GARMENT TWO: inspired by 'Portrait of a Lady in yellow' by Alesso Baldovinetti

The following account describes the process involved in creating my second garment design and the reasons behind my choice of subject.  Again, I have attempted to use colours which relate to the Renaissance period and this work contains some of the pigments used by the Baldovinetti - Naples Yellow, Burnt Umber. The female portrait is instantly recognisable and has been derived from ‘Portrait of a Lady in Yellow’ (1400’s) by Alesso Baldovinetti. 
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/alesso-baldovinetti
As with my previous portraits the face has been converted to black and white with the addition of a halftone dot structure. The female face in profile has strong, elegant features reminiscent of the Pre-Raphaelite style yet retaining regality.

The  ‘regal’ theme is referenced in the golden orange repeat pattern of tiny Elizabeth 1^st portraits for the main body – drawn from the painting ‘The Armada’ by George Gower. The halo is similar to the halo taken from ‘Madonna Rocks’ and like that halo; it contains fragments of my drawn nudes.

Yellow Lady’s baby has been sampled from the painting ‘Madonna and Child’ by Leonardo Da Vinci. This baby has been reduced to a faded 'suggestion' due to the use of a large halftone dot.

This intentional fading of the child is in direct response to the apparent detachment of the ‘mother’ figure and allows the focus to remain on the striking pattern of the woman’s body. The ‘pyramidal’ composition used in many Renaissance paintings is not obviously reflected here. However, the Yellow Lady in profile is looking to the side of the image contrasting with that of the child who is staring out at the viewer and with the viewer then looking in on the woman and the child.

The ‘Madonna’ is orange with a black contrasting halo. Orange, in Renaissance painting supposedly represents indulgence, carnal desires, original sin and corruption; whereas the textured background is delicate and faded - like the tonal surface of the baby image.

The strength of the orange tones in this design are mirrored in my silkscreen print. The addition of an opalescent layer of irodin royal gold pigment for sections of the halo and distended abdomen of the woman add a lustre to the print.

Once again, the front of the garment had the face as the central focus.(as with Garment One) . The back of the garment is a close up section of the black and orange halo. (See ‘Madonna’ blog entry)

GARMENT ONE: inspired by Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo Da Vinci

My first dress is complete. The following account gives an insight into the process involved in developing this piece of work as a garment and why I chose to sample portraits by Da Vinci. Within this piece I have attempted to recreate colours and use symbolic imagery which whilst contemporary is relevant to the Renaissance period.

The female portrait researched for this piece is from ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ (1483) by Leonardo Da Vinci.  The detail of the face has been simplified and converted to black and white with the addition of a halftone dot structure and drawing into the shaded areas.

The dot pattern (which avoids moiré when silkscreen printed) on the skin of the face is replicated in the bubble effect background (each blue bubble having been drawn separately). The face has then been transformed again by mirroring and flipping. 
A combination of cherubic babies, one sampled from the painting ‘Madonna and Child’ by Leonardo Da Vinci and the other from ‘The Aldobrandini Madonna’ by Titian. 

The positioning of the Madonna and babies was important when cutting out the pattern for the front panel of the garment, as human faces were to remain the main focus of this ‘canvas’. The back panel of the garment is an abstract section of the Madonna’s ‘halo’ showing figurative nudes in close up and combined with a cerulean blue background - part of the robe. The ‘pyramidal’ positioning of the figures in my final design was important as it reflects the relationship between the mother and her children, gestures and glances reinforcing the ‘closeness’ of the maternal bond. The 'protecting' right hand is an original photographic image. 
This nurturing relationship can be seen in the original painting by Da Vinci and reflected the common ‘tri-lateral’ placement of figures used by other Renaissance artists.

The vibrancy of the blue tones in the fabric, due in part to the digital print (these tones are less strong in the silkscreen print) are intentional. I chose to represent this Madonna in blue (although I made several different digital variations) symbolising purity; i.e. The Virgin Mary; Madonna and Child; The Immaculate Conception. 
Renaissance artists’ used blue, brown and green pigments to represent ‘earth’ - natural hues. When producing the silkscreen version of this piece I increased the intensity of the blue for the background by printing a layer of iridescent ‘space blue’ pigment. The pigment not only the reflected the light but accentuated and framed the subject of the print.

(See ‘Women are weak, but Mother’s are strong’ blog entry).

WEARABLE ART 2: Garments become the Canvas

Mothers have been the inspiration for a series of silkscreen prints. Three of the designs are digital fabric prints which have been made into garments. The concept behind creating garments is to enable these feminine designs to inhabit a more three dimensional space as opposed to a flat surface; to replicate the shape of a woman when worn by a woman. Im hoping that this living canvas will become another form of exhibition arena for my work.
The following series of blogs describe the process of making and developing each individual prints.

Garment One – inspired by ‘Virgin of the Rocks’ by Leonardo Da Vinci. 
Garment Two – inspired by ‘Portrait of a Lady in yellow’ by Alesso Baldovinetti. 
Garment Three – inspired by ‘Madonna of the Yarnwinder’ by Leonardo Da Vinci. 

