On tuesday we had the external examiners in to talk to us and I had the fortune not to be one to be selected for interview, but apparently it means there is more than a chance at the end of the term. So it was a day of waiting around really with feedback received for one of our modules from last year but no final mark.
On the wednesday, we got feedback from the work we did last year. As it is our final year, the level of detail we get back from the lecturers is increasing all the time, and of course, as the work is so personal to everyone, there are naturally some hard punches in the contents but when you read it a few times to have to accept that everything said within the report is valid, fair and more importantly feeds you advice on artistic direction to conclude the work this year for the end of year show.
So all in all, I am not unhappy. I had already worked out at the end of last year that text pieces were the way forward for this year and this is confirmed in the feedback.
So now I need to start at the beginning again in terms of research but I do not feel I am in a bad position at all, I know the direction of what I want to do; that is paintings on mdf with text, embracing the process of painting but I need to now delve in great detail into the artists and concepts/history of language in art, especially in our modern day commodity culture as this will greatly affect how I can move this forward.
So I have a medium and a theme. Now I need to play with content, what text will I end up using? The feedback suggests words with ambiguity will work much better than others I have used and I need to begin to understand and work this this idea better but before that I need to gather information and do the research.
I have been to see Dave in woodworking and ordered a number of A4 and A3 MDF boards for the forthcoming text pieces. I have a number of ideas already and there include:
Review of new set of magazines, to get headlines/straplines I can appropriate
Do Not Cross The Line photograph from the Tate London
my own quote ‘Life is a game, you just have to decide if you want to play or not’ done as a test in the style of Christoper Wool where the viewer has to work to read the lines as they flow down onto the lower line.
So I have some ideas already. I have been to the library and found a book on appropriation, art and text and have ordered an ART WORD AND IMAGE as a present to myself as I know it will assist me greatly with my theme.
So a start but very early days.
