Jerwood Drawing Prize 

The Tetley

16 January- 1 March 

 Ara Choi, Mother No.0, 2013. Pen and crayon, 50 x 40cm
Winner of one student award 

Recently i went to the 20th Jerwood Drawing prize exhibition where it included 51 drawings by 46 artist selected from 3,234 submitted pieces of artwork. They was a vary of artwork using different techniques of drawing that I found intriguing but not interesting or exciting as i'm personally not an artist that creates artwork just by drawing as I prefer working with media, photography and paint as you can create pieces with more effects and processors. 

All the work was nicely displayed around The Tetley and the mixture of the work, worked with the interior of the building as well as the pieces was not very modern or vibrant as they was very monotone so they fitted well with the old interior. I wasn't fascinated by any of them really as none of them caught my attention and I was really disappointed with the winner of the prize, as the drawing prize was given to a sound piece by Alison Carlier entitled Adjectives, lines and marks what was 1 minute and 15 seconds long where she talks abut making a pieces of art. To me this is not a drawing and shouldn't of won the drawing prize. The sound piece it self was quite dull and many people walked past it not acknowledging that it was even in the exhibition.  

Hannah Downing
Vertical panorama: Oak tree
Graphite on paper 

Personally I felt like this drawing from Hannah Downing should of won the prize as its technically brilliant as my initial thought when I saw the piece was why is a photo in a drawing competition, but after looking closely and reading the description I then realized that it was actually a drawing. I also found the composition of the piece strange but intriguing on how the piece hangs from the wall but still rolled up at the bottom what makes the whole piece quite beautiful, 

Overall I was quite disappointed with the selected pieces of work as I only found a few interesting. I personally wont be going to see this exhibition again and I would only advise people who are interested in drawing to go and see this exhibition as i'm not a drawer and this really didn't excite me.  

Exhibition Review 

Portraits of Emotions 

Paul Digby 

The Tetley 16 January- 1 March 2015 

Gaynor, Satwant and David
Gaynor, 2014, Acrylic matt paint and oil bar on canvas 1.5x2m
Satwant, 2014, Acrylic oil bar on canvas 2x3m
David, 2014, Acrylic oil bar on canvas 2x3m 

 Paul Digby created these amazing large paintings of people that was from Leeds Adult Social Care  expressing the emotions of joy.  Due to the negative news of abuse in care centres, this exhibition was a celebration of the happiness and joy that people in care centres actually felt. 

 When I was at the exhibition opening I actually saw one of the people that was in the painting who was acting out his painting. His face was full of delight and I felt like I could connect to the piece and all the other pieces even more as this person was actually so happy in life. By seeing the person in the painting, made the emotions more realistic to me.

The large canvases was located in different areas around The Tetley, but they didn't suit the interior of the building as these are modern paintings. I feel like these paintings should be located in a more modern gallery space as the old interior took the shine of the paintings as well as the canvases not being straight.

The painting technique was very neat and smooth in some areas and the use of acrylic and oil paint was used in a high standard, as you could see the canvases closely. 

There was also a selection of drawings that was created by local schoolchildren where they had to draw themselves or a friend in response to emotion of happiness in workshops that Digby did. These was interesting as it was intriguing on how the kids would draw the response of happiness. 

The mixture of the paintings and the kids drawings didn't really flow but they was separately interesting and I would advise for people to see this exhibition as the paintings was technically good and expressed emotions, it was just a shame that they wasn't more of these paintings. I feel like this exhibition was appropriate to me as I always want my work to capture emotions and I felt like this shown me a different way to express emotions through portraiture and paint.

Tauseef, 2014
Acrylic oil bar on canvas
2x3m

Alexandra Bircken: Eskalation

1 October 2014- 25 January 2015 

Eskalation is Alexandra Bircken first solo exhibition in a UK institution. The exhibition shows a series of recent work by herself, showing a new approach in her practice. Her concepts are around 20th century sculpture such as males verse female and the handmade versus the mechanical. 

I found her work quite spooky and disturbing but that's the type of artwork that interests me the most as it intrigues me. I really like the unusual skin like bodies as they look dead or like they are slowly dyeing. 

Fellow, 2014

Fellow was one of my favourite pieces in the exhibition as it just dominated the whole room.

At 2 pm on the 17th of January I watched the Young theatre practitioners aged 14-19 responding to the contemporary art through performance.

I found this really interesting to watch as I've never watched anything like this before but I found it very intriguing and would watch another response to art through performance again.

Art Journals

Art journals are very important in the art world as they shows viewers a vary of things such as upcoming exhibitions, artist reviews, art competitions and they really just keep you up to date in the modern art world that's always developing and changing.

Yesterday I looked at 5 art journals and compared them to see which one I preferred. I looked at Flash Art, Art Forum, Art Review, Aperture and Photo works.

