Author: Nathan

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Gerhard Richter is a German Visual Artist and regarded as one of the most important contemporary artist to come from Germany. His pieces give a distorted feel to them. I like the way Richter uses colour to show contrast and movement. These images don’t seem still, they are alive and moving to me but I think that aspect adds character to his pieces. To create the illusion that something is moving, when its not, is a very admirable skill in my eyes. His pieces pop and instantly catch your eye, his work will definitely be a huge influence on what I create.

We studied Richter’s work in class and I was instantly drawn to how he distributes and manipulates paint. In a lot of his pieces, he uses an oversized squeegee to drag the paint across the canvas. This gives it a distorted and unique look. Having to apply paint using verbs from week one’s activities, I decided to give the verb ‘drag’ a go.

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Boris Schmitz is a fine line artist based in Belgium. His art is mainly one line drawings, but the way he manipulates angles and shapes make these drawings dynamic. His use of lines to create bone structure really makes the pieces as whole stand out. Moving forward i’m going to try and use this method of drawing but making it more abstract. I want to focus the drawings around the face, but will also try to implement the body as well.

I think his pieces are commissions and don’t hold any value to him, but I still wanted to take this art style and implement it into my work. Im planning to distort this art style and make it abstract whilst introducing colour and texture.

The task:

For this stage of the brief, you will be using 6 different images/items to work from:
-A photo including people
-A photo without people
-A piece of printed fabric (shirt, scarf, tablecloth etc)
-A printed image of a painting made before 1900
-A printed screengrab from a film
-A piece of trash/rubbish

We then had draw 4 drawings in different styles for each of the images/items listed above.

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We had to choose verbs to in order to create works with paint being our main medium. This activity left us with a lot of freedom so I was excited to see which direction I would take it.

The main verbs that I chose for todays session was: Push & Fold

As experiments, I laid some paint on one half of a piece of paper, proceeded to fold it half and push on it with my foot. These resemble rorschach inkblots used in psychology tests. I liked how the first few came out and decided to run with the idea for a few more attempts. I noticed that the more paint I used, a certain texture would show that was not evident in typical rorschach inkblots. It almost resembled the roots of a tree or the complex wiring of nerves.

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I found some old vinyls collecting dust so I wondered what they would look like if I printed with them. I covered the face of the vinyl with paint and pressed it against the brown paper as hard as I could.

The vinyl gave off an unexpected texture that was surprising at first but one I later came to like. I decided to keep reprinting different colours and wanted to see what effect it would give off.

(should have started with white instead of black lol)

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The verb I used for these paintings were scrap. I found some old corrugated cardboard, laid some paint along the edges and proceeded to use it as a squeegee, similar to screen printing.

I liked how these came out so much that I decided to try different colours for different moods etc.

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This piece was made to show the laziness that is endured whilst in lockdown with nothing to do. I wanted to show a progression throughout these photos that related to the praise of laziness. Truth be told, I did quite a bit of drinking throughout the break and thought i could use the empty bottles to my advantage. As the days progressed the bottles started piling up and started surrounding my feet and I thought it was a solid way to show the praise of laziness. Several of my original photos were lost in the process, so I had to retake some hence why some images look the same.

The darkest photos on the far right is something i wish i performed better on. The main idea of laziness was shown with the scattered bottles and they do get lost within the darkness.

I wanted to incorporate different times within a singular piece. The progression of light shows the different times each photo was taken. This was inspired by David Hilliard’s work in how he took images from different times and formed one coherent piece.

I was interested in making these photos into a moving image. I came up with the idea to lower the opacity of each video so that a mirage of each video is evident. Linking back to my interest in organised chaos, i think this piece strongly resonates to that. I left the audio in to bring a sort of discomfort to the viewers, and I quite like how the songs take over each other, almost making it seem like the music choice doesn’t matter. Laziness is evident in how careless I am to fix the music. The couch and surrounding areas are in focus, but only the centre is blurred and distorted. I wanted to combine these lazy moments and the sounds that came with it.

It’s almost as if numerous versions of myself in different times are interacting with each other. Ghosts of the past I would call them.

Terry Urban is an American artist based in LA who predominantly uses paint and other mediums in his craft. The reason i chose Urban as research is because his unique style of art that clutters the canvas. He brings together many images and ideas and almost seemingly places them on the canvas with no real thought.

