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Structures in the Botanic Gardens which I thought were suitable for draping/ hanging/ suspending painted materials. The tubular bells were particularly interesting, given my use of tubular bells for the Divergent project - a very neat tie in. However awkward to do the work there as a very busy play park.
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BA Contemporary Art Practice
26 April 2019
Ann Westwood
Creative Enquiry: Critical Review
785 words
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The original proposal for my creative enquiry was about exploring painting media and surfaces, and continuing the investigation started in Year 3. Working loosely with the concept of memory, there was a tie-in with my Dissertation through the subject of Colour, and also a connection to the musical idea of my Divergent Module, in the image of tubular bells.
By continuing to impose restrictions on myself, mainly by using up the remaining System 3 paints that I had worked with last year, in a dwindling supply of colours, I had the opportunity to change my palette, by softening the colours, mixing with white, and creating light washes. This lead me to a better insight into the painting process, of how to achieve effects through practical use of the media.
Part of my developing understanding was my realisation that I love colour and unlike Goethe, I don’t think that ‘Savage nations, uneducated people and children have a great predilection for vivid colours.’ (JW Goethe, 1810, ‘Zur Farbenlehre’ quoted in Kassia St Clair, 2017). Instead, I feel colour is life and I’ve discovered for myself that colour can not only portray emotions, but also evoke them in the viewer and add quality to human experience.
The strength of my work has been the application to the process, sticking to the task I set myself and devoting time to the practical activity as well as to the research into the practice of contemporary painters.
From Agnes Martin’s gentle, almost monochromic colours, through Richard Diebenkorn’s rich but subtle work, from Callum Innes’ cerebral exercises with reductive techniques to Sean Scully’s emotionally supercharged works, I have taken lots of stimulation and made my own initial investigations into a variety of techniques. Using a range of different substrates was also part of my investigation, and those exercises with different fabrics and with hard surfaces (Perspex, glass and wood) produced very interesting results. In using silk-screen print mesh, I have been inspired by the work of Doh Ho Suh.
I tried to clarify what the subject of any painting should be, to gain a greater understanding of what abstraction in painting can mean. I came to realise that for me, painting is less about the subject matter and more about engaging with the materials in a physical but subconscious way, playing with them and enjoying what they do, rather than planning out the painting and having a preconceived outcome in mind. It means the results are unpredictable and sometimes unsatisfactory or disappointing, but I believe that will also be the case even when a work is carefully planned and executed.
Another element of my enquiry has been about the exhibition of work. It should be site specific but ideally, it should also be autonomous, capable of installation in another venue without difficulty. Different materials need different considerations as to how they can be displayed, and I have researched different ways of framing and suspending material, including using ready-made structures like windows and doors as frames and fences, shrubs and trees, as supports. My work benefits from natural light and does not need complicated fixings or substructures; and the idea of the work, or different versions of it, can be demonstrated and displayed in a variety of ways, in different but similar contexts.
As to weaknesses, I find it too easy to be diverted from the main task. My postcard project, which sprang from a piece of ceramic from a workshop last year, presented too many opportunities for diversion away from my original proposal. It raised more questions than answers, about the nature of personal communication past and present, the identity of the writer as revealed by the postcards, the impact on existing relationships and the possibilities for forming new relationships. It has also produced unexpected and varied creative responses in the recipients. As with the main Creative Enquiry, the exercise is ongoing and all of it worth further development, beyond the timeframe of the module.
I also struggle with the ‘fits and starts’ of the creative process, and the random nature of productivity, sometimes because of external pressure, but also because of the presence or absence of inspiration, motivation, or other driving forces. I know I work best under pressure, and deadlines always galvanise me, so with four weeks till the degree show opening, I’m reasonably confident that I can finish off the work of the course.
