Rizzla Series
Peter Blake in 2005 made some silkscreen prints of Cigarette packets. These found objects (Modified objects not normally considered art, because they have no artistic function), inspired Blake to incorporate within his work.
He used photographs, cigarette packets and matchboxes. The objects inspired him to use the concept of found art, and finding beauty within everyday objects.
I also took some pictures of the piece outside, because I wanted to make a statement about litter and the throw away society we live in.
Although hard to capture the scale of the object, the images came out really well and do make you think about giant packets of litter, just laying around in parks, roads, and water.
This again would make people stop and think about environmental issues and pollution, so I was pleased with the images and surroundings of these other photos.
To give the piece even more life, I wanted to photograph something with it, which would give the viewer an idea of the scale of the object.
This was important, because like Claus Oldenburg with his giant sculptures, I wanted to confuse the viewer.
If an object is iconic and true to form but changed in some way, the viewer will have to double take.
This I wanted to capture in my work, so I got another student to put their boot down above the cube.
This worked perfectly well, and I was pleased with the outcome of the image.
Once I had done this, I tore up some pieces of tin foil and added them to the compost.
This I did because it looked like the foil that the Oxo cubes are wrapped in, inside the box of an original pack of Oxo cubes.
I then photographed the piece on a white board, which turned out great. It looked realistic on a larger scale, but most importantly I managed to salvage the work, instead of just moving on to something else entirely.
The Oxo Cube Project
The Oxo cube packet I found on Google images, so it was unknown to me who scanned the image onto the Internet in the first place.
Without realising it, I decided to use this image to be printed out on an A1 scale. This was a mistake that I later realised after the printing was finished.
The dimensions, which looked correct, were actually wrong.
All the sides of the box were correct, it was the top and bottom parts of the Oxo cube that didn’t add up.
Through my confusion, I realised that whoever scanned the original image, did not scan the packet flat.
This meant that the top and bottom of the box was slightly too short, in order to reconstruct it on a larger scale.
This was a lesson learned on my part, and from now onwards I will scan the packaging flat myself, so I know it will be accurate.
Although I was disappointed with this piece, I could still use it in another way.
So I reconstructed the piece and glued it all together apart from the top or lid of the box.
This I would then fill with some compost another student had.
The idea of the compost was to still give the effect of Oxo granules.
