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Utopia - Colour Study (vague Art study)

Utopia is a 2013 (Cancelled) British Thriller/Black Comedy originally broadcasted on Channel 4.

(It's also been scrubbed off the internet by Channel 4, Blue-Ray DVD sets are done in the incorrect aspect ratio, and DVD Box-Sets cost up to €200...so you need to 'borrow' it from elsewhere.)

I'm directly taking the synopsis from its Wikipedia page;

"A community of comic book fans believe the graphic novel The Utopia Experiments predicted several disastrous epidemics, such as mad cow disease (BSE). A rumoured unpublished sequel supposedly contains further information on future world events. When one Utopia enthusiast procures the manuscript, he invites four of his friends from an online forum to meet in real life. However, after getting their hands on the manuscript, the four – Ian, Becky, Wilson, and Grant – find themselves in over their heads, as a secret organization only known as "The Network" is after it. They find their lives systematically dismantled, while The Network operatives kill anyone in their way as they hunt for the manuscript and someone named Jessica Hyde."

The film direction and cinematography is absolutely phenomenal, the colours in the show focus on the CMYK colour scale. rather than RGB. This allows the shots in the show to be highly saturated, and almost clinical looking, even in more gory scenes, this is thanks to Mark Munden he wanted to use a bright, extravagant pallet that goes against the main theme of the show - violence.

I love how the show uses these saturated colours even when heavy violence is in the show, it combats standard action shows that are dark and gritty. It gives the show this false sense of security. it's almost too pretty looking.

Dumping all the images I want to share:

LOOK AT THE COLOURS. LOOK AT THEM.

Just to help highlight the colours and camera work in this show used in a minute-long trailer; The Channel 4 trailer from 2013:

The beauty of the colour used in this show has inspired me for years. For my project, I want to focus on high saturation block colours.

I want to shill this show to as many people as I can.

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Perchance a blog of sorts (it's in relation to my work don't worry)

A tour of the Limerick Printmakers + Other print related things

So, on Tuesday, we got a tour of the Printmakers and if you'll excuse the unprofessionalism on this Student Mandated Tumblr blog that I'm graded on; OH MY GOD??? IT WAS SO COOL? I can't tell if I'm its just my autism showing (which it probably is, cant really stop that) I genuinely cannot tell how excited I am about doing Print Practices for the next 3 years, I'm flitting between just loving task orientated machinery, sciences, BRIGHT BLOCK COLOURS or maybe just the information that was given to us about everything (Thank you Fiona and Suzannah you are both fountains of knowledge)

I think I'm just a menace for nice organisation but professional art settings/studios (in the sense of you doing it as a job) are SO cool to me.

I'm just so ridiculously excited? and enthused? about print I'm getting decision paralysis about my project because the information I'm being given is so good and informative (obviously but you get what I mean)

It feels really nice to have people who are so willing to talk in-depth about the history of print and are also so willing to try new things. I know this was said at the start of Print but having people who are still wanting to learn more about their professional practice is SO motivating. Other print related things

I applied for a Zine festival and got accepted which is terrifying BUT everyone's been really nice about it. I have a month to make things for it, and I'm good under pressure. This is the FIRST time EVER I'm selling my work somewhere that wasn't the Uni (hence why I'm terrified)

Okay my rambling is over.

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Found Relief Print - 18th March

This week we worked on Found Relief Printing. We gathered and used materials to mainly just play around with shapes, textures, and how they transfer onto paper, how we can help work that into our project.

I have a loose idea on what i personally want, as before- my main ideas with this project is to research and gain insight into the history and cultural impact Print has had on the world and how we are now working towards more sustainable methods of print. (I'm a sucker for knowledge.)

So, for relief print I mainly just played around with texture to see what I could create.

The above images is cling-film that was loosely stretch out and pressed onto an inked acetate sheet, the first image is the print of just the cling-film on the page. The second image is the ghost left on the acetate. I really enjoyed the vibrancy the ink produced.

I had some waterproof tarp-like fabric that I tore up to make different textures to see how well the Ink could define its positive and negative space. I really enjoy how the multiple pressings layer with each other as they fade from each run through with the press.

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Starting Print - 13th/14th of March

I got accepted into PRINT (this is where crowds of people start cheering) as my elective.

The first two days was just to focus on the brief itself and to help us think about that we wanted to focus on. Personally, I'm really thankful for the project itself since its purpose is multifaceted;

We get to create things that we want to about a topic we have any opinion on while also getting to learn about sustainability within Print and learning to use more eco-friendly and human-friendly processes.

My main goal with my project isn't to have a finished piece of sorts but to more make it a research project about the history of print.

The Project title 'It's not about you, It's around you.'

I want to look into the history of Print as a democratic and punk practice. Print is for everyone, and it has so many purposes to be used for good. Recently, given the political climate, both nationally and internationally. My opinion aligns with Print is punk in nature. I want to talk about, in my opinion, the absolute BUFFOONERY of Politicians in our current world coming from the perspective of a young person trying to exist in a rapidly declining world that's being dictated and controlled by a bunch of power hungry, apathetic, old geezers

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Zine - Shit that happens.