I would call this art style, organised chaos, and I want to implement this idea within my work. Having a progression of space getting cluttered and crowded over time is an idea I’m interested in exploring. I think this concept relates to idea of leisure as it shows the process of laziness over time.

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Artist Research – Luca Macioce

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Luca Macioce is a New Zealand based photographer and close friend of mine whom I went to school with. His photographs are predominantly landscape but I wanted to share him for the simplicity he expresses. His photos at first glance seem dull but to me they hold stories in which i found interesting and which i want to implement within my work. I think simplicity is such a strong technique within photographs. These days photos are heavily edited through photoshop, in which messages and raw material can be lost. Luca does a great job of keeping it simple, so in turn the raw image really speaks for itself.

If you are interested in more of his work, his instagram is @lucamacioce (super dope photographer)

Benjamin Lee is a photographer based in Sydney, Australia. He is a digital creative with a passion for travel, adventure and new experiences. He is an accomplished photographer and digital content creator who creates consistent, engaging & visually stunning work. His wide range of skills and appeal has found a large & loyal fan-base. I found interest in his work mainly from his works that singles out focal points in his photos.

He predominantly uses models to be that focal point and I wanted to implement this idea within my photos. Obviously his photos are heavily edited to show lighting and contrast, so i wanted to involve lighting within my photos as best I could given the current circumstances.

Lee’s work is heavily Japanese influenced which reflects his culture. His photos show the urbanised side of Tokyo, and quite often the clutter of the city with powerlines, neon signs, lights, poles etc. One aspect of his work that I related with, was the calmness he provides. The overwhelming city surrounding a singular figure shows sanity within the insanity, the eye of the storm and I wanted to recreate this but in my own creative form that related to the brief.

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Over the mid semester break, i’ve been taking numerous photos similar to the ones shown below. I felt this to be a repetitive process and most of the photos ended up looking the same, but I wanted to show the praise of laziness through the space I inhabit. Im planning of having 5 sequences of still photos that show a progression of laziness. In the first sequence, it shows my room to be tidy and controlled in some sense. As the photos progress, the images will begin to become crowded and cluttered. Ive decide to not clean anything within the camera shot for the whole two weeks so I can see what the progression will look like.

One thing I wish I took into consideration was the position of the camera. There are a lot of inconsistencies across the images, some are slightly angled differently, some items are out frame when others aren’t etc. Im not sure if this matters too much, but it definitely annoys and i’m going try and fix this before the due date on Thursday.

(These images are the first photos of each sequence, I just wanted to show the environment changing)

UPDATE: I did lose a lot of my photos through corrupt files, so a lot of these I had to reshoot.

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After using photography within the bird eyes angle, I was curious to see what a series of videos would look like. I cut the videos to be about 5 seconds each with their own section of music that I listened to at the time. I made the music start off very fast paced and hyper and then you’ll see it’ll progress to a slower paced vibe. I did this to accompany the lighting so it shows a progression of time and feeling. I noticed as the day progressed that my couch was getting more and more cluttered as was the area surrounding it. Going forward I’m planning on leaving it like this no matter how messy it gets to further reinforce the idea of laziness. By the end of my photos/videos I’m expecting to have a crowded and messy couch so we can see a development from a rather clean room to one that reflects a lazy state.

(This was nothing more than experimental fyi)

The video I took on day 2 :))

From todays lecture, we started to finalise our ideas heading into the end of our brief. We all had to choose between the good work or the praise of laziness. For obvious reasons i chose the praise of laziness. From workshops in the past involving photo sequences, i decided to implement that idea within these 4 photos. This is my couch, when i’m not sleeping you’ll most likely find me sitting here, working, eating, playing the game etc. To start I had to figure out an angle in which to take these photos. I experimented with numerous ones but decided to try something different. Using some string and tape, I made a harness on my ceiling so my phone could take photos/videos. After seeing the first I decided to roll with this idea.

Every-time I changed my activity or found myself in a new position, i pulled out my ladder, stuck my phone into the harness and recorded from a birds eye view for a minute or so. I did this 4 times and these were the results. I wanted to use the lighting to my advantage to show the flow of time. Im quite happy with how these came out and i can definitely see myself implementing this camera angle more within my work.