Tacita here has created a great example of how well negative and positive spaces work together. From my understanding, she uses a film camera and uses both prints of the positive and negative spaces to show the transitional state between the two which then gives this beautiful outcome that lets the subject of the image stand out in another way, which I find more intriguing personally as portrays the tree in a new perspective.
I looked at Tacita’s Purgatory exhibition as inspiration as her negative and positive technique was very new to me and I hadn’t looked at or thought about it properly in the past so I tried the use of inverting the colours on photoshop and playing around with selecting certain objects seen in the foreground and background.
When thinking of verbs, I think of instructions, words telling you what’s happening or is about to happen so instead I wanted to use a space where instructions aren’t usually followed. The space used is my garage, photographed in front of a large shelf with paint pots, brushes, useful chemicals, tools and small knickknacks. I come here and look around, remind myself of what I’ve collected to inspire my thought process when thinking of art. Whilst photographing I wanted to include multiple verbs in one, so I decided to include unordinary objects which allow my imagination to think freely. I own some road signs where I plan to do a large series of artworks, in the future; incorporating this signage with their light-sensitive glow gave me a sense that I could play around with light more. Using the camera flash and the mirror I decided to see how reflected light could look when reflected from multiple directions allowing it to bounce in places you wouldn’t think. With the road signs displaying words, some saying an action and others giving a statement, I wanted to have my subject play around with their body, doing all sorts of actions whether it was to follow the signs or not. This gave him more freedom to create a whole new space as the photograph was now also his own.
This week’s brief personally had me stumped. I haven’t normally used photography in the past very often, especially when asked to use the body as the element throughout it. I wanted to and tried my best to incorporate light. Whether that was to bounce the light, have it reflected, or even use objects which absorbed the light.
Whilst playing around I realised my street signs are perfect for use of a flash camera. I played around with different arrangements of the signs, as well as mirrors to see how it bounces and reflects.
The images that display only the signs, were tests to see how flash would react to the signs in a dark lit room. I captured moments in between the flash and the photo itself, as well as blurry moments before focussing, I found the detail fascinating as the light bounces, I realised that bouncing is most commonly used as an action that the human body can do so I found this the most interesting when I went on to incorporate it with my subject in the following shoot.
In my works above, I first tried to look at history. I have an old small chair that’s been passed down in my family made in the 1920s. Seeing that this chair is older than a lot of my family members It had more of a connection to this land than everything else found on this property. Although just showing you a random small chair in the middle of a grass patch wouldn’t tell you that. That is one way I feel it creates discussion, why else would there be a random small chair in a random grass patch?.
Throughout my testing, I decided to try a use of a mirror, something conventional and used almost every day by almost everyone. I placed it in spots looking at it from all angles to see where my mind followed. I found myself almost looking through a portal. no reflection of what was directly in front but instead a reflection of somewhere else entirely. This lets me play with my imagination by looking for places that I want my mirror to show me. Without actually being there. With the use of Lightroom, I had the opportunity to play with colours and focus on where I wanted the attention of the viewer to focus.
Artist Research
Roman Ondak
Roman Looks at everyday life. He looks at objects, decorations, etc. He takes these and represents them in a way that is very discursive. One way he would do this is, to relocate these things in a way that would bring up many conversation starters. He looks at things that would especially not make any sense. This was due to his upbringing under the communist regime and how he found his way of living to not make sense to him.
Iris Bechtol
Iris uses a range of materials in her works, she purposely tries to avoid the use of the same materials and processes to create a much more discursive environment around her work. She also draws her attention to the environment and her own “lived experience” as she creates her pieces so no one is the same as the other. I find this compelling as she goes out of her way to think this way as she is making, no matter the length of time it takes her to finish.
This brief had me on the edge, I was out of ideas as the brief had confused me. I ended up walking around and taking a few busses to places, looking for things I found interesting and unique to that physical space, something you could only find there at that moment.
As I had been limited to only the use of my iPhone Xr. The camera quality is not as good as I would have hoped. I decided to pick my favourites and upload them into lightroom and played around for a hours, seeing how the light showed can be affected. I decided to do my shoot at night. This was because I do like having the freedom of walking around at night having to be bothered by the public but although I did feel it let my creative side have more freedom as I had to look harder for things that should stand out. It gave me an appreciation for things that I wouldn’t normally see if it were the middle of the day.
For this brief, I had decided to work from home. This was only due to that I had been feeling sick the past few days. Within the constraints of being at home, I went looking all around the house and out to the garden to see what I could find. In the first work, I decide to find pieces/objects/textures that I may be looking at every day without realising. I found things and looked at them in a few ways than before. I experimented first by trying to use them in such a way that would have the objects make the art yet it didn’t turn out as practical as I hoped. I then found myself tracing over the objects with a pencil in a rapid motion, displaying their textures in a way I hadn’t seen before.
In my final work, I wanted to incorporate outside. whilst wondering a came across this old chicken wire that had been rolled up and not used in a few years. Due to the holes throughout the sheet, I compared it to a stencil. using what I could find I cut a square out and covered it in paints. Due to the metal being bent in places, it was tricky to press down all sides down on the paper. Yet taking away the wire created this dotted work which I feel gave a real sense of depth to the image.
Artist Research
CORA-ALLAN WICKLIFFE
Cora-Allan is a great example for situation work. I went and visited her exhibition at Te Uru Gallery as it is very close to my home. In this exhibition, she had an entire floor to herself where she uses all sorts of minerals, powders, materials found all over Aotearoa. She has also displayed the minerals she used in little bottles showing how she collected her colours. Seeing these in person really gave a feeling of connection to the paintings and almost how she hadn’t made them, but instead, the materials had. They were just communicated through her.