During today I worked on an 8-page Zine

I drafted the pages first before I drew them onto the pages for the Zine. I wanted to make a piece describing my day and the things that happen to me on Dailly basis.

Here are all the individual pages:

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Thoughts and updates for final day of the project.

The entire semester has been extremely taxing. Unrelated to workload having to manage my work in relation to the project and also managing my own health as it's been declining has been irksome to say the least.

I'm glad I chose the topic I did for my project, it feels like a sort of cosmic irony in a sense as the months I begin to work on this project my physical health started to decline, which made my ability to move alot worse.

I've definitely been more aware of how unbalanced/uneven and unsafe pathways can be, how heavy doors are to push or pull, doors being too small for me to go through easily, how the only art stores near the university are in no way accessible to me.

It's alot of things like that.

I'm happy with the engagement I was able to make with the two electives I was around to engage in. I found it alot more difficult to find artists I could use to reference in my work as I was working with more of a niche topic. So if i could dedicate more time to that in future I would. I enjoyed print and painting.

My main goal with this project is to offer insight into what my day to day life is like.

Accessible space are so important to people. The bare minimum is not enough. Complacency in following bare minimum code standards is ridiculous, it's tiring and angering not just for me, but anyone who's disabled. If the disability is visible or invisible, people should not have to beg for accommodation that should be given as a standard.

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Push Off

This was made a few weeks ago before reading week, I decided to post it now as it fits with my barrage of print related posts.

It's a door! If you couldn't tell

The doors in the college are infuriating. Too heavy, too small. I can sublux (partial dislocation) my shoulders from their sockets from trying to pull them open. (most doors to get to places I need to are pull doors)

So I made this colourful and annoyed print. The phrase "Push Off" is a stand in for my irritation, and also how I literally have to kick doors open because they're so heavy.

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Tire treads on pants!

Inspired from my previous stencil work of my wheelchairs treads, the irony of having the things that DO my movement on the things I wear on my legs that can't move well. I was surprised the ink took so well, especially after yesterday and the nightmare of the stencils I made just deciding to not cooperate.

These pants are going to be destroyed in designs if I'm let near the screens after this project.

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Boreas

Boreas is a song by The Oh Hellos from the album of the same name. I hold the meaning of the song very close to me. It's about a woman so exhausted from the monotony of her life and how she wishes she could do more for herself.

Some of the lyrics have double meanings that can be linked to physical disability.

"-I'm one spoon away from setting the ends of my hair on fire

If I'm kindling for a little while

At least I'd feel of use"

Spoons are used as a way to describe to people how much energy a disabled person could have for the day. It can be used as a visual description to show someone's who's able bodied how much energy we may or may not have in a day.

(e.g you start with 10 spoons and for each task you do for the day you take however many spoons away and when you have no spoons left you're exhausted or you've triggered a flare-up)

To me, the song is about a disabled person barely holding to what little energy they have left, contemplating not staying alive as they feel they could be something more after.

Some excerpts of the lyrics that particularly make me think this;

"Yeah, I swing from believing

That maybe my working will all pay off

To considering drinking with Molotov

I'm halfway out the door"

"Maybe then my breath could embody

A wildfire starting

I'd sweep up the forest floor

And my body'd breathe life into the corners

Be a darker soil"

"Promise me

That you'll start where I end

And I promise to give you

Everything that I am

We'll go on and on and on"

I resonate with it closely as its a struggle to keep my energy up while trying to manage everything in my life when my physical movement and energy is already so limited.

It's relation to my project is the blockade of self with my own movement, how I can really only have a few hours of low pain before I get a flare up and the rest of the becomes a struggle for my movement.

S9, while brainstorming new stencil ideas for screenprint I drew this:

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Screenprint.

Day One and Two.

After being absent in and out from uni for a couple weeks due to my disability...well y'know disabling me. I was able to join the screenprint workshop this week.

Monday:

On Monday we learnt the basics of screen print, what the materials we use are made from, the ecological /ethical impacts of the paper we use. I found it extremely informative as the same as the Risograph & Zine Production workshop back in semester one. (Thank you Fiona!)

Initially we just started out with drawing some stencils for the first half of the day, just gathering our thoughts on what kind of design we had wanted to do. I chose to make a stencil of my wheelchair tire treads, since they're the things that are responsible for my movement. (And my arms for pushing but hey)

These were the drawings I did with acrylic paint pens that helped me figure out what I wanted to do for my stencil. Hopefully during Thursday and Friday and can create something with multiple layers and colours.

These are the final screenprints from the first day. Kept it simple since it was the first day of screenprint and I wanted to make a design I could repeat. (I have plans to print the pattern on PANTS because it's ironic)

Conclusion to Monday;

Really informative and was able to learn how to screenprint and it helped be come out of a creative block I've been in due to debilitating pain and fatigue.

Wednesday

(I was absent due to medical on Tuesday.) Spent time in the studio after CCS class to see if I could make any more stencils, and more editions.

