a reflection

A small man once told me that "Art is just colouring in", but he was just a fool who thought genitalia was a flower.

MA MULTIDISCIPLINARY PRINT ASSESSMENT
The MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking programme has taken three years to complete. 
To supplement my portfolio I have written a brief description of my creative work and the thought processes behind its evolution. This BlogJournal is my response to the MA course  - part diary, aide memoire and personal commentary. 

I am not an intellectual, I simply believe that to be human is to be creative. Creativity is an essential part of who I am and my blog entries reflect this. 

The MA has allowed me to follow a new creative path sampling influences from a wide range of artists, diverse artwork and media and to explore and revisit exciting technical processes. From this research and experimentation I have produced my current work which is the basis for my new journey as an Artist. 

MA DEGREE SHOW preparation WOT NO BIBLIOGRAPHY?!!

Friday 2nd June  -  Thursday 8th June 2017  • UWE •  BOWER ASHTON 

I am getting ready for the hanging ...

Planned my space

Painting exhibition boards
Finalising studio journal
Finalising canvasses
Finishing prints
Bought the frames
Framing prints
Filling the portfolio
Business cards printed
Invitations sent to lots
Wine
Wine
Wine
AOB (clean underwear and wine)

BUSINESS CARDS
19 Boxes x 50 Cards = WHAT THE .....
Think this'll be enough???














INVITED GRAYSON PERRY
Think he'll come???
(I figured his loss if he doesn't).


MA SHOW PLAN
My work is a mixture of silkscreen, digital, textile and mixed media prints with frame sizes ranging from A1 to A4. 

TWEET that DRESS DESIGN

Here are the large range of print ideas for some of my textile designs with the tweet I sent which was liked and retweeted. 

My first dress (using my Madonna Rocks design) was actually finished completely at the end of April but I tweeted the image whilst it was on the sewing room table at the end of March. Therefore, I thought that was worth a mention here. Also I referenced 'Atticus' the inspirational, mysterious internet poet as the words seemed to fit the design for the garment - de-saturated woman and children left to survive within blues and lilac.

'We let our lives mix with our dreams, like two coloured paints until we didn't know which was what and we didn't care". atticus

First night in Vienna

VIENNA 
Leopold Museum
19th - 21st May

Here are a series of photographs taken of artwork by Egon Schiele last weekend at the Leopold Museum in Vienna. I chose these specific paintings and my sister took the photographs (one of the perks of being an identical twin - and she got to use the creative brain cell for that weekend).  Schiele has been an influence on my textile and print work - his vibrant use of colour and intricate pattern details combined with brilliant gold decoration - and also the almost organic way in which he interprets the figurative.

girl with yellow cloth

The work is sensuous and fluid, spreading across the canvas. Each organic linear nude appears to be grounded to the canvas with a block of colour. The balance and contrast is evocative and beautiful. My current large-scale line and block colour silkscreen prints have been worked into with gold acrylic, chinagraph and pencil, creating slabs of brightness growing within the overlapping linear figures - colours which 'burn'.

My mixed media silkscreen print

"bodies have their own light which they consume to live, they BURN they are not lit from the outside".
Egon Schiele

Life and Death

The Virgin

Judith with the head of Holofernes

The Kiss

BLUE IDENTITY

" I want to paint the body of a woman first. I give her the grace and charm, and then something more. I am going to condense the meaning of this body, looking for its essential lines .."

"... a body without physiognomy, sexuality.. embodiment - all that would give it identity...always search for the desire of the line, where it wishes to enter or where to die away".
Henri Matisse

Reminiscent of my minimal mini print  (Arnolfini 'Tiny Lady) I have produced a series of linear nude silkscreen prints. I wanted to keep a certain simplicity of line for these images in contrast to my previous print work where the subjects are photographic and complex; with the patterns within the portraits made up of my layered figurative outlines. 

These single forms are compositionally strong and I have played with the juxtaposition of the figure against rectangular shapes - single and double overlapping shades of blue - and with the skin like texture and dots.

http://www.yveskleinarchives.org.  I started with Yves Klein blue but it became varying transparencies Pthalo blue as in the 'blue nudes by Matisse.

My 'desire of line' creates the form with its changing shape dependant on the pressure of a pen and the identity of these female characters hidden due to a lack of facial and sexual features - Barbie? I don't think so!!!

NUDE

I am printing a series of linear nudes in the style of my mini print (which was very successful at the Arnolfini). These linear drawings are focusing again on the fluid and yet transitory nature of the female form and my interpretations have been sketched both singly and in book form. There is something attractive about the swiftness yet delicacy of the curved lines here - although the block colour on the silkscreen print and on the book page is something of an experiment and I'm not sure I like it! (I chose blue and lilac for the screen print as it is reminiscent of my pen and ink 'movement' life drawings).

V & A:philatelic design

Currently on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum is the work of Natalia Lamanova and Alexander Khopolov. These artists have created beautiful examples of philatelic design inspired by themes of personal identity, subjugation and control and work which is a celebration of Russian architecture and history, using a combination of subtle typography, layered digital and lithographic processes. 

These images also inspired me to create my own digital stamp designs - Lamanova's 'passport' piece is digital print like my own - and this process is reflected in the quality and clarity of the finished artwork. 
The scale of my final A4 stamp sheets enhanced these tiny Madonna-esque portraits, making them visually more attractive, intensifying their colour and design detail and producing uniform repeat patterns reminiscent of a fabric or textile print. 
I included perforations (and hand rendered dots are used to represent rows of holes for my InDesign file examples) in order to physically separate each individual stamp. Therefore, on an A4 sheet each image appears as a single portrait in its own right with selected type linking to each Renaissance image and a selvedge to mark the edge of the sheet as in Lamanova’s work. My series of final outcomes reflect both a nostalgic and contemporary view of these miniature framed Madonnas.

Natalia Lamanova (1964)

Passport and war card

2002

Natalia Lamanova works in graphic and digital media. Her prints are often arranged like sheets of postage stamps with perforations for separating the individual stamps and a selvedge or self-finished edge that marks the end of the sheet. These images come from a passport photograph of the artist and photos of her partner Alexander Khopolov, perhaps from his military identity card. They suggest issues of national identity and the limits of state control.

The stamps each bear slightly variant images of the same symbols for 'This way up' (an open umbrella) and 'fragile' a wine glass, plus variant lettering in Russian and English including the words 'LAMANOVA' and 'This passport'; the artist's date of birth and a date-stamp of 1999. The central image of each stamp is a passport photograph of the artist. Each is a different colour: red, pink, blue and green. The predominant colour of the sheet is greyish pink.

Alexander Khopolov (1948 – 2016)

80 Moscow Manhole covers

1996

Alexander Kholopov was a leading exponent of mail art and the artist’s stamp. This set of collectors’ stamps parodies the patriotic souvenir sets published by the Soviet government to celebrate architectural landmarks or technological achievements. Each stamp is dedicated to one of the events and personalities from history, the arts and popular culture that inspired the artist over the years. This work is a set of lithographs.