Flash Art Issue 299

Flash Art magazine to me I thought was very useful for practicing and professional artists as it was filled with a exhibitions dates, news, reviews and featured a vary of artists that I found intriguing as I found some I haven't came across yet, but now I'm going to research the artists in full depth where they are more than likely going to influence my future work.

 

Art Forum November 2014 issue

Art Forum was 3/4 full of just pages advertisings exhibitions that was world wide so for me that wasn't very useful as I'm a student and I cant afford to go to another country to see an exhibition even though I would love to. But it also had articles about films, artists and architecture but to me I felt like this magazine was just for advertisement purposes and that was it. Even though the magazine was presented well, as it was spacious but bright and looked intriguing, but at the same time this magazine was boring and the articles didn't catch my eye as a practicing artist as it just didn't interest me.

 

 

Art Review December 2014 issue

For me this magazine had too much writing in it and not enough actual artwork and even when they shown artwork in the magazine it was quite a small image, where I would prefer the image of a piece of artwork, to at least cover half of a page. It was full of advertisement, artists, exhibition dates and the same type of information that was in all the art journals, but this one was more focused on the words they was writing rather than the actual images of artwork.

 

Photoworks issue 21

I really thought Photoworks would interest me as photography is a big part of my practice, but I really wasn't interested in this magazine at all nothing made me want to focus on there pages when I was flicking through it. After being disappointed from looking through there magazine I decided to browse on there website what was so much interesting as there was lots of articles, projects and even a shop where you could buy books of well known photographers.

 

Aperture issue 217

 Pages from Aperture

Out of all the art journals I looked at Aperture was my favourite as it had all the useful information in, that it needed such as exhibition dates, photographers, competitions, interesting articles and so much more. As I love to do photography in my practice this magazine was very useful as it gave  me ideas and artists that I could research further down the line that may influence my work. With Aperture I also loved the layout of the magazine as it was simple, clear to read and looked very up to date and modern especially with the white background and black text as it wasn't full of colour and didn't look to busy.

Aperture is $24.95 what is quite a lot of money but compared to the other journals I looked at I would actually buy this one as it would benefit me with my practice, as I do a lot of photography work recently compared to just painting so the other journals wouldn't benefit me as much as Aperture would.

 



 

 All images can be found on the art journals websites:

http://www.flashartonline.com/

http://artforum.com/

http://artreview.com/

http://photoworks.org.uk/

http://www.aperture.org/

 

 

 

My Reflection of the individual and the social

My Reflection of the individual and the social

The individual and the social was the second project I received from Leeds College of Art where I had to pick a topic to focus on that what linked to the social and a topic that I would be interested in. At first I really struggled on what my topic could be as I had a discussion with my tutor and I had hardly anything I was interested in, a part from art, after a long meaningful discussion we discovered that I was a people watcher and that I like to observe people. With having something that I was finally interested in, I then needed to link it to the social part where I decided to make my project on how easily people judge now days as so many people are judgmental.

Because I wanted to focus on people judging others, I decided that I would need imagery of people, so as a starting point I went into town and took a vary of images of bunches of people. After looking at the images I selected my favourite and painted over areas as I wanted to express that if we couldn't see their faces or bodies would we still judge them on the way they stand or so on. With my work I just wanted to get the viewer thinking. I did quite a lot of work based around this idea using the photos but these three are my most successful ones as I feel like they express the meaning well behind the piece.



Acrylic paint on photograph

 I applied the paint using a palette knife as I wanted a texture that was thick and rough looking as I don't want the viewer to see what's behind the paint as I'm trying to express that it doesn't matter what's behind the paint it doesn't matter what we look like.  

Acrylic paint on photograph

 I would of preferred it if the images was more interesting like the first image as the image is quit full and there not a lot of negative space whereas the other two are quite empty.

Acrylic paint on photograph

 After working with photographs I wanted to try something different so I decided to work with items of clothing as I feel like now days we are always judged on our appearances and how we dress and if our clothes have brands on or not. I worked with a vary of clothes such as pants, a blazer, baby grows and a hoodie.

Hoodie with acrylic paint

I applied paint to the clothes in areas as I just wanted to represent that its the person beneath the clothes that is more important. I also did a blazer but I felt like it didn't work very well as it didn't hang on the wall as well as I wanted it to as I wanted it to look like a persons posture. I got lots of positive feedback from the hoodie so I might pursue doing work like this is the future.

Blazer and hoodie with acrylic paint

Pants with wire words

Baby grow with handmade head made from wire, masking tape and acrylic paint

I also wanted to focus on the younger generation and how a mother might be judged for how their baby is dressed. with these two pieces I didn't want to paint on the baby grows as I wanted to try something different so I decided to make their faces and focus more on how I hanged the baby grows and the composition of the piece as I wanted to try to make this piece quite weird and unusual to see if I would get an reaction from the viewers. As I always want a reaction from a viewer.

