Author: Maia

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Here are some of my process images and experimental images that i worked with whilst trying to pick and create my final selection for this brief.

At first I was just trying to work from photos I had and draw up different figures and birds and then carrying on with that figure form I began doing the art prints that were really fun to do for me, experimentation with screen printing is something I’ve never done before so it was a great learning experience and these were the results: 

Moving onto my final selection and final paintings that I have put forward for this brief. I was really intrigued by Richard Serra’s verb list as it was something I had never thought too much about before, how painting doesn’t all have to be about what you’re painting but how you’re painting being just as important. Looking through the suggested artists to look at I really came into liking and taking inspiration from the likes of Jackson Pollock, Richard Serra, Gerhard Richter, Henri Matisse,I thought about ways to create marks but in unique ways that has a story to tell with the pieces. So I came up with idea to sit in a dark room with canvas and paint and paint whatever I feel and create marks on the canvases in the pitch black and then to set a timer and once I was finished have a look at what I had created. This was a really fun project, after creating a base background and something to go off. I then went in and worked with what I had and create a narrative story with each piece. I wanted to create an ominous feeling for the viewer when they looked at these pieces. I wanted to make it quite unclear what the picture depicts and I want the viewer to each all make their own assumptions about what they can see. 

I really enjoyed this brief although we weren’t given long with it I still enjoyed learning about mark making and the processes in creating a painted artwork. I really enjoyed heading over to the print making workshop and learning/experimenting with different ways of applying ink/charcoal/pastel and pens onto the screens, I always have too much fun and lose track of time. Prior to this brief I had never though about art (painted art works) to be anything else by what you see on the painted canvas but this brief taught me that indeed art is also about HOW one paints as being just as important. 

Richard Serra

Serra created the verb list we studied in the studio to experiment with movement and how the physical body affects the artwork in the making, this all stands out and is clear in the pieces made above.

Michael Armitage

These works really appeal to me because I like the different textures that Armitage uses, as he explains in the video on the PowerPoint he starts off most of his paintings by drawing his pieces and then layering and layering on top with different mediums. I’ve always liked the mismatched use of different mediums, it can seem quite chaotic but they all come together in the end. Also the colours Armitage uses I enjoy as well.

To start this brief off I followed instructions and did as many verbs from Richard Serra’s verb list as I could in half an hour, above I have done drip, swirl, smear, splash, drag, mark, dab, flick, swirl, puddle, slide. Working with a thinner consistency of paint allowed a more fluid-like movement across the paper compared to a thicker consistency which was a lot harder to move around and work with. Nonetheless, this was a great exercise to explore the consistencies of paint and how working with different surfaces affected the paint aswell.

This is my final layout and installation for the brief ‘nature drawing itself’. All these final pieces speak to the idea of relationships in nature, my interpretation of that idea is in relation to Papatūānuku and Ranginui. Their story is an important and if not the most important relationship in nature in a Māori view. The low angles of the tree trunks are from Papatūānuku’s (mother earth) perspective looking up at her husband Ranginui the sky father, but then the tree, branches, and nature in between obstruct her clear view. The nature in between is Tāne Māhuta their son, the son that separated them to create the beginning of te Ao (the world) and time. It’s bittersweet that Papa and Rangi can’t be together but through this piece, I wanted to accentuate the beauty of life and nature that Papa and Rangi do get to look at when looking at their loved ones. Often when I was a child, and it was raining my teachers would say “Look Rangi’s sad today he misses Papa” This has always stuck with me and is the inspiration for this piece, and thinking about both Papa’s and Rangi’s perspectives.

To see certain aspects of my layout of this piece I have labeled the ground opposite my wall on the other side of the studio as a place to stand where it allows you to see the piece hanging piece in unison with the similar piece on the wall. I have also placed a piece directly above, on the bottom of the air vent to give you another POV of Papa as the audience.

I really enjoyed doing this brief in photography, having never done much photography at all before I feel as though I really expanded my art-making skills by learning how to use pinhole cameras, develop in the darkroom, and create cyanotypes, lumen prints, and photograms.

This was what my studio wall looked like when we had our critical discussions about each and everyone’s work. My feedback involved comments such as enjoying the low angles and giving off a spooking and trapping feeling, people liked that the branch images seemed to be mirroring up to each other but thought that the tree low angles pictures needed to be enlarged more to see the detail. I’ve taken in these considerations and am developing further what I feel I need to do with the final piece due next week.

‘We are nature and we are not separate.’ Being Māori I know how important whenua is to my people, we are all intimately connected with our land. Our mountains, rivers, and land are all recited in our pepeha and whakapapa. Papatūānuku is the birth mother of all things trees, birds, plants, insects, as well as u; humans, we are all born from our earth mother and she then nourishes and nurtures us as we grow old and when it’s our time, we return to Papatūānuku to rest. These ideas arose with me whilst reading through our ‘nature drawing itself’ brief. I agree with Timothy Morton that we are our environment. It’s not just a physical construct we call earth, we as humans are the environment as well. Our human race is in dire to need to realize this if we are ever going to save it.

