Author: Nathan

Using the pinhole camera was quite the nostalgic trip for me, as we used this technique a lot in high school.

These photos were taken around campus in various locations. I tried to find places that would be clustered and busy but not straying too far from the University. Finding the right exposure times for the different locations was probably the hardest task throughout this whole process. It took a lot, and I mean a lot of trial and errors.

I quite like the images as negatives but I’m also quite curious to see what they’d look like as positives. This process has slowly persuaded me to try and expand my photography to black and white, but I’m not too sure how to manipulate a black and white image to its fullest potential.

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This brief is an exciting one for me because I like the idea of being able to capture a moment in time forever. On the first day, we were told to flip a coin to let it decide if we go left or right. The idea was to give us the opportunity to get lost and discover a place we had never been to before.

Not going to lie the coin flipping just made me walk in circles. I ended up taking photos of places that I have seen before. It was a fun lil experiment though.

The first walk I mainly focused on the architecture and clutter that the city provides. Condensing concrete, wood, trees etc. into a single photo is quite contradictive to itself, and I liked the thought of this.

The second walk I was really just pointing and shooting. I started walking in the afternoon and by the time I knew it, it was already night. The progression from day to night time shown below is something that was unexpected and which I quite enjoyed.

Walk 1

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Walk 2

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 This piece is just two pieces of metal rod curved to form a triangular shape. I then placed one of top of the other and taped it together so it looks like a mirror image. I left it like this for a while before I could think of something to add to it. Adding the copper and steel wire adds a nice contrast between the dark steel supporting it. 

This piece is meant to be a flowing piece that shows movement (represented by the dark steel) while the copper and steel wiring shows restrictions and boundaries (hence why they are straight and solid) The linked wiring between the copper and steel represents connected troubles and that they’re at double strength. 

Looking back at the piece, I could almost see this piece as a human being. The dark steel is the human person while the wiring is the hardships and troubles which is only shown inside of the vessel. The human body, ever flowing and inside that, strong and unwavering troubles. Could also be interpreted as a strong and unwavering love or kindness. Pretty much an ode to me in a way.

For the second piece I bent all the pieces at different angles to form what looks like multiple stick guns taped together. I bonded them with fishing line so it wasn’t that noticeable. I had to bend the longest piece so it would support the frame of the sculpture. Having multiple poles spreading into different places allowed me to play around with connections and planar elements. 

I ended up using white wool string to contrast the hard steel and because it was easy to manipulate. I kinda just randomly wrapped the wool around and played around with what kind of shapes I could create.

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A couple of the cues I chose to draw were: draw a line 1000 times and make the longest drawing.

The 1000 lines wasn’t that difficult and I actually found it quite relaxing. I noticed my pen running out of ink, so I swapped put my white pen for a black one. It made the black easy to blend in and I quite liked the way it turned out.

The longest drawing was an easy one to accomplish as I had already planned to cut the paper to further the distance it covers. I ended up writing “DRAWING” on the end so it would fit the prompt.

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This activity was definitely an interesting one for me as it really tapped into my creative mindset. I mainly used my paint pen as a means of creating the dots that I needed to connect. Using my ruler, I lightly tapped my pen against it so that it would leak paint spots all over the paper. Some drawings were easier than others to come up with.

The first piece I took a page from a book I found at home, scanned it and then circled all the fullstops. I tried my best to connect all the dots without covering any of the words. I wanted to use the negative space instead. I incorporated the fullstops because they are often overlooked and I was curious to see what kind of shape they would present. 

In the second image I resurfaced my old DVC skills to create this piece. I created two vanishing points in either corners of the page and linked the biggest dots to each corner. This technique is used to show different angles within buildings, it is commonly used in architecture. I actually really like the way this piece turned out although I could’ve been more experimental in how I drew the lines. 

The third drawing was done similarly to image #2. I used the same technique to draw the dots but this time I connected them at random. Leaving some connections open and others closed, left space for the piece to breath and I felt that the composition was better this way.  

but all in all I really enjoyed this means of art, as it was very unpredictable in the creation of each piece. 