1. Virgin of the Rocks  2. Portrait of a Lady  3. Madonna of the Yarnwinder

The patterns for my ‘shift’ dresses (simple draped constructions will appear, when worn, as canvasses for my Renaissance inspired designs) have been cut out awaiting completion with one dress fully completed – panels (front and back) cut, pinned, lined and all fabric pieces stitched and hand finished.

I am eternally grateful to Lisa Bailey lisamariabailey@icloud.com for her help in the construction of all my fabric designs and with the production of my Renaissance inspired garments.

Here is the email request, the copy and image for my Artist CV sent as part of the promotional material to be used for the first ever International Printmaking Conference due to take place in Nicosia 22 - 24th November 2017 - very apprehensive and extremely surreal. 

CLARE WYATT – ARTIST CV

I have 25 years of teaching, printmaking, drawing and fine art practices in educational establishments and as a private tutor for community groups in the United Kingdom.

Drawing is a process of making parallels – of engaging in the world physically and emotionally – of casting your mind out and grabbing what you see. My practice is a combination of drawing and printmaking – using both digital and screenprint processes.

It investigates female Renaissance portraits through these processes and brings them into the contemporary arts arena.

The angelic female faces I select from paintings are meant not only as an homage to the original but also, when combined with digital patterns and drawn figurative forms, reinforce a sense of the contemporary ‘Madonna’. This offers an acknowledgement of the iconic and recognisable imagery of the past and is also a way for me to make my own contemporary female portrait, which is accessible to the modern viewer.

Recent exhibitions include: 

MA Postgraduate Exhibition - Atkinson Gallery, Millfield, Somerset. UK

‘Miniprint Exhibition’ - Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol. UK

Current Digital submissions to:

International Print Centre, New York, USA

Royal West of England Academy, Bristol UK

MERCK KGaA Performance materials, Frankfurt Germany

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG  - Tate Modern

Female figure (1959) -
R. Rauschenberg & S. Weil

1 December 2016 – 2 April 2017

I was excited to see this exhibition. Rauschenberg’s eclectic range of work on display here was stimulating but left me wanting more. I hoped to find a link to my own portrait work with Rauschenberg’s use of common or recognisable images. 

  

Rauschenberg’s signs and assemblages particularly appeared to create a more ‘sophisticated’ aesthetic due to his use of nostalgic or ‘timely’ ephemera.

However, this sophistication could have been due to the fact that we as ‘viewers’ are appreciating this work in the 21^st century; his ‘ephemera’ (ephemera: interestingly defined as collectable items that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity), with their faded colours and subject matter, hark back to a simpler, more wholesome, bygone era. Therefore, it may be that we are unable to fully appreciate Rauschenberg’s work in the manner that it was made as we are five or six decades removed from that time.

Retroactive (1964) Oil paint & Silkscreen - R. Rauschenberg

I think the value of the work on display was that strong association to consumerism. The idea of Mass Customerisation (see Arthur Buxton blog entry) was revisited in the application and considered production of each of his pieces; in particular Rauschenberg’s silkscreen prints using photographic repetition is manufacturing in multiples, he allowed disparate works to become connected with each other with his abstract imagery giving way to the recognisable.  The example, Retroactive (1964), a mixed media hybrid, incorporating oil paint with silkscreen and pigment transfer, used instantly recognisable iconic imagery relating to the space race and military action. This piece was created only three weeks before Kennedy was shot and ‘embodies the optimism and tragedy of the 1960s’. The work was an opportune piece of creativity ‘manufactured’ by the artist.

Mirthday Man (an anagram (a pun)) 1998 - R. Rauschenberg

My favourite example of Rauschenberg’s work was the huge cacophony of texture, colour and repeat pattern that was ‘Mirthday Man (1997) – an inkjet dye and pigment transfer piece on poly-laminate. This large print, sometimes abstract sometimes realistic, conjured up a life and energy which had been dampened and diluted in some other pieces of his work. It reflected art and life and has directly inspired my multi-layered digital print "Milfi'.

'Milfi' - multi layered digital print inspired by Rauschenberg

‘Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made (I try to act in the gap between the two)’. 

Quarry (1968) - R. Rauschenberg

While this exhibition pulled Rauschenberg’s work together in a chronological sequence and reflected the diversity and multiplicity of his obvious talent, it gave little insight into the true proliferation of his work. What moved me most of all were the series of descriptive quotes by the artist of work on show – these words were more evocative, perceptive and human.

‘A picture is more like the real world when it is made out of the real world’.

‘I want my paintings to look like what’s going on outside my window, rather than what’s inside’.

‘We move from movement to movement, mood to mood making decisions that control our acts, in-sighting and recognising that facts are changing like the light we are seeing them in and in our motivation to look’.

Caryatid Cavalcade (1985) - R. Rauschenberg