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eliwatson-17 · 8 years ago

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FMP Blog

I have always been very conscious of the damage that we do, as humans, to the natural environment and this theme has followed me through many of my previous projects in one way or another. My work is currently strongly influenced by the idea of non-permanence and decay of material. At the beginning of specialism in Fine Art, we were given a project called ’30 tasks in 12 days’, one of the tasks being to paint with a non art material. For this, I used coffee and found that it worked really nicely, producing a strange, shiny texture when dry. I thought this was interesting considering it is a fairly natural material. This process grew on me and I started to repeat similar ways of using it on different materials and in different ways. (Picture 1) This included working onto canvas and calico, ripping masking tape to create a rustic sort of look, producing cubist sort of lines and allowing the coffee to work its own way into the paper through dripping.

From this point, I found myself feeling very stuck with the coffee paintings as I was repeating much of the work I had done and going round in circles so I started looking at food waste and how large the issue is in the world. I found a statistic which stated that 1/3 of all food purchased in the UK goes to landfill. This astounded me and I realised that I wanted to do something which would highlight how terrible this problem is so I began to paint with not only coffee but carrots, mushy peas, beetroot and red cabbage to give them more importance and demonstrate that they can be of more worth than we realise. I found incorporating these other food items into my work really motivated me to produce larger pieces and with these materials, I made two pieces which are roughly 2m x 3m. (Picture 2) I was really pleased with the outcome of these because they are made with such an inexpensive and normally insignificant object; we take food for granted but these pieces allowed them to become something much larger and more beautiful than they normally would be portrayed to be. During this time, I also produced a film on plants, inspired by Cyprien Gaillard, which was aimed to portray them in a sinister light, making them more noticeable; I find that people often walk past small beauties around them. (Picture 3)

After this point, I found myself quite stuck again and I began to produce much smaller objects. Through my research, I discovered that potatoes are the most wasted food so I dressed two up to make them more valuable than they are normally. I also cast some vacuum packed beetroot as it just seemed very strange that something so natural is sold in a plastic, manmade material; I was fascinated by this juxtaposition. (Picture 4)

After this point, I found some old cans of emulsion and decided that I would throw them all together, not realising that some were oil based and some water. This produced a very interesting marbling effect on the paper which I found was very similar to the natural patterns I found in plants when making my previous film. (Picture 5) I found a similarity in the juxtaposition as in the beetroot wrapped in plastic and decided to begin resembling the same patterns with the paint. this then led to painting on top of screenshots from my film and scanning them in which produced abstract pieces, not completely concealing the plants from the eye but allowing them to step back within the piece to reference nature. I then began to scan these pieces in and printing them out with one colour or two which created a strange relationship between the original image and the paint which I rather liked. (Picture 6) From this point, I chose the ones which I felt were the most successful and added material on top such as chain and jewellery, bringing in a contrast between the unnatural and natural.

As previously mentioned, one artist that influenced my work was Cyprien Gaillard who’s film ‘Nightlife’ featured in ‘the Infinite Mix’ at the Hayward Gallery. This was produced over the space of 2 years and featured Cleveland, Los Angeles and Berlin at night. He focused on the swaying of trees in the streets of LA and a firework display outside Berlins Olympiastadion. This inspired me to produce a film work with nature because through everything, the natural processes of the world will remain the same and I felt like it was important to highlight how beautiful those processes are. (Picture 7)

I came across another artist called Amelia Fais, who produces works made with red wine, the most significant for my project being ‘#nomakeup’. At the time her work was being most recognised, she went to the dermatologist with a skin condition and was diagnosed with rosacea, which coincidentally is thought to be caused by red wine. With the irony of this in mind she produced a series of self portraits which I felt related to my work at the time; I began to look up the properties and uses of the materials I was using and aimed to produce a piece which would have deeper meaning to do with how else the materials could be used. (Picture 8)

Another artist that has largely influenced my own practice is Keith Tyson, most importantly his nature paintings created with different chemicals and paints on acid-primed aluminium panels. The chemicals used in each pieces are perfectly calculated in volume, strength, viscosity and type to interact with one another in such a way that they produce an accurate resemblance to nature. These inspired me as not only did they have physical affinity to nature, but the end products are created by the process of nature working. (Picture 9)

Most recently, I have been looking at Wade Guyton; he produced a series of works with another artist, Kelly Walker which consisted of large screen prints of bananas, polka dots and stripes onto mattresses. At the beginning of fine art, I scanned banana peels in my photocopier at home and printed it to an A0 size to reveal the patterns and cracks in the skins. When I saw these works, it instantly related to my own work and I was intrigued to look deeper into their pieces. I like the way some of the shapes within the banana pieces have been filled with the dots because it highlights the different structures within the fruit. In my Final Major Project, I would like to look further into different techniques that I could use such as screen printing and mono-printing to create a different aesthetic to my pieces. (Picture 10)

I have also researched into periods of time, such as the 14th century when the plague was affecting people in England; this illness intrigues me because it infected so many people and it was such a huge pandemic. One of the most interesting things for me though, would be the Plague Doctors outfit and the bird like mask that he had to wear. They would fill the nose/ beak with strong smelling plants and herbs, such as lavender, as they believe that the smell was the cause of the plague. (Picture 11) Regardless of this, I find the aesthetic of the masks disturbing and creepy which is why I was so interested in it; I feel it perfectly demonstrates the horror of the disease but incorporates nature in a sinister looking way which led me to make a link between it and some modern art that I ova been looking at, like Cyprien Gaillard.

This project is very alike to ones that I have undergone in the past; they all carry a similar theme to do with nature and world issues. Throughout GCSE and A Levels, all my projects had nature intwined in them somehow which has followed me through onto the foundation. I feel that I have gained an array of skills when it comes to portraying the pieces in different ways. This project, for example, was the first one that I incorporated media and photography into, but the outcome of this seems to work effectively; I think I will aim to carry this skill through to the Final Major Project. I’d like to explore the relationship between the natural process of decay and technology further and see how layering up images will work to present the decay in a playful way. I would like to do this using the skills I have already gained from the course, such as through the scanner and mixing different medias together, but also learn some new skills, as previously mentioned, like different printing techniques and ceramics.

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