This piece is probably my favourite out of all of ones I created for this brief. Linking back to the architecture theme, I decided to push my limits with a much bigger piece. The size of this piece is an A2 that I collaged and ripped back into. 

I used the large photocopier from the printing room to blow up this image. I darkened the settings to have a mainly black and white image but still be readable enough. I took the original photo, scanned it, printed it in colour and upsized it to be slightly smaller than the black and white. 

Tying in the ripping and gluing technique, I ripped the coloured photo and glued the sections to where they correlate. This gives the image an offset yet natural look to it. 

I found some old comic books from the 1940’s which I thought would give the piece a vintage look. I poked some holes in various spots on the piece and ripped out the sections that I wanted to be seen from the front. I then scanned the images and cut out sections that held the most imagery because I thought this piece as a whole could tie the old and present together. I put the comic book images in place and glued them down. 

I experimented with this piece and tried using paragraphs from the comic books, instead of the pictures but found out that I liked the look of the images much more.

This piece was inspired by one of my favourite artists, Terry Urban. Urban likes to play around with the composition of his large pieces and I tried to replicate that but in my own style. 

This piece was constructed to further scale my collaging, which in turn also made this piece a big time consumer. I reused a distorted image of a scan and instead of removing, I added. Finding numerous colours through printed matter, I was able to experiment with different shades and how they lead onto the next colour. 

After an hour of ripping, I sorted the pieces into colours and thought about how I was going to orientate them together. After some thought I decided to try and show a transition with nature. Having the white on the right representing the sky. The brown in the middle right representing earth. The blue in the middle left shows water and lastly the green on the far right representing trees/forestry.

This thought process was very rushed and I wished I had taken more time to think about the composition. But in the end It did come out how I had pictured it, just could have had more meaning behind why I made it and my thought processes for it. 

This piece was really time consuming and that’s my own fault I guess lol. This was another distorted scan of a weaving I did, which I then cut back into. All of the white that I saw within this image, I tried my best to remove all of them. Obviously I wasn’t able to rid every bit of white from the image but I think that adds a nice contrast to the image. 

I pondered for a while what I could place behind the image so it would show up from the front. I didn’t like the idea of one solid colour because it seemed too restricting. I flipped through some old art books that were provided and found this image of numerous black women doing hard labour. Since my cut outs resembled cracks I thought adding an image of black women was perfect. As they say ‘black don’t crack’ 

I wanted to symbolise the battles of minorities. Cracks spread across the bodies and faces of the women show what they’ve been through as a community, the hardships, struggles, etc. I coloured in the eyes of the women to give them a godly look.  

These four pieces were originally one big picture but I cut them into four sections so I could experiment collaging on four separated but connected pieces. 

The original A3 piece was a scanned and distorted image of one of my weavings. I then cut them in to 4 sections and began to collage over them. I tried to create these pieces so they would resemble stained glass windows. Having many different source materials meant I could experiment with different tones and textures. 

I purposefully ripped the pieces so I could achieve that rugged and messy look. The white that shows through from the ripping was something which I thought added some contrast within the pieces. 

I tried to achieve a constant flow of movement within all four of the pieces. Although all four of the pieces are separated they all fit together to form one coherent piece. 

I really enjoyed making these pieces because it was fun to experiment with different colours of collaging and seeing four sections come together as one 

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Trying to move away from weaving, I decided to give collaging a go. I found these pieces thoroughly enjoyable to work on. I found myself running through my old film photos to find places I thought would work well. All I did was simply scan my photos to black and white, cut back into the negative space and placed a pre layered collage behind. Having the image in black and white left plenty of room to add colour and experiment with tones, moods etc.

These pieces were made to tie architectural space with abstract practices. It gives these dull and boring images, colour and life but in a chaotic yet controlled way. Im hoping to continue this type of work later in the year and years to come.