Unit 1 Studio Practice and ExperimentationResearch Am I attempting tapping into a collective unconscious that is manifest in our attitude to our shadow? As an artist I don’t want to begin by turning to the legend of Pliny but I am interested in Victor I. Stoichita (P15) ‘A short history of the shadow’ where he describes the act of creating the shadow as being a substitute or surrogate for the departed loved one, that this was ‘a mnemonic aid; of making the absent become present.’ That while the constantly changing real shadow goes with the man, a ‘Immortalises a presence in the form of an image, captures an instant and makes it last’ The shadow is given a potency in the Bible ‘ He that dwellth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty’ PSALM (91:1) Is this a source of the shadow being fundamentally a negativity that has remained in Western representation. Conversely Stoichita P55 Discusses an ancient magical notion that the shadow is the external manifestation of the soul’ G Deluze Logique du sens (Paris 1969)pp 174-5 Is this the basis for cinematic use of human shadows to suggest fear and violence As early as 1922 Cinema was utilising the shadow to forge a subtle discussion about if the famous silhouette is the vampire about to climb the stairs or just his unembodied distorted shadow . The viewer is aware that cultural tradition implies vampires have no shadow. So’ this silhouette is Nosferatu himself, a tentacular polyp, translucent without substance, a virtual phantom ‘He inhabits a subterranean world of doors, corridors and stairs, a world structured along the lines of the Freudian unconsciousness’ Stoiic PP152 We the viewer cower behind those doors.
Nosferatu, a Symphony of horror Frederich Murnau 1922 Artists using shadow Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp: One of the first ready mades Bottle Rack. 1913
Marcel Duchamp:photograph “Cast Shadows”. 1918. ‘They might have been ready-mades, and they might have been just some stuff in a studio or a home. It is exactly this ambivalent status of the objects which qualify them as vehicles from rubbish to durables, and/or from transient to rubbish. The ambivalence is exactly the crucial point’ Something else The Domestic Life of the Readymade Unpublished paper presented at the conference Home & Urbanity: Cultural Perspectives on housing and everyday life. University of Copenhagen, 29-31. October 2008. Christian Boltanski ‘I relate many things to shadows. First of all because they remind us of death ( Do we not have the expression ‘Shadowlands’) As I work mainly in miniature but huge quantities to fill an installation, I found the following of interest …. Boltanski speaks of wanting to travel across continents with his art, ‘things I could put in my pocket’. By projecting small puppets he could obtain large shadows ‘But the shadow is also inner deception. Do we not say’ to be frightened of ones own shadow?’ The shadow is a fraud: it appears to be the size of a lion but it is in fact no larger than a microscopic cardboard figurine. The shadow is the representation with in our selves of a deux ex machine. It is this aspect of the shadow which intrigues me, for it is pure theatre in the way it is an illusion…..What appeals to me so much about shadows is that they are epthemeral. They can disappear in a flash: as soon as the reflector is turned off or the candle extinguished there is nothing there any longer. ‘Ref C Boltanski Inventar (Hamburg 1991) pp73-5
Cornelia Parker Cold Dark Matter 1991 Concept as process Colin Renfrew in ‘Figuring it out’ What are we? Where do we come from? the parallel visions of artists and archeologists page 105-7 discusses how Parker is interested in archaeological excavation.In cold dark mater she invented a speeded up process of incident, recovery and reassembly an archaeological process normally conducted over centuries.
Shed before 1991 and during the explosion By filling a shed with every day shed type objects and arranging for Military engineers to blow it up, she immediately recovered the debris and began a process of reassembly.
With and without shadows ‘By placing the objects in space it recalled the cataclysm of their formation. The addition of a single lit naked light bulb cast shadows that accentuated the scale of the explosion linking the viewer back to outer space and the title ‘cold dark matter’ p107 I viewed this at Tate modern in 2009 Shadows bring life to the piece and we don’t tend to associate the violence of its origin with the awe the piece inspires.I was surprised how the art work is demeaned in the image with an absence of shadows. Cornelia Parker interview By Mark Hudson 24 Jun 2010 Telegraph : Cornelia Parker’s work blends wit, poignancy and frequent explosions. I like to be direct, she says “My work has threads of ideas from all over the place. I try to crystallise them in something simple and direct that the viewer can then take where they want.” There’s a lot of violence in the making of these things, but a quiet aftermath. I take things that are worn out through overuse, that have become clichés, like the shed, a traditional place of rest and retreat, and I give them a more incandescent future. Explosions are very familiar from films and the news, but how many of us have seen one or even touched a piece of the debris?” ”there’s a great sense of irony in the North,” says Parker, who hails from Cheshire and considers herself a “north westerner”
Shadow art utilising the precise placing of objects to create new forms in the absence of light.
