Friday 18 November 2016
Tim Knowles
Tim Knowles
"A series of drawings produced using drawing implements attached to the tips of tree branches, the wind’s effects on the tree, recorded on paper. Like signatures each drawing reveals the different qualities and characteristics of each tree."
"In collaboration with the wind and local weather conditions, calligraphic gestures and automatic drawing readings are recorded on paper. The amazing thing about Knowles’ Tree Drawings is the unmistakable signatures that each drawing reveals as an indication of the unique characteristics and even genus/species of a specific tree"
"In collaboration with the wind and local weather conditions, calligraphic gestures and automatic drawing readings are recorded on paper. The amazing thing about Knowles’ Tree Drawings is the unmistakable signatures that each drawing reveals as an indication of the unique characteristics and even genus/species of a specific tree"
"Natural movements of the branches and well positioned canvases make the trees into devices that record movements of which they have no knowledge." – Tim Knowles
Upon seeing the artist work for the first time I noticed a spiritually surrounding it, when thinking about the world today it seems easy to forget about the beauty of the natural. Tim Knowles captures the delicate essence of life in motion and allows the trees to take centre stage. All for chance outcomes the artist lets go of control and documents reality for what it is rather then what he wants it to be, this level of honesty create a scared space, where the trees swaying in the breeze could be comparable to a ritualistic dance, honouring mother earth.
The dark colour of the ink used, compliments the natural, through brown earthly tones. Conveying a star constellation or mathematical drawing, the start/stop points show a journey as if plotted on a graph, depicting evolution through years, folding into the reality we see before us today. This geographic mapping devise is instrumental within the recording of life as we know it, and offers a non-baits account.
Tree drawings are a poetry on the verge of magic, full of a purity you can only find within nature. There is an unmistakable authenticity, that delights those who view it, as each tree appears to bare its own signature as if autographing the paper.
It is evident through watching this video just how much the artist respects the natural world around him, and this sincerity comes through within the work, I was interested to see the relationship between colour pens, and wonder how you would decide upon which colours to use upon the same drawing, whether it would be important to display complimentary or clashing colours together I am unsure. What I am totally convinced of is the beauty of the overall work, both during construction, performance and finished piece.
Vincent Van Gogh Artist Research
Vincent Van Gogh
'The first thing to be said about this painting is that it is revolutionary. It is a new kind of art. The very idea that a collection of objects, painted with fiery brushstrokes in heightened luminous colours, with ridges of thick impasto in some places and bare canvas in others, can reveal the state of someone’s soul was utterly new.' - Guardian
Van Gogh shot himself with, in 1890, at the age of just 37 – is full of fascinating documents that tell a sad story of a man struggling with his declining mental health until finally, in despair of ever getting well or living independently, he chose suicide. It presents a lucid narrative of the final phase of Van Gogh’s life. Yet it is ultimately a pedantic and misleading exhibition whose pursuit of clinical accuracy misses the mystery of Van Gogh’s life and art. - Guardian
There is a irony especially within the pieces of Van Gogh work depicting flowers, as there calming nature seems the polar opposite of the artist mentality. When I see them I picture a troubled mind consciously painting something to relax and to clear, or a least distract his mind, he writes in a letter to his brother:
"I am so angry with myself because I cannot do what I should like to do, and at such a moment one feels as if one were