For this work, I had layered multiple sheets of paper and cut square holes in them to create a depth effect. Once I had realised that it didn’t show as well as I thought once I had stuck it together so I got creative and used this line design all over. I had first seen this style somewhere on Instagram but unfortunately, I can’t find the artist. I felt having the black underneath the white gave it a feel that it was popping out at you which was my original goal.
I had found this Maccas bag in the bin at my home from when I had ordered dinner over the weekend. I cut one side off and folded it into a grid outlining the Maccas logo to create indents all over. I felt it wasn’t enough so I drew around each logo to give it a 3D effect. I first saw this done by a few BFA students in 2021 in a large exhibition filling an entire room with these.
This large circle in the middle was created using large long strips of masking tape. For the outer circle, the tape was rolled into small rectangles arranged in a circle. The spiral was made using one long strip of tape scrunched into a long rope almost. it was then rolled into a spiral and using PVA, glued to the centre. The black paint over top gave it a layer that made the tape really stand out showed depth to the image.
Artist Research
Reuben Paterson
Reuben’s art practices range from large artworks to sculptures to patterns, you name it. Being New Zealander he incorporates Maori practices as much as he can. In his recent works, he uses glitter over the top of vibrant colours displaying beautiful patterns. His choice of colours and foreground bring a kind of life to his work you don’t normally see. the glitter lets the light hit his work to give another type of sense of depth.
Whilst making these pieces I really had to push myself out of my comfort zone as I have never really created work where I didn’t know how the outcome would turn out. I find that my technique of sketching and creating detailed drawings with the use of pencils and black ink pens are my strong suit so I tried to incorporate that where I could or where I felt it suited. I did have trouble following the guide on how to transfer the images but although, I did persevere and go through with it still to create a piece where I didn’t let my judgement take control. I used a collection of images I liked, found on websites such as Unsplash, Pinterest and Behance as well as old cartoon doodles from my Primary school days. I found that these had the highest quality compared to images found on Google or Instagram. Where the paper had ripped, taking away what was, I would normally restart as I find this extremely annoying but instead with a new perspective, I saw that it adds to the untold story shown.
Artist Research
Mikhael Subotzky
Mikhael uses his technique of transfer processes to engage and capture the attention of critiques through the messy-ness and uncoordination of his work and how his images can be representative of many things. In the work above, I found the most intriguing, He uses a special tape (J Lar) for this process. I find that the subtle use of only this technique and mixing the two photos creates a whole new story itself, indistinguishable from one another.
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert’s particular transfer processes show that he picks apart moments in history, none in order from one another. The images used are not shown in their entirety, giving the feeling there’s more to the story behind his works. He uses a hatching technique with the other end of a pencil/pen that makes the images look as if they came to life with just a simple hand gesture drawn over and over, back and forth. His use of colours are subtle but yet that gives the works their own history as it seems everything is withered and faded.
This week we were given the task to create collaborative work. The first work shown is a collaboration of doodles between myself and the rest of my small group that we had broken up into. We decided covid was a good topic as it is still very current in the news today, and as we had to create this work at home away from each other. Each of us drew what we feel or think about when we think of covid/isolation/lockdown etc.
Below is a work that my family and I had worked on. I had decided we do an asynchronous piece so that we each had our own time to add whatever we liked or felt was needed to it. The boat has meaning to my dad as he has always drawn it for me since I was very young, I’m starting to believe that he can’t draw anything else. Nevertheless each of us had our own input into the piece which I feel has brought us closer.
Lastly is an asynchronous piece that only my sister (Lizzie, 16yo) and I had worked on. I gave myself 10 minutes to start it and then gave it to her for another 10 to add whatever she liked. We kept this going, for an hour or so, back and forth till one of us had given up.
Before this past week had started, I knew nothing of iteration. Through the making of these pieces, I came to realise my life is surrounded by it and there’s a beauty to that. I see the same things everywhere, but by noticing the variations of these things you feel appreciation, appreciation towards how art can be found anywhere. Whether it’s the difference in colours, shapes, patterns, size, etc.
Whilst being in isolation at home and with iteration on my mind, I notice with all the textures and decorations what I hadn’t looked at in this way before. The drawing of the gunpowder flasks was especially important to me as these have been in my family for many years, just left hung up on the wall. By looking at their similarities and differences (and the amount) I felt connected to my family’s history and how this collection first came to be. The same goes with the collage of patterns and textures I felt connected to around my home.
Iterative Research
Allan McCollum
Allan McCollum focuses his iterative art-making process on mass production. Whether that’s with physical objects, sculptures, or a lot of variations of one thing. He tries to explore how objects can have personal meaning, that could mean for himself or for the public. Each piece was unique in its own way as not one other was the same, yet they were… the same. Allan in this photo is sitting in front of just one of his works, the shapes project. This work, in particular, is very impressive as he devised a way to create a large number of unique shapes where not a single one was the same. He believed he could create over 31 Billion shapes. Enough that everyone on the planet could have their own assigned shape.
Sol LeWitt
His work helped establish multiple movements such as minimalism and conceptual. Most of his works are iterative, you see it profoundly in his works where he uses a wall as a canvas. His creativity on how such simple designs can be beautiful really stands out to me. All they are, are a collection of either black and white or vibrant colours arranged in such a way to create shapes and designs, which seem so simple yet genius. His work, Ten Thousand Lines stand out to me the most, as I feel it’s the most simple but yet his end product is so eye-catching that it makes you really think about how anything can be art. It gives a sense of peace as nothing chaotic is happening but rather unity and formality.