‘Nihilistic Optimistic’ Sculptures made with debris from the artists studio cast shadows projected onto the gallery wall. Kumi Yamashita
Shigeo Fukuda Street art by Issac Cordal His outdoor installations combine sculpting and shadow art.
Strainers faces 2009 London and Barcelona. Larry Kagan New York based artist creating from steel, light and shadow
Rashad Alakbaror
As with all interesting artistic experiments the advertising industry ‘borrow’ the concept
Gaston Bachelard in the Poetics of space: Trace and shadow mean the same thing! (Book written in 1958) Thinking about Trace Traces drawings from Nikolaus Gansterer …..’Drawing a hypothesis : figures of thought: a project’
trace (treɪs) n From French tracier, from Vulgar Latin tractiāre (unattested) to drag, from Latin tractus, from trahere to drag] 1. a mark or other sign that something has been in a place; vestige 2. a tiny or scarcely detectable amount or characteristic 3. a footprint or other indication of the passage of an animal or person 4. (Mechanical Engineering) any line drawn by a recording instrument or a record consisting of a number of such lines 5. something drawn, such as a tracing 6. US a beaten track or path 7. (Psychology) the postulated alteration in the cells of the nervous system that occurs as the result of any experience or learning. See also memory trace, engram 8. (Mathematics) geometry the intersection of a surface with a coordinate plane 9. (Mathematics) maths the sum of the diagonal entries of a square matrix 10. (Linguistics) linguistics a symbol inserted in the constituent structure of a sentence to mark the position from which a constituent has been moved in a generative process 11. (Physical Geography) meteorol an amount of precipitation that is too small to be measured 12. a way taken; route vb 13. (tr) to follow, discover, or ascertain the course or development of (something): to trace the history of China. 14. (tr) to track down and find, as by following a trail 15. to copy (a design, map, etc) by drawing over the lines visible through a superimposed sheet of transparent paper or other material 16. a. to draw or delineate a plan or diagram of: she spent hours tracing the models one at a time. b. to outline or sketch (an idea, policy, etc): he traced out his scheme for the robbery. 17. (Art Terms) (tr) to decorate with tracery 18. (Textiles) (tr) to imprint (a design) on cloth, etc 19. (usually foll by back) to follow or be followed to source; date back: his ancestors trace back to the 16th century. 20. to make one’s way over, through, or along (something)
Chambers trace1 noun 1 a mark or sign that some person, animal or thing has been in a particular place. 2 a track or footprint. 3 a very small amount that can only just be detected • found traces of cocaine. 4 a tracing. 5 a line marked by the moving pen of a recording instrument. 6 a visible line on a cathode-ray tube showing the path of a moving spot. 7 a supposed physical change in the brain or cells of the nervous system caused by learning. verb (traced, tracing) 1 to track and discover by or as if by following clues, a trail, etc. 2 to follow step by step • trace the development of medicine. 3 to make a copy of (a drawing, design, etc) by covering it with a sheet of semi-transparent paper and drawing over the visible lines. 4 to outline or sketch (an idea, plan, etc). 5 (also trace something back) to investigate it and discover the cause, origin, etc of it, eg in a specified time, person, thing. traceability noun. traceable adj. traceably adverb. traceless adj. ETYMOLOGY: 14c: from French tracier. BERGER on Drawing As I draw the model becomes defective. The image in my mind is marred by the marks I put on paper. And so…….
