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[rowanwhittington]

VIS3003 Evaluation

For the final module I wanted to push myself and utilise everything I have learnt over the year. I had to set my own brief, something which I have done before but not as formally or as well thought through as this. I knew I wanted to do my work from a feminist perspective, however I felt this was too broad of a topic and could easily become overwhelming. Instead I introduced one of my other interests, cults, and combined the two ideas into the title ‘The Exploitation of Female Sexuality in Cults and Religion.’ Once I began, I realised I wanted my work to be for the women that I am looking at as a way of bringing awareness to an often overlooked subject. With this in mind, I also wanted it to be for women in general who have ever felt objectified, particularly realising this after being catcalled myself. Overall, my work is always in some way for myself - everything I make I try to put myself fully into and relate in any way possible.

I had to do a huge amount of research for this module online as it isn’t something I could experience first hand. I looked on websites like Tate and MOMA to find an array of artists who have explored similar themes to my work, along with watching documentaries to get true accounts from these women. I learnt so much from this research process which pushed my desire to make artwork and show the disgusting abuse of power from men in cults and religion.

As a way of symbolising power dynamics and female sexualisation, I focused on the clothing of various cults, presenting this through a paper doll design with a faceless mannequin base. This was the introduction of the idea of these women being a unified anonymous female figure controlled by men. After reading about ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, along with watching the first season, I began to focus this view on clothing more to how it can be used to restrain and control women. I constructed a corset out of cardboard to physically feel this restriction and see how material can affect the shape of a garment. The corset reminded me of Shibari rope, which I used to show restraint and control through uncomfortable ties on the body. This was a crucial point in my project as it became the focus of my work and a metaphor for sexual abuse. To accentuate the rope, I developed a bulbous, soft form reminiscent of a female body to be tied up. The bodies almost look pregnant, a nod to the idea of women in cults being there only for reproduction, often losing ownership of their child and having the idea of motherhood completely destroyed. I think this I an uncomfortable topic to see, although it was important to me to feature it.

My greatest inspiration was Louise Bourgeois, whose work I previously looked at in the Bioart module and was fascinated by. I love how varied her work is and how closely I connect to her creative process. I was captivated by the gouache paintings and sculptures she did of entangled nude female bodies. Everything about these worked with the message I was trying to convey, so I looked closely at her work when developing the shapes of my soft sculptures. I also was inspired by Allen Jones and how the female body can literally be objectified through sculpture. Although my work isn’t greatly linked to his, he was an important artist to look at in terms of the context behind my work.

I continued to refine my sculptures by changing something about each figure - they all have varying materials, colours, limb lengths etc. It was important to me that each one was unique to show an individual identity whilst being anonymous, so this way of working was both practical and met my aims. I used white and beige spandex as it puckered well around the rope, visually showing restraint. I hand stitched every doll, giving them an almost childlike quality, linking back to the original idea of paper dolls.

I think I was successful in refining my work by selecting the strongest elements and reworking them to get a polished but also experimental result. The idea of using dolls in my work came from one of the first pieces I made, showing a continuation of my ideas throughout the project. The final photos of the exhibition set up are some of my favourite pieces I’ve created throughout the year as I believe it to be thought provoking and a successful portrayal of my module brief.

I would have liked to have done more experimentation early on in the module, however due to the lockdown and working from home I really struggled to stay focused and motivated. To overcome this in future, I aim to find a way of working that is less stress inducing whilst still providing creative outcomes.

[rowanwhittington]

This is the final exhibition design I decided on. I think the dim light closely represents the dark nature of the context behind the dolls, along with obscuring the shapes and stopping the viewer from being able to see where one doll stops and and another starts; it's just an amalgamation of limbs and rope.

If I could present this without limits at an exhibition, I would have it in a large empty room with no lighting other than the spotlights I have dimly focussed on the sculpture. I'd want the viewer to be able to walk 360 around it and see it from all angles. Ideally I would have a larger number of dolls to make it truly impactful (I couldn't do that for this project but if I took it further I would keep on working with scale and quantity.)