This is the drawing I did today to help me get ideas flowing about what kind of stencil I wanted to make.

Compared to the more blocky and linear stencil I did on Monday, I used more thin and sharper lines for the stencil, the paper the stencil was cut from ended up getting too heavy after the initial flood on the screen, so it MESSED UP. I wasn't able to create a clean print due to it but in all honestly, I prefer the print that came from it.

I'm guessing the paper got too heavy from the ink and wasn't able to set back into position after the first flood, so it allowed a bunch of ink to flood the lower half of the page.

This is the second print I had made. I'm extremely satisfied with it even if it wasn't what I had intended initially. I enjoy how rough and messy it looks. Same issue happened where the stencil got too heavy and it got caught or the paper curled and got torn. (More than likely to the thin lines I cut)

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Progress Paintings update:

Painting Is completed. It's been presented at a low height purposefully to show it at the same angle/height as the reference picturee that was taken

I personally feel I need to understand how to paint backgrounds better and with more intricacy.

At the moment I've plateaued with this painting. It's taking me longer than usual due to the scale of the piece. I'm unsure weather I'll finish it or not past basic block colours and shading. Was supposed to be in the Friday of reading week to continue it but I've caught the Flu.

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Next Major Painting

The next major painting I'm working on is to show how i feel a disconnect with myself and my surroundings due to my inhibited movement.

Initially, starting as newsprint and Indian-Ink rough paintings. These quick, rough sketches helped me to figure out what I wanted to focus on specifically when I started my painting and how I should utilise my reference photos.

I didn't want to have my face in focus. I included aspects of my personality and self (Glasses, my massive keychains etc..) to show that even still as my movement is still hyper-dependant on my surroundings, I'm still a separate person.

Close up photos I took using mirrors. I wanted to show a contrast to myself and my mobility aid. Having Mirrors to skew and break apart my body in the painting helped me to literally/visually display the disconnect I feel with the movement of my mobility aid in public spaces.

The first progress photo, focusing on blocking out where my heavy shadows are, where objects are place in the environment and what pose and position I wanted to paint myself in, this is a self portrait after all.

I wanted to completely block my skin out in white, shows a further feeling of 'disjointed-ness'

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Artist research - Bazelitz

I was recommended to look at Georg Bazelitz artwork. I wasn't aware of his art initially. His woodcut pieces are rough and jagged, they work well to show anger and sadness, at least that's what I personally see.

(Above) Georg Bazelitz Lockenklopf II (Curly Head II), 1985 Woodcut on paper

The woodcuts he produces show this wonderful anger and violence. I want to try and reference this with some of my on-going paintings.

(Above) Georg Bazelitz Kliene Mitte (Small Middle), 1989 Drypoint etching on stencilled background paper.

I really enjoy how his work gives off this effect of despair or isolation, the ink smudging from the transferral gives this wonderful lonely feeling within this work.

Later on this week I'll attempt to make drypoint etchings though the sensory feeling of etching onto acetate is extremely undesirable

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Abstract study of the anatomy - reference used : Greys Anatomy

I focused on the composition of the leg muscles. I used oil paint usually used for print to get a visceral, wet effect on my painting. I focused on the movement of the brush strokes, I wanted it to look violent and painful.

At the moment the piece is unfinished, i plan to hopefully build on it but as of now I have no ideas/plans that would be useful for this piece.

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Progress painting

At the beginning of last week, I began working on a painting from a skewed perspective of myself and my wheelchair.

After the live model painting session we had on Monday, i had a better concept of painting and was able to block colours out easier and made a lot of progress with the painting within a few hours.

Wanted to focus on the perspective of the wheelchair and myself to show there's a connection with the mobility aid i use and how while i rely on it to move, it doesn't have to be the focal point of my self.

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Movement.

(All posts in regards to the project can be found with the tag at the bottom of this post.)

Moving onto the next project; movement. I feel its fitting as someone who's needs a wheelchair to focus on inaccessibility, and how said inaccessibility effect my movement. I'm focusing on the university as my area as it is where I spend the majority of my days, and will be for the next 4 years. I'll also be focusing on other areas of public/ social spaces, how they effect my movement and myself.

I'm hoping this project will help shine light on how my life and movement can be become dependent on people because of lack of accessibility.

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Assemble.

Initially focusing on the human body and how someone's warped perspective of their own body can change the way they view it; As I began my project my own chronic pain issues took over.

I decided then to focus more on my own issues with the pain I experience and how I view myself living with a body that actively does not work as it should. I focused on creating pieces associated with body parts, organs and the human skeleton initially so I could better understand where, how and why my pain forms.

As the semester progressed through, I found my pain to be getting worse over time. I some of my final pieces to become more abstract and aggressive, putting visual to my own internal perception of my body.

This project helped me to reflect on the way I've viewed my pain through an artistic medium. The project challenged me in facing my chronic pain head-on, pushing me to create work that would show context through deeper meaning than just showing it at face value on the page or canvas.