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Our Hollie

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Painting Progress

Some shots of the different stages of making my last piece. I had a change of heart with the colour scheme for the background half way through so I had to paint over my original design (no photos of this). This ended up being pointless as I used the same colour to paint the lines over the new one.

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Painting

This is a mixed media piece I did recently. In the song ‘Seems So Long Ago, Nancy’ Cohen writes about Nancy being in “The House of Mystery” which I imagine as a world somewhere between this world and the next. I wanted to illustrate my interpretation of Nancy in this ‘house of mystery’ by combining realism and abstraction, to portray that Nancy is now in a new otherworldly place where she has the freedom she was denied in her lifetime - “You hear her talking freely then, she’s happy that you’ve come.”

I was inspired by the artists Daniel Segrove and Mao Yan to combine elements of both abstract art and realism in this piece. I drew the face in a realistic manner using colouring pencils but added in colours such as blue, purple and green to compliment the background. I then did her body and the background using acrylic paints. The piece was done on half an A3 sheet of paper. I used the other side of the half of the page for colour swatches and testing my line work but ended up liking how the finished piece and the testers looked together so I decided not to separate them.

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Daniel Segrove

Daniel Segrove is an American artist who lives and works in San Francisco, California. Segrove paints and draws those here are close to or those who have stories that he can relate to or that inspire him. His work is meticulously anatomical with expressive and abstract elements, a combination I enjoy and like to incorporate in my paintings.

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Moses Soyer

Moses Soyer (1899-1974) was a Russian-American social realist painter best known for his paintings of Americans during the Great Depression. Soyer was a key figure in the 20th century American realist movement. He usually painted women, and his portraits can be described as stylised & moody. He wanted to portray the struggle of American people following this huge economic crash. His paintings are a way of showing his empathy for the working class during the troubling times that they were living through.

What I enjoy most about Soyer’s painting is how he paints in his own style but while also incorporating a large amount of realism, so that the commonalities between his paintings can only really be noticed when one views a few of his pieces at the same time. I also enjoy the muted, almost dull tones that are so prevalent in his paintings, a very effective means of portraying the great sadness felt by many people at the time.

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Mood board

Some artwork that inspired my painting of Nancy in the ‘House of Mystery.’ I wanted the piece to have a surrealist feel to it and to use a contrast of both vibrant, unnatural colours and some earthy tones. I also like the psychedelic effect seen in these pieces and this is something I tried to incorporate into my composition to help portray this other realm or afterlife.

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Project Statement: Story Project - ‘Seems So Long Ago, Nancy’ by Leonard Cohen

When thinking about how I was going to interpret the theme of this project, the word ‘story’, I was drawn to the idea of song lyrics and songs that tell stories. Having listened to the music of Leonard Cohen with my Dad growing up, I grew to admire his music and the poetic element to the lyrics of his songs. His song ‘Seems So Long Ago, Nancy’ has always been one of my favourites.

The lyrics tell the tragic and mysterious story of the young woman who inspired the song, a young lady named Nancy. Nancy was an acquaintance of Cohen’s when he was growing up in Montreal. She was a troubled and misunderstood individual who spent much of her adolescence in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and after falling pregnant at the age of 21 was forced to give her baby boy up for adoption. I think the poetic manner in which Cohen’s lyrics tell this story helps to inspire images in my head that I can convey through the mediums of drawing and painting.

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Painting

A pencil drawing I did inspired by a photograph by Nan Gordon titled ‘Roomate with Teacup, Boston, 1973.’

When I imagine the woman Leonard Cohen paints a picture of in ‘Seems So Long Ago, Nancy’ I imagine a person similar to some of the characters photographed by Goldin in New York in the 70’s & 80’s. Similarly to Nancy, these individuals existed on the fringes of society and often led very tough lives. That’s why when I saw this picture taken by Goldin I felt as though the young woman photographed was a visual representation to me of Nancy. The image seems intimate, as though the subject has let down her guard with Goldin. She appears to be deep in thought, with a calm yet sad demeanor.

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Mao Yan

Mao Yan is a well know Chinese portrait artist. He is a Neo Realist artist who has been called the face of Neo Realism in China. His portraits are painted to seem almost unfinished and using only greyscale paint to symbolise the ‘gradually fading emotions and faces of a lost generation.’

