Author: Hachyn

Week 7 – Painting Brief Reflection 

 The first half of this semester has been a huge struggle for me. Due to a lot of personal issues I haven’t had the time to properly come in to class and follow through with the painting brief. if that makes any sense? Although I have produced some art works, I feel as though I could’ve done a bit better. Another thing that i think i can improve on the next half of semester is doing artist research to help me develop ideas for the next brief that i do. Overall i think i did alright for this painting brief despite missing out on a lot of lessons.

PROCESSES AND CONCEPTS I ENJOYED:

My favourite brief from this semester would have to be “Just a Minute!”. I’ve always found an interest in photography but never took it seriously until we started this brief. I enjoyed capturing photos that speak up about the problems we overlook in the Maori and Polynesian communities. Overall, I loved all the briefs we’ve done this semester. Even though I struggled with most of them I enjoyed getting to try out new techniques such as sculpture, transfer image etc and pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

WHAT I SUCCEEDED IN:

The work I feel was most successful was probably the ‘Just a Minute’ brief. I found it easy to express what I wanted to say about overlooked situations in the Maori and Pacifica communities through the photographs I took of my brothers. I enjoy taking photos so this brief was pretty easy and a fun process. I also feel like I succeeded in the ‘Change It up’ Animation brief. Although I wasn’t present for most of the lessons and wasn’t able to install my work in the studio, I enjoyed making my animated framework in photoshop. It was a struggle but I ended up liking what I created.

WHAT I FOUND CHALLENGING:

For me, I think being present in class was what I found most challenging for the second half of this semester. I didn’t show up to some of the lessons due to personal reasons and missed out on installing my frames from the animation brief. I also found using photoshop and adobe software very difficult. Had to watch a lot of YouTube tutorials to create my work and see how things work in photoshop.

TWO WAYS I COULD IMPROVE MY STUDIO PRACTICE NEXT SEMESTER:

1 – I would like to feel more confident and comfortable when coming into the studio next sem. I always doubt myself when I see other students’ works and tend to overthink (like am I following the brief properly, is what I’ve done okay) if that makes any sense? I fell behind for the second half of this semester and feel like some of the work I have created was rushed… Next semester I am going to prioritise my studio work and make sure not to overthink things, after all this is all a part of the learning process.

2 – Doing more artist research for the briefs. This is something that could help me out a bit more when it comes to developing ideas and thinking of what methods I should try to explore. If that makes sense. I always find myself struggling to come up with ideas or even make a start on my work, so putting in more time to do some artist research would help me out.

Till next semester, have a great one fam 🙂

Final Sculpture 

I’m not great with words so don’t mind me if I don’t make sense lol. Here is the final result of my sculpture. To be honest I feel as though I could’ve used more materials and made use of the space surrounded by my sculpture but overall I feel like I met the brief and did an okay job. I thought it would’ve been hard to cut out my shapes and print out my designs but I ended up liking what I learned in the labs. I think adding in the ie lavalavas (traditional Samoan clothing), boxes and turtle carvings was a good idea, considering I didn’t know what I wanted to create with my shapes. This brief tested me and made me go beyond my comfort zone – I’ve never worked with wood or drilled materials into the wall so this brief was quite fun to do. My intention for this sculpture was to relate it to my homeland, Samoa.

I am proud of the work that I have produced in studio for the end of semester one.

The overall favourite animation that I have created. Developing animations in photoshop was fun but stressful. I honestly struggled with coming up with concepts and creating different images in the frames. Although it was stressful I learned a lot. A simple 4-second animation inspired by my favourite rappers, Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.

Lyrics from their most popular songs “Keep your head up” and ” Juicy” were used to create context behind this animation. The line “They got money for wars but can’t feed the poor” is pretty much a reflection of what’s happening in the world now. The government is more focused on using government money for wars more than taking care of those who are in need.”Skys the limit” – Humble beginnings. For those that are starting from the bottom, there is a chance to accomplish their dreams. By working hard for what you want, you’ll get to where you want to be.”Shook ones” – The term ‘shook one’ is slang and the name of a song by the infamous rapper Mob Deep. A shook one is a person that acts hard, but when it comes down to confrontation, is a coward making the person a shook one.

Background music: Juicy – The Notorious B.I.G

My first animated piece is based on the video game ‘Grand theft auto; San Andreas’. We were asked to base our animations around things that we like so I decided to use one of my childhood video games as inspiration. If anything, I hated using a laptop to create animations. I found it quite annoying trying to draw from a mouse. This wasn’t the outcome that I wanted for my first animated piece but all part of the process, right?

Sadly due to personal problems, I couldn’t install any of my artwork for this brief into the studio nor finish parts of the brief. I wanted to develop the ideas of hip hop and graffiti as my theme as I grew up listening to this kind of music and have always been fascinated by the beauty of graffiti. I took inspiration from rappers such as Mob Deep, Tupac and The Notorious B.I.G as some of their songs speak on topics like poverty, stereotypes and I guess everyday problems. By using their lyrics I was able to develop the ideas I had in mind. Quite often rap is seen as a genre that represents gang violence and promotes criminal acts (such as drug dealing and homicide) but what some fail to understand is that these are things that people grow up around and are all they’ve ever known… I’ll continue this idea in my future work.

Overall, I’m proud of what I have created. Even though it’s not much I’m happy with the aesthetic I chose and how my prints + animations turned out. I would’ve done more if I had the chance but I know I’ll do better in the future. 🙂

The second attempt of site seeing wasn’t too difficult to execute. I decided to take a bus ride into town to explore different sites and came across this old building that had graffiti along the side of the wall. My interpretation of ‘what makes a site specific?’ is how graffiti can alter the character of a location.  Even though graffiti is seen as vandalism, it does have its good intentions.

It took me awhile to understand what we were doing for this brief but i kind of got the ideas flowing after getting advice from our tutor in studio. She said to try connecting graffiti with surface I sat outside of the art building and placed a big piece of paper over the footpath and traced over the surface with charcoal.  I then decided to add random tagging’s and drawings. I think that this was a good attempt but there is room for more improvement.

Sunsets on Southside

For my first attempt of the Site Seeing brief i decided to take a few photographs in my grandmothers house that is based in Manurewa. I’ve always admired the beauty of sunsets, it brings me peace and stops time. Every time the sun sets in my nanas house, bright colours reflect into the rooms. It kind of brings me a sense of nostalgia that i can’t really explain.

Verb: to smoke

Once again i am not quite sure if i followed through with this weeks brief but here is attempt two of ‘Just a Minute’. This artwork was a result of the exploration of the Verb ‘to smoke’. This photoshoot was quite interesting to put together – especially because I was working with my cousins. I had this idea of having my older cousin Joshua (left) make it look like he’s influencing my younger cousin Elijah (right) to smoke a cigarette.

*The cigarette was put out after taking the last picture shown above*