partly for that sense of vulnerability – of being in a big, wild landscape. The problem is if you stand there in your latest Gore-Tex kit, your mountain boots, crampons and ice axe there’s a sense of still being removed from the landscape and from the elements.”

In this set of works I have focused on working on the beach using sand. I began feeling like I was going through a creative block. To bring myself out of this stage I looked at landscape photos I had taken and did some pattern drawing on them, the pattern shape developed from a certain influential detail in the image such as stone, patterns of the sea. Through repeating this pattern I find it encourages my mind to explore itself more and become more creative. After this exercise I started experimenting with some wire in the studio, still feeling uninspired I decided to take myself to an outdoors location. I got on bike and cycled to the beach, similar to Hamish Fulton, I’m realising how vital the bike ride/hike to a location is to my work, it begins the process of clearing my mind.
I found I understand a location which to me felt like a blank canvas, influenced by my image of the patterned beach, I recreated these patterns in the sound. I spent 2 hours on location drawing these patterns non stop. The process ended when I was unable to carry on due to blisters. I find this interesting as it demonstrates the obsessive focus I enter, I feel this focus is another world I enter,away from the constrainting, judgemental world I live in.

I realised during the process my drawings started going a certain direction, I believe this was because I was aware of someone sat on the beach and in my avoidance of this person my work changed direction. I feel when other people around, it breaks my cycle, and brings me back to the real world.

The person walked past me and my work, avoiding stepping on my drawings. I noticed he’d been sat drinking a beer. This amused me, I wasn’t the only one escaping to nature however his method of response was alcohol, mine is art.
He threw his beer can into a bush, this bewildered me and encouraged me to question man’s relationship with nature, although my work was natural and non permanent this person avoided stepping on my work, but didn’t care about throwing rubbish over nature. It makes me wonder what if all of nature was ‘decorated’ or moulded into something beautiful, would man kind have more appreciation and respect? Perhaps, this is what I am unintentionally doing with my work. I have decided I would like to create an engaging piece of work to encourage the spectators/participants to think about this and the impact on nature.

Title: Slioch Hilltop Cairn/Circling Buzzards.1980. Medium:2 photographs, black and white, on paper and transfer lettering. Image: 1181 x 870 mm.

Title: Eroded Rock Outline Beinn Mheadhoin. From Ten Toes towards the Rainbow: Date: 1988, 1991.Medium: Screenprint on paper. Dimensions: Image: 632 x 911 mm

Title: The Pilgrim’s Way. Date: 1971. Medium: Photograph, black and white, on paper with dry transfer print mounted onto board. Dimensions: Image: 150 x 225 mm. support: 570 x 625 mm

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/hamish-fulton-1133

Hamish Fulton: work resulted from walks in landscape. His work represented his walks through a combination of words and photographs. His reaction to a walk depended on the length of the walk and the number of photos taken. His walks were an essential part of his work. There wasn’t any work created if there was no walk. Hamish described how the physicality of walking helps evoke a state of mind and a relationship to the landscape. Fulton believes that there is very strong correlation between the state of mind and walking performance. During his walks he tries to empty his mind, enhancing meditative quality of walking.
I like his work because it shows a different response to a natural setting, his use of words, repeating and photography. Although his work looks fairly simple, there is a lot more to it when you look into it, it captures the simplicity of the natural world, what one tries to achieve in this setting. His work also showed me the importance of the process of the physical aspect of being in a natural landscape, the walking/biking/running is all part of the process that I should from now on document more of.

In this book, Kastner describes the importance of a person’s connection with their environment. It is one of the contributors of the human condition. We worship and destroy the environment. He describes how as human’s we “We aspire to leave our mark, inscribing our observations and gestures within the landscape, attempting to translate and transgress the space within which we find ourselves… Landscape functions as a mirror and a lens: in it we see the space occupy and ourselves as we occupy it.”

Landscape art first began by a group of artists who all shared the idea that sculptural creativity could exist in a world away from institution, in an organic location. These artists were Michael Heizer, Robert Morris, Robert Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim, Wa;ter De Maria.
The critic Barbara Rose also described how artist’s turned to landscape art through
“A dissatisfaction with the current social and political system results in an unwillingness to produce commodities which gratify and perpetuate that system” (critic Barbara Rose, 1969, Artforum article).

I learnt from this book there are many different types of landscape art, which include:

PLATFORM: This is when artist’s work with the local community to restore damaged environments caused by human intervention. Goals :”to [provoke] desire for a democratic and ecological society… [and to] create an imagined reality which is different from the present reality”.

Performative: process based nature of land art based on mark-making, cutting, agglomeration and relocation.

Landscape interruption: joining the environment and human activity by employing man-made materials ranging from asphalt or glue: the works expand to match the large scale of the environment itself. They use manufactured substacnes and structures; to harness natural elements.

Involvement: Works here focus on the artist as an individual acting in a one-to-one relationship with the land. Some artists use their bodies to make a performative relationship with an organic environment. Emphasizing a primal link with the earth. Others react against, by making transitory and ephermal gestures. Examples of this: an artist taking a walk across a field, subtly realigning elemnts within it to mark their passage. Artists also use their bodies to map the landscape, presenting photographic documentation of their journies. Relevant artists:Kazu Shiraga. Peter Hutchinson. Charles Simonds.

Reflecting on my own practice I believe I work within a combination of these categories, such as Platform, Performative and Landscape interruption. Although I like the idea of creating more performance based work as an important aspect for my work is to be able to cycle/run/walk to a rural location and “discover”. This is a vital part of the creative process for me.