#adad2017

ASSESSMENT 3- FINAL WORK + STATEMENT

The theme I carried into this assessment was contemplation. My initial ideas and curated experiments worked with digital media and visualising the idea of contemplation. This was a good starting place for my artmaking as it pushed me into a new space and new way of working.

One of the class activities asked us to document many of one type of thing. I went about doing this by photographing leaves, then creating a gif. This tied into the work and the experimentation I was doing for my assessment. I felt like the use of photography created a nicer finished product than some of my digital drawings.

This took me down the path of revisiting our group assessment and the work of Wolfgang Laib. I began this aspect of my curated experimentation by testing out lighting with the familiar subject matter of sugar. I wanted find a way to work in close up detail in order to convey a feeling of calmness and thought. Once I felt comfortable manipulating the lighting I moved onto using spices as well. They gave vibrance to the photos that i felt was exciting to look at. I still wanted to experiment with creating gif work, so I took many continuous photos that i could later make into gifs in Photoshop.

ASSES 3 - Final Work // 300 Word Statement 

For my final work I have combined the outcomes of experiment #9 & #10 together to create a work that celebrates women, honouring our differences which make us unique. 

The process of experimentation began by looking at different perceptions of the female nude throughout art history, most of which were constructed by men and express a very submissive gaze. These figures were then drawn, layered and collaged with, placing the figure in a new setting. Altering our perception of these famous artworks, demonstrating that our naked confidence may not always be for men but for other women or even ourselves. 

Focusing on the female nude prompted me to consider specific body parts, noticing that many people, especially young men and women have a distinct perception of what a woman’s nipples of vagina should look like due to what the media has taught us. For that reason I began painting on found magazine images, creating nipples on the surface of womens bras. Typically this was the beginning of my pursuit to remove the stigma around women’s nipples and vaginas in our society.

Combining these two concepts together lead me to exploring the medium of textiles and thread. Rather than just drawing images of women I stitched them onto calico fabric, which draws me to the creation of my final work. Firstly I stitched six female figures onto separate pieces of calico fabric using four different skin toned threads to outline their bodies to illustrate our uniqueness as women, as no one lady is exactly the same as the other. Later I added nipples and vaginas in an array of rainbow colours to the exterior of the figures underwear. By bringing what is usually underneath to the surface, revealing a one’s individuality, celebrating the body parts which make us women. 

As a group, we decided to choose the particular artwork of contemplation and experiment, ‘Pollen from Hazelnut’ by Wolfgang Laib for our project for assessment 2.

In the original artwork, Laib starts his process by collecting pollen from nature that are milky yellowy coloured, in a very careful and sophisticated way. This actually is an integral process of contemplation that Laib has been practicing since the mid-1990s – collecting the pollen by hand in the small village in Germany where he lives. Then he gently sieves them directly on the floor, which is a very significant part of his art process that makes the piece more delicate, in order to form a vast rectangle of yellow powder.  

The sense of time-based and devotion are the key values of his art process which our group wished to focus on for our remake. Firstly, we started off by experimenting with powders with different colours such as coffee, green tea, brown sugar and flour which we differed from the way Laib has practiced with colours- mild yellows.  In order to express the strong concept of time-based, all the 4 group members took turns to gradually build up a single artwork for 8 days, 2 days for each, amplifying different powders and different ways. We believe this process depicts a great sense of devotion that we took time to carefully sieve the powders, grind them if required, and progress slowly and steadily as a group to create one final piece.

We also spotted some difficulties during the process. Firstly, our group had a painful journey to make an initial concept or idea in approaching the task, and to think of the way to balance how similar or different it should be from the original artwork. Also, it was hard to show the work as a team- this is where we decided to take turns daily rather than having all the group members to experiment different things everyday. Furthermore, it was challenging to work outdoor due to unpredictable weather- some of the powders were just blown away by wind or a sudden rain washed the powders.

FINAL WORK 1 (FINAL 1/3)

For this experiment i cut a cardboard box into circles and painted them into the cardboard food