[rowanwhittington]

I found a way of focussing the camera on the red rope to where it reflected red onto the dolls around it despite me only using white lighting. I did want to use red gels when photographing my work however I wasn't able to with the lights I was using. I'm glad I was able to achieve this effect without them as it reassured me that coloured lighting would work with my sculpture.

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Photos of the line of dolls with dim lighting.

[rowanwhittington]

I retook the photos with brighter lights to try and emphasise the contrast in shadows and the puckering on the fabric.

I also rearranged the dolls to be tied together in a line. Although I do like how this composition looks, I think the pile conveys my message more effectively.

[rowanwhittington]

A photo of the studio with both lights on a higher brightness. I don't like how flat this image is, although it does show the intricate details of the sculpture and how I set it up well.

[rowanwhittington]

I turned down the dimness on one of the spotlights to try and create an atmospheric image. These are my favourite images from the series.

[rowanwhittington]

I then took close ups with this lighting to see how isolating the shapes could take away any elements of humanity. I love how obscured these images are, however considering I wanted my exhibition piece to be the sculpture rather than the photos, this didn't meet my needs.

[rowanwhittington]

I booked the photography studio and a camera to photograph how I would exhibit my work if the end of year exhibition had gone ahead. I knew I wanted to play with scale and lighting so I used a large backdrop and two spotlights to highlight this.

It was my first time ever using a photography set up or a proper camera so I was quite overwhelmed, however I feel the results convey the vision I had for my final piece successfully.

For this first series of photos I used a single spotlight to highlight one of the dolls. I like the darkness of these, however I do think you need to be able to see the other dolls a little better to show the quantity well.

[rowanwhittington]

Exhibition Mock Ups

I drew out some sketches of how I was thinking of presenting my work if it were to be exhibited.

[rowanwhittington]

Presentation Skills

What could affect your presentation

The size of the group

The room layout

Resources available - projector, laptop etc

Who you are talking to

Length if the session

Purpose of the session

Content

Follow the brief an the template

Keep it relevant

Don’t waffle or pad it out

Don’t put in too much information

Think about timing

The more you practice the easier it is

Have a pdf backup

No spelling mistakes

Not too much text

Large images

Be confident

Be early

Use notes instead of a script

Make eye contact

Be able to answer questions

Reflect on how it went

How would you improve or change

Did you achieve the objective

Be honest with yourself

[rowanwhittington]

I did a plaster induction with Lee Cadden where I made a clay tile then filled over it with plaster. This resulted in a plaster block with the inverse design to what I'd carved. I only had nails and screws to work with when drawing my design into the clay, so I tried to keep it as basic as I could whilst experimenting with a range of mark making techniques. I feel that the business of the design, particularly in the two close up images, conveys the claustrophobic feeling of the rope ties I've been using throughout my project.

After the induction I was going to dip some of my sculptures into plaster to see how the contrast between hard and soft figures would look, however I decided against it due to the time I had left. In future I would like to try something like this as a way of working with new techniques and mediums.

[rowanwhittington]

The largest doll I made using a nude stretch fabric. I sadly ran out of stuffing when making this so it isn't as full as I'd have liked however this does make the body have more realistic proportions.

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I turned my printed fabric into sculptures.

[rowanwhittington]

My Pinterest board of images I collected relating to the module.

Screenshots of my work published on my art Instagram account - @a1iengir1 . I tried to have the images line up in organised sections, however some pieces had less images in the series which threw off the rest of the grid. It's important to me to share my account publicly, which I do on both this account and my personal social media accounts.

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Using the previous technique, I repeated the drawing using black and red pens to see how the two colours would interact with each other. I don't think the initial drawing is particularly strong, however the water wash brings out a variety of tones which add dimension and texture.

[rowanwhittington]

Continuing on from my heat transfer prints, I drew out a figure using my left hand to remove any control and keep the shapes loose. I then brushed water over the ink in stages, photographing the transformation as I went.