Still searching for the perfect black paper. Experiments with ink, blackboard paint on card and wood
February 2014 Progress has been slow in the development of this search :
Indian Ink on two dead crane flies found on the back of a ripped toothpaste card in the bathroom bin. I have identified PLIKE BLACK as being the definitive paper for this work but so far I have been in negotiation with the only firm in the UK to hold the licence, unlike the USA the minimum order is 25 sheets, incurring costs of approximately £150. My requests for samples of 340 grms plus have resulted in a beautiful pack of samples of PLIKE ‘Graphite’ arriving; I mentioned I was conducting experiments of graphite drawing on the perfect BLACK paper. Why don’t people READ e-mails? I have so far lost two weeks in phone calls and e-mails….SO near yet so far! Still excited by what could be achieved.
February 2014 Photography Session at the Observatory. Original Crane flies on Black paper and experiments with projections of real crane flies onto the ceiling.
I have continued with the experiments of projecting the shadows of real Crane flies onto the ceiling using an OHP. I formulated an experiment to see if I could flatbed scan the real insects and then print onto clear acetate, negating the use of the real insects as they are continuing to decompose and their fragile corpses move on the OHP with any small movement of air in the room. I also have concerns that the intense heat of the OHP would incinerate them over a protracted showing time of this work. INSERT OBSERVATORY IMAGES Alfred Gell Art and agency 1998 Discusses Apotropaic patterns function as ‘demonic’ flypaper ?TI p54 Trap the demon as if in a spiders web. Tim ingolds final paragraph in ‘Lines a brief history ‘‘Far from seeking closure, my aim has been to prise an opening. We may have come to the end of this book, but that does not mean we have reached the end of the line. Indeed the line, like life has no end. As in life, what matters is not the final destination, but all the interesting things that occur along the way. For wherever you are, there is somewhere further you can go’. Paris December 2013 The Paris catacombs and Tim Ingolds words about labyrinth and mazes of the dead were illustrated: Story of Minotaur. Daedelus who devised the labyrinth, is alleged to have modeled it on the maze that leads to the underworld. A labyrinth or maze has remained a powerful image of movement and wayfaring in a world of the dead that is believed to lie beneath the surface of the world of quotidian experience………..the dead like potholers, are doomed to wander these channels…..The ghostly traveler, unlike his living counterpart does not have the perception of walking upon solid ground, with the earth beneath his feet and the sky above, nor does he have the advantage of all-round vision and hearing…..To the contrary he is fully enclosed within the earth that affords him movement only along its cracks and crevices…insulated from sensory contact with his surroundings. Unable to see where he is going he can have no idea, when paths diverge, of which to take. In short, whereas the living, in making their way in the world, follow the traces left by their predecessors upon the surface of the earth, the dead have to thread their way through its interstices.
Tim Ingold ‘The powerful imagery of movement and wayfaring in the world of the dead that is believed to lie beneath the surface of the world of quotidian experience.’
Tim Ingold : Notes Anthropologists habit of insisting there is something essentially linear about the way people in modern Western societies comprehend the passage of history, generations and time. ‘Walking, talking, gesticulating human beings lines are everywhere’ Ingold P2
Walking in the Lake district in April 2014 I found a bird skeleton. The delicacy of the displaced but interlocking neckbones was poetic, all that strength and movement reliant on this tiny pea sized jigsaw of bone.
I have been invited to create a piece for an Exhibition at Knole House, National Trust, Sevenoaks. Kent. ‘The Send Off’ – contemporary artists forge new conversations with Wilfred Owen, Carol Ann Duffy and the Great War. July 28th – August 29th 2014 The exhibition will showcase contemporary artist’s responses to two texts. One is a contemporaneous poem by Wilfrid Owen called ‘The Send Off’, the other a response to it by the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy called ‘Unseen’. Both poems look at leaving, absence, love, and loss. We are hoping that new work by our artists will offer not just individual responses but also move away from the familiar WW1 ciphers and provide visitors with an engaging and unexpected experience on their journey through the house. My thoughts as my starting point are all revolving round the images and Labyrinth, maze ideas discussed above. The exhibition has the restriction that the work created is to be exhibited on a NT plinth.
Jacob el Hanani I found this artist while looking through : Drawing between the lines of NOW Contemporary Art (Ref DRA 741.924) in the library. px1 talks of him incorporating the principle of erasure- the will to unmark – so I wanted to know more.