With these ideas in mind, I really wanted to really let nature speak for itself so prior to starting with the pinhole cameras I took a bunch of research photos on my iPhone. Where ever I was I took photos of how I usually see nature in my everyday life, here they are below:

There weren’t many shrubs, bushes, or forests I go to on a regular basis so what I did see though were trees, trees lining streets in my neighborhood, lining the streets in town, so I captured just that trees, trees, and more trees. I tried to capture various different angles and details by changing the amount of zoom and more.

After research, we began experimenting with pinhole cameras made out of painting cans. there were two things I was considering when taking my pinhole photography; 1. my placement of the actual can and figuring out what kind of angle of what I was going to get and 2. considering the weather and lighting, how long I did for the exposure time. Finding cool and different angles was really natural to me and straight away I found an angle I really liked which was placing the can at the bottom of the tree trunk and looking directly upwards which gave the tree a really overarching and spooky feeling in the final picture. I realized that with the timing of the exposures I preferred the days it was less sunny and more cloudy as I could leave it for longer and not worry about it being overexposed. Really interested in the low angle for the tree and excited to experiment further with it, I continued to try and capture this angle perfectly. Here are my attempts below:

As time progressed the prior ideas mentioned around Papatūānuku started to develop in my mind, I began to think about the famous Māori story about the beginning of all life and all that we know today, how Rangi the sky father and Papatūānuku separated which was the beginning of life. The god who separated the two, was no other than Tane Mahuta the god of forests and birds. The trees towering over with only the sky; Ranginui in the background in these photographs were taken from Papatūānuku’s perspective. Speaking on that relationship and separation as well as how important our enviroment is, is something I’m really passionate in coming across in this piece.

Next up I attended the Cyanotype workshop and developed these pinhole photographs further, I really enjoyed creating these it was really enjoyable to learn all these new processes to create something I had never made before, quite proud of the way they came out and will be trailing more on different papers and fabrics this coming week.

This semester has been an interesting one I’m glad I did come back to university though I’m trying a lot of new things that I didn’t even know existed before or things I wouldn’t ever think I’d be able to do. Being online for the first 7 weeks or so was pretty challenging just trying to find motivation, but I got through to the end and I’m so glad we are allowed to be back in the studio. As I came down with covid during the first brief back I finally made it to do the second brief ‘Change it up’ which really intrigued me and really got me thinking of how was I going to figure out animation (which I’ve never done before) and to create something with meaning and a message I was trying to get across. It took time but I finally got there in the end. I’m absolutely blown away by the help and facilities here at AUT I really loved learning in the computer lab, book binding lab, and screen printing room and meeting the technicians, I’ve learned so much in this small space of time. I feel so grateful to be at art school it is a true privilege, can’t wait to see what is installed for next semester.

Contextual Art and Artists research

7558 Collective is an artist collective of Jaimie Berry, Leala Faleseuga, Pikihuia Haenga, and Te Kahureremoa Taumata. This group of indigenous artists creates installations with animations, light, and sound. Their installations are about indigenous peoples and the connection with their land and culture but also the big disconnection for so many diasporas specifically Polynesians and Māori. This piece gave me great inspiration for my installation concept.

References

Circuit.org, “7558 Collectibe Karanga”, Accessed 9th of June 2022 https://www.circuit.org.nz/work/karanga

Kate Woods is a New Zealand artist who graduated from Auckland University’s Elam School of fine arts. Her work specializes in picturesque landscapes which are sometimes photographs and sometimes paintings and then layers cardboard geometric moving shape animations onto these landscapes. Her work ‘Non-Sites’ is a stop frame animation with special transitions that really interested me had i, had more time i would have really liked to explore my transitions further and these transitions are what make Woods art piece that so much smoother and appealing to watch.

References

Circuit.org, “Kate Woods Non-Sites (2012)”, Accessed 9th of June 2022 https://www.circuit.org.nz/work/non-sites

Bartley & Company Art, “Kate Woods”, Accessed 9th of June 2022 https://www.bartleyandcompany.art/index.php?page=artist,Kate_Woods,2928

Janet Lilo is a polynesian artist that works in a mixture of media including photography, videography in digital video, sculpture and installations. She uses her art to start conversations in society regarding people, place and time. She explores with her videography by creating experimental documentaries. In her exhibition called “Right of Way” (2013), it features her local neighbourhood of Avondale where she depicts the local scenes and casual rotuines of the people who live in the neighbourhood. The layout of these works really helped me to imagine the different realities of fixing my final installation.

References

Auckland Art Gallery, “Right of Way”, Janet Lilo, Accessed 9th of June 2022 https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/explore-art-and-ideas/artwork/26862/right-of-way

Scape Public Art, “Janet Lilo”, Accessed 9th of June 2022 https://www.scapepublicart.org.nz/artist/janet-lilo/