I find Mao’s work incredibly moving. I am also impressed by his ability to convey such emotion in his paintings without using different colours and while maintaining a spectacular level of realism.

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Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin is an American artist best known for her intimate portrait photography. Much of Goldin’s work consists of photographs of her close friends and acquaintances, which more often than not includes members of the LGBTQ community. Goldin is known to photograph intense and often abusive relationships, even documenting her own experience of domestic violence. Some of her most notable work are her poignant yet tragic photos taken during the HIV crisis snd the opiate crisis. Goldin is also a painter, although her paintings are lesser known than her photography. Her paintings are more abstract, yet often deal with similar themes such as love, violence, sexuality and addiction.

When I think of the story told in my chosen song, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Seems So Long Ago, Nancy,’ I imagine the life of a young and misunderstood individual. To make a painting that would reflect this story it is necessary to paint with intense emotion. This is why I’m inspired by Goldin’s work, as I feel her photography portrays outcasts in a raw and emotive way. The main reason that Nan Goldin began taking photographs was because of the suicide of her teenage sister, who was shunned by society due to her overt sexuality, a story very similar to that of Nancy. Perhaps this is why I picture a connection between Cohen’s song and Goldin’s photography.

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Painting Workshops

Some of the drawings I did in two of Eoin’s workshops. The first is a still life, the second is an abstract 1 minute self portrait and the last is a 10 minute self portrait. Although Eoin suggested we try to use different mediums i mainly used a black brush pen and some black ink to block in larger dark areas.

I enjoyed these workshops as it usually takes me quite a while to finish anything so being forced to do quick drawings in a short time frame was a fun task.

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Project Statement: For my Movement project I decided that I wanted to explore something that was very current in my both my life and everybody else’s lives; lockdown. However, I wasn’t interested in exploring the lockdown as a whole, but rather how being in isolation can cause the movement of time to feel distorted.

I was drawn in by this idea as I felt that during lockdown the movement of time was being either sped up or slowed down. I also thought that every day seemed to be repeating itself, with the lack of change in routine being a primary reason for this.

A big part of this theme for me was the effect that it had on the human mind. I wanted to explore through my art how the movement of time feeling repeated and distorted could have a negative effect on a person’s mental well being. I knew many people including myself were feeling as though they were losing their sanity in lockdown, and I wanted to portray this in an effective way in my project.

I explored my chosen theme by using myself, my roommate and my apartment as my main points of reference. I did this as these were the things that were of most importance to my own experience and were easiest for me to research given the current situation.

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Research Notebook - ‘Movement’ Project - Elective Module Semester 2

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Ideas Development Sketchbook - ‘Movement’ Project - Elective Module Semester 2

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PFV Elective

I wanted to create some photos that represented my chosen theme, how the movement of time can feel distorted in isolation. When I was making stamps for the print elective I had printed the phrase ‘same old, same old’ multiple times on the same page as a way of portraying how every day in isolation feels as though it’s repeating itself. Since I have been confined to my apartment for most of lockdown, I thought it would be interesting to juxtapose similar words and phrases over different objects in my apartment that I have been seeing constantly as of late.

On my wall I changed the text on the posters to once again read the phrase ‘same old, same old,’ the same phrase I used for my stamps. On our apartments landline phone I changed the digits on the various buttons to letters that spell out ‘repetition,’ a word that is important to my chosen theme. Also, since I have been spending a lot of time lazing around and watching TV, I thought it would be a funny touch to change the profiles on my Amazon Prime account to words that create the sentence ‘I’m losing my mind,’ as the feeling of losing ones sanity is something I have dealt with previously I’m my project.

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PFV Elective - Camera Obscura

This is my attempt at transforming my bedroom into a camera obscura similar to those created by the photographer Abelardo Morell. Unfortunately my room doesn’t seem to be getting enough light into it to create a projection bright enough to photograph. I tried getting up early and checking the results at various times over the course of two days but it doesn’t seem to be working. I also tried creating different sized apparatuses and putting glasses lenses over the small opening, but to no avail. I’ll give it one last go tomorrow and hopefully achieve a better result. Nonetheless, it was an interesting process creating the camera itself.

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Painting Elective

The starting phases of a painting I’m working on at the moment. I started by planning the painting in my sketchbook, then drawing the outline for the final piece onto some A3 paper. I then started painting the first layers using watercolour paints, and afterwards I went back in and added some detail with some coloured pencils.