Bibliography
Batchelor, D (ed) (2008) Colour, Documents of Contemporary Art, London, Whitechapel Gallery
Ceysson (2015) Supports/ Surfaces, Toulouse, Ceyssons Editions d’Art
Farr, I (ed) (2012) Memory, Documents of Contemporary Art, London, Whitechapel Gallery
Perry, V (2005) Abstraction: Concepts and Techniques, New York, Watson-Guptill
St Clair, Kassia (2017): The Secret lives of Colour, London, John Murray
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Revised Proposal
Ann Westwood
BA Hons Contemporary Art Practice
Proposal for Critical Enquiry and Divergent Practice Modules
8 November 2018
For my creative output this year I will continue to base my work round the concept of memory, both personal and collective. My background in studying and teaching history has developed into a lay person’s interest in the past in all its shapes and forms. This combines with a sense of the past being hidden or incomplete, that the full story cannot be known, from the personal experience of there being no house I lived in or school I attended still in existence, either being demolished or completely re-purposed. This creates a feeling of the past being hidden or erased.
In my work last year and in my making brief over the summer, I’ve been investigating the properties and qualities of different colour mediums and different substrates and have observed how various levels of layering of combinations of materials or colour mediums can produce different degrees of transparency. Layering can provide partial glimpses of what lies beyond, create distorted views or raise questions about what might be concealed. From this, I’ve identified a connection between aspects of memory and the qualities of paint and materials.
An artist who works with layers of paint is Callum Innes, who carefully applies multiple layers of different colours of paint in a regular overlapping shape and then removes a section of the area with spirit, to reveal the edges some of the paint layers hidden beneath, as in the painting below. The “memory” of the painted layers beneath is only partially exposed.
1 Callum Innes: Exposed Painting Oriental Blue, 2018, oil on Linen235 x 230 cm
Another artist whose work I have seen in an exhibition in Bristol Museum in 2015 and greatly enjoy is the Korean Do Ho Suh who works with coloured polyester fabric to create whole rooms, which are specifically references to memory, of his growing up in Korea, then moving to New York and later to Britain. These
2 Do Ho Suh: Apartment A, Unit 2, Corridor and Staircase, 348 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011, USA, 2011–2014 (detail)
For the Creative Enquiry project, I intend to continue on the course I’ve already set myself, to investigate paint (and ink and other media) and colour, as well as different surfaces, including canvas, fabric, acrylic, glass, wood and cardboard. For last year’s Creative Project, I let the materials do their own work and the resulting piece (a hanging painted collage of silk-screen mesh) was a natural product of a focused investigative approach, rather than a planned outcome.
I’ve already been working quite a lot on paper but also have done some small tests on wood, acrylic and glass and I have supplies in place to continue with this research. I have also re-purposed an 80ccm (approx. Perspex cube and used it as n enclosed environment or room, with various objects suspended from willow ‘withies’, in the interior. This is providing me with imagery for painting which I am finding very useful as I am painting in an abstract expressive way. I am painting mainly vertical shapes and experimenting with very thin, watery textures on paper, but given the visual imagery I am using I will be moving on to an impasto technique with layers of very thick paint.
I also have a collection of different small cardboard boxes which I would very much like to work with, having seen the Richard Diebenkorn retrospective at the RA a couple of years ago, and particularly liked his little cigar boxes, painted while he was in Mexico. I think this could be an interesting part of the work because I can still work with colour and cardboard of different types can produce interesting surfaces and may produce some unexpected results which may be worth developing.
3 Richard Diebenkorn, “Cigar Box Lid #4” (1976), oil on wood, 8 3/8 x 7 1/8 inches
(accessed at https://hyperallergic.com/54173/watcher-from-the-skies-richard-diebenkorns-ocean-park-series/)
I have no firm idea of what the outcome of all this will be but I’m fairly certain that the final work will involve paint, colour and possibly collage, and very possibly on quite a large scale. I’ve found when I go for larger scale working that I become freer in my expression and the work becomes more loose and natural.
I will need lots of studio time, space to produce larger pieces of work, lots of paint and more larger brushes. I will also need some bigger pieces of paper, large canvases, fabric, board etc if the work takes me down different routes but whatever I do, I will be mindful as I go along of the implications for curation of larger work, especially as I had great difficulty making my final piece hang together last summer and it was also rather difficult to suspend. I am also open to the idea of the cube “room” becoming the basis of the work itself, and there is a possibility that combined with the painting investigation, the work could become 3D rather than 2D.
I will also be very self-disciplined in not straying from my brief, as I’ve failed in the past to produce good final pieces because I spread myself too thinly across too many ideas. Since I started setting rules and restrictions for myself, I have been more productive and had better results.