GAUZE 2011 ink on paper 9 x 12 inches Very little written information on the web just images and CV but found this onTWOxTWO a charity web site raising funds for Aids and Art ,Dallas 2014. It is the same work as in the book. Israeli artist Jacob El Hanani makes beautiful and intricate works that employ the tradition of micrography in Judaism, a technique utilized in decoration and transcribing holy text. In Guaze, El Hanini also makes a reference to the translucent fabric traditionally woven in Palestine. The word gauze is said to derive from the place name of Gaza, a center of weaving in the region. The painstaking repetition of miniscule marks embodies an extraordinary detail that speaks to the passage of time and the link between the microscopic and the intangible. Jacob El Hanini’s work has been collected by Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Brooklyn Museum; The Jewish Museum, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Tel Aviv Museum of Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. estimated retail value: $9,300 Stephen Farthing Recording and Questions of accuracy in ‘Writing on Drawing‘ ‘In time all drawings become records, but only some are intended as records’ He reviews a history of drawing as recording . His premise at the start is ‘just two types of drawn record: those made in the presence of the event and those made after.’ He discusses the advent of the camera and how this is the now preferred method of recording an eyewitness account but even this method can like drawings be improved and enhanced after the event. As a final choice of artist in his paper On p151 he introduced me to Katie Cuddon Mantlepiece drawings Jerwood Drawing Prize 2005 Drawn on a computer ‘As a babysitter for an agency I often find myself welcomed into the living rooms of strangers. I know little of their background or their characters, simply where the loo, the children and the tea are located in their home. By mapping their mantlepieces, the stage of domestic and social aspiration, I begin to clarify the type of people they may be and provide a guide others can then read.’ (Jerwood catalogue 2005 p33
Farthing commenting that the drawings were probably made not long after the event, using notes and memories and a way of drawing familiar to the recorder and of its time. Kate Cuddon sparked my interest as this work connects with my interest in the domestic and Stephen Farthings conclusion was a resume of my thoughts ‘…you will find the recorder staring at the mantlepiece, not so much wondering if they can draw it as struggling to find a strategy to make it interesting………our imagination searching out new ways of making records and new things to record’ Replicated from Professional practice: ‘Works on paper:Collaboration’ AN Bursary December 2013- November 2014 I was invited to be one of the artists in a collaborative project ‘Works on Paper’. Having started an MA in drawing in October I would like a cross fertilisation of my ideas and exploration of methodology between both ventures. I didn’t appreciate my initial intense drawings for ‘straight’ the first designated collaboration topic; would have to remain in my MA portfolio as it dawned that they would move through the group to be adapted, altered and even erased as part of the collaborative project. One collaborator asked if it was OK to burn work! ‘Straighten’ Everyone comments on my tidy home while I know I am a hoarder and the cupboards bulge. For original idea for installation, see below left.
‘Dreams thoughts and memories weave a single fabric’ Gaston Bachelard Poetics of space ‘Straighten’ was devised as an alternative format for presenting a non figurative narrative. I used an HB pencil sharpened to a fine point. I limited the time frame for each drawing ‘frame’ to a maximum of two and a half hours . The perspectives selected were altered for each segment by moving my drawing position, sitting on the floor, low stool, high chair etc.This was intended to heighten the intrigue. Also increase the potential ways of showing the piece Initially they were intended as linear drawings devoid of shadow, but once I moved away from the depersonalised kitchen cupboards and into the more personal textile cupboards I found memory interplayed with the drawings and some texture and shadow was introduced. I also found the scale of the drawings altered almost as a zoom lens as an object sparked my interest. The drawings became increasingly abstract and the marks more confident.The images started to move beyond their containment into the next frame, restrained yet bursting. Time based process in a a domestic space.( Scanned images )
When I presented this work in the CfD hung as seen for a group crit with Anne Marie Creamer, I also introduced the idea of the work being only at a half way point if I continued to work on one side and having the potential to be completed on the other side. I was playing with the idea of the reverse being the cupboard doors or as emptied out recpticles. It was a blind group crit and the work was widely analysed by my peer group. Notes: It looks like: the way through a house. A concertina/collaboration. The images bleed affecting the flow as they overlap.Increasingly abstract and casual.Windows appear at certain times as it enfolds. Looks like a journey. Increasingly confident. Lyrical. Glasses are bigger than the coats. Odd perspective and scale. Folds create a framed storyboard. Voyeuristic, cataloguing. Approach like a still life. I felt that most still life drawings are arranged and edited. Anne Marie commented that it was more an ‘observation of a life’ ‘Stills of Life’rather than still life. Concept is the point . It is an artist book and ripe for investigating ways of presentation. I was then offered a tutorial with Zoe Mendelson I have a multi-disciplinary practice with drawing pivotal, and relationships sustained between temporal and perennial supports. I mostly make drawing, collage, sculpture and site-specific installation. My work takes place on paper, walls, and within communication devices and objects. My practice proposes and interprets relationships between architecture, anxiety and storage. I am currently interested in developing site-specific works which negotiate differences between hoards and collections by embedding compulsion and clutter into contained space. http://www.zoemendelson.co.uk/about
Following my tutorial with Zoe I decided to take ‘Straighten’ into my more usual media of the permanent mark making of a fine liner and restart the experiment.