Baby grows with handmade head made from wire, masking tape and acrylic paint

After looking back at my previous work I decide to go back to working with photographs as I thought it expressed my theme better as some people struggled to understand the pieces with clothes.

Photographs with acrylic paint

 I feel like these pieces work better to express my theme and makes the viewer think more.

Polaroid pictures

I was quite happy with these pieces but these didn't really get a reaction from the viewer I want to shock people with my artwork I don't want them to just walk past it. So instead of painting or removing faces from an image I decided to make a numerous of masks made from latex free gloves as it gave me an unusual material to work with what I wanted as I didn't think a lot of people would know what they are made from. I originally painted the masks but I just preferred the images to be in black and white as they looked more freaky and scary.

I believed these photos was missing something so I decided to develop them further and stick more material over them to obscure the face even more. And make the composition into a set of 4 what I thought worked a lot better and I got the reaction from the viewer that I wanted.

2D relief photos



I loved doing this project as I created work that I wanted to do, I used a vary of materials and I also made artwork that I didn't think I would ever do. Do this project has made me realize that I want to create work that's going to get attention or shock people because if I don't get a reaction I don't feel like my artwork is doing its job properly. I also feel like I'm more than likely going to be placed into the media strand at college as I have worked with a lot of photography and I am more than likely to experiment with more photography down the line but I also feel like I want to experiment with producing video art as its always something I would like to do. After finishing this project I now need to think on what I want to focus on in the future either stick to a similar theme or try doing something totally new. But with my next project I feel like I should research more artists so I would have a vary of artist to influence me.

Strengths & weaknesses 

Strengths 

• Creating artwork that's more my style 
• Working with a vary of materials.
• The use of clothes worked better than I thought so this is something that I want to carry on further. 
• I feel like the use of mix media works very well especially with paint and imagery.

Weaknesses

• Not much artists research. 
• I feel like my 2D relief pieces could of looked more professional if I spent more time on them.

Reflection of Fine Art Practice 1 Transformation and Translation

Reflection of my practice

Throughout my time at Six form I always presumed I was a painter due to me always creating paintings for my coursework and even my art teachers told me that my practice was painting but this was due to the lack of facilities they had and how we wasn't even allowed to create a mess in our own art room so it was hard to experiment with a vary of materials and medias. After Six form I decided to go and study a foundation course in art and design as I felt like I didn't have enough experience in different medias to go to university. This course allowed me to experiment with photography, print making, performance art and so much more. During my foundation course I focused more on photography and trying out performance art what I felt like I connected with more than just simply painting as I want to create artwork with a meaning and also that has a story behind it what would intrigue the audience. From doing foundation I knew I was ready to start university.

Starting Leeds College of Art

Transformation and Translation

Transformation and Translation was the first project we was given in our Fine art degree. In this project we had to transform and translate our summer project work where we created a piece based on our own practice and emerged it with another artist. I decided to pick Marlene Dumas as I find her artwork very interesting as I prefer to work with portraits and that's her main subject matter.

Summer Work based on Marlene Dumas

Barbie 1995
Watercolour on paper
66 x 50 cm

For my summer project I have two pieces as the top one was my original work but I really disliked it as I used a mixture of photographs and watercolour drawings together what I thought would work but the composition of the piece looked to busy so I decided to make it more simple by just using a part of a photo on tracing paper and lay it over watercolours what worked so much better as the piece didn't look as busy as the other piece.

Created with charcoal, ink, pen and masking tape

I began transforming the piece by just enlarging areas that I thought was quite expressive from my summer work as I just wanted to experiment to see what I could produce and if it would work or not. with these two I prefer the eye piece as its more realistic and in better proportion than the other work. But with both of them I find the mixture of material I used to create the pieces looked effective as I wanted a texture affect in my work as I never want to see my work looking dull and flat.

Emotional responses from my summer piece's



Wire sculptures on paper  

These pieces all represent the 3 feelings that I got from my summer pieces. The 3 feelings was sad, Anger and confusion. I tried to represent these emotions in a vary of materials, here are just a selection of my pieces that express them emotions.








Charcoal and watercolour on paper

Watercolour on paper

At the beginning of this project I was struggling on what to produce but with just experimenting I created these pieces that I find visual pleasing that are all different but quite the same due to the colour pallet I used as I only used colours that would resemble them 3 emotions.

I also produced artwork that I created by making a set of rules and translating them into artwork but I found this boring and irritating as I wasn't in control of the work I was making and it just looked rubbish to me.

Overall this project got me to just experiment and mix materials together but it also made me produce artwork that's not me as I want to create work that I'm excited about and interests me, as if I'm not intrigued about my own work why would I expect a viewer to be.



Strengths & weaknesses 

Strengths 

• Working and experimenting with a mix of materials.
• Working in a vary of sizes.
• Creating artwork that's all quite individual. 

Weaknesses 

• Creating work that i'm not visually happy with.
• Not experimenting with 3D work.