For my Divergent Practice project, I will also be using the cube as a starting point to work with sound and image, building on work I have done over the last two years. I have been reading quite a bit about connections between colour and sound in my Dissertation research and the cube environment made me think about using my music background and to develop a short film and/or a sound-image piece. The pieces of painted acrylic suspended from the withies inside the cube reminded me of the rectangular pieces of metal in certain wind-chimes, which made me think of tubular bells used in a symphony orchestra, and then of a set of wine glasses (which I’ve used in a previous sound piece), which I can envisage suspended by their stems from some kind of frame. There is scope for a performative film, with all the “instruments” being struck with different sorts of beaters and edited into a short (maximum 2 minute) film sequence. The recorded sounds could also make a sound piece which could be used along with some separate images, either from my own visual research, from found images or from my own painting.
Depending on the images used and how the sound work develops, this could reference memory, with layers of sound, or fracturing of image and sound. Again I have no clear end product in mind at this stage. The resources may be challenging to find, especially tubular bells, and as for the Creative Project, I will need to keep an eye on the final making as I will have to be sure I have researched the audio-visual equipment I will need to exhibit the work.
Bibliography
Ian Farr (ed), Documents in Contemporary Art: Memory (2012) LONDON, Whitechapel Gallery
Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory (1992), CHICAGO, University of Chicago Press
Eva Hoffman: Memory and Loss in Susan Radstone and Bill Schwarz, Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, (2010) NEW YORK, Fordham Accessed on JSTOR 08 November 2018
Marcel Proust: Music and Memory in Susan Radstone and Bill Schwarz, Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, (2010) NEW YORK, Fordham Accessed on JSTOR 08 November 2018
References
1 Callum Innes: Exposed Painting Oriental Blue, 2018, oil on Linen235 x 230 cm
(accessed at /www.inglebygallery.com/artists/44-callum-innes/works/ 8 November 2018)
2 Do Ho Suh: Apartment A, Unit 2, Corridor and Staircase, 348 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011, USA, 2011–2014 (detail)
(accessed at https://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/188-do-ho-suh/ 8 November 2018)
3 Richard Diebenkorn, “Cigar Box Lid #4” (1976), oil on wood, 8 3/8 x 7 1/8 inches
(accessed at https://hyperallergic.com/54173/watcher-from-the-skies-richard-diebenkorns-ocean-park-series/ 8 November 2018)
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Productive activity - pressure of deadline making me focus. Considering framing/ hanging options. Also working on the technical requirements of the frames.
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Discussed my unhappiness with Evelyn and she suggested I ask to swap the space with another student for this one which provides lots of board space, good light and plenty of floor space for suspending materials, with an iron beam running overhead awy from tbhe boards at a 45 degree angle where I can fit metal hooks.
The other student has agreed to the swap without seeing the actual space so I've asked her to see me first thing after the holiday weekend to talk her through what the change would mean for her. Evelyn has got agreement from the technicians that they can erect one or two extra boards.
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Allocated space for degree show. Quite unsuitable, very little floor space, poor lighting, nowhere on immediate ceiling area to attach fixings except close to boards and a large television immediately beside the space.
Realise I've completely misunderstood the process in allocation/ curation of space. I was being open-ended and flexible as my final work was not yet resolved but should have asked for a large area along with the boards so that I could work within the space. Was given a dog-end after everyone else had received their requirements.
Dealt very badly with it - got upset and angry and made unfair and unhelpful sugestion to one of the curators that she had made sure she was ok - have apologised but damage is done. Overall, they have created a very nice space for the whole show and it's going to look very good.
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Painted materials up to scale for instsll, hanging up to dry. Everything looking really bleached in the sunlight.
Also cotton canvas not absorbing colour nicely. Wondering if I should dye it in coffee first to create a more canvas-y impression.
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A beautiful drying day at Hospitalfield! Now paint!
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Space for my degree show - unsure how or exactly where large fabric work will be displayed but need to try out for the development exercise anyway.
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Preparing fabric for painting. 3 different polyester meshes and cotton canvas, all different lengths bur roughly in same proportions as my box strips.
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First session at Hospitalfield. Paints set up. Some warm-ups with soft colour washes.
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