This work is in progress. April 2014 Kent County Council have been clearing woodland to enable road widening, a trace of a captured presence in its absence. ( iPhone images.)
May 2014 On completion of my Critical practice Essay (see separate entry) I felt the need to continue and finalise some of the issues I had researched on my work ‘Objects of Desire’ presented at my Student, Staff Showcase I started a new pillowcase with the intension of merging Hogarth’s ‘Gin Lane’,as a’ghost’ pencil drawing, a figure of Paula Rego and my contemporaneous thread drawn ladies all located on the London streets
I started with the thread drawings. The pencil drawings of ‘Gin Lane’ filling the pillow were unsuccessful and repeated washing of the pillowcase left a faint residue of the buildings, a ghosting. I decided to focus on the infamous drunk woman dropping the baby from ‘Gin Lane’ and added a contemporary Rego figure from the ‘Abortion’ series, she merged seamlessly into the historical drawing.
The pillow drawing led me to thoughts about the contemporary and historical connections of females to ‘Gin’. (Gin being an old wives recommended remedy to induce abortion) Unconvinced by the mark making on the pillow, I decided to experiment with using Gin as a medium for drawings. The line was invisable while drawing and once dried(last image). The three images were obtained by holding the wet drawings against a light.
All the prolonged preparations that the drunk girls take for their evenings out, revolve around copious use of fake tan. Drawing 1 Media, washable fake tan using a brush on A4.A difficult consistency to control. Drawing 2 media was permanent fake tan and 3 was the same media using a cocktail stick as drawing implement and gave a more subtle mark.
During a discussion with Tania about the drawings, questions were raised about mixing the Gin and fake tan together to provide a better solution for drawing. This led me to thinking about applying fake tan to myself, drinking and sleeping on the pure white pillow drawing. A sleep drawing devoid of my usual precise control.
Thread drawing on white cotton,pencil, white wine and fake tan May 2014 I continue with the television drawings I introduced in my first peer group critique on October 25th 2013. (Below copied from : Peer Group experiences Tania: Drawing lab 1 and Critique 1) I felt relaxed and free from inhibition at the end of the first drawing lab session. That evening I attempted my first TV drawing which I presented with the first MA drawings see below.. Can I capture the fast paced movement of a drama programme? I selected a fine pencil and moved the remote away to avoid the temptation of using the pause / freeze-frame button. (NB A different drawing experiment)
 TV Drawing In the Tv drawing the fast pace of the screen movement, reverted my process back to looking at the TV while drawing the observed movement. Sketchbook. Now May 2014 : I have experimented with the difference in marks between documentary , dancing, murder mystery. So far I have used the medium of pencil. I have not included advertising breaks which would disrupt the continuity of the marks causing confusion in my current experiments. I intend to alter media and include advertising ‘breaks’ in unit 2. All the Images below are are scanned from the same continuous folding book.
‘Vera’ a slow paced rural crime drama
Intension for Unit 1 assessment exhibition. I intend to exhibit the books standing in a zig zag formation, on very narrow shelving 115 cmd long. The wall position will be low to enable the viewer to similtaneously see both sides of the books pages. Unit 1 My practice appears intent on always having a domestic connection at it’s heart. Through all the experimentations of unit 1 the subject or media has supported my artists statement that ‘By the manipulation of recognized feminine and domestic objects, she offers a new appraisal of the familiar. ‘ [vimeo]https://vimeo.com/95676186/settings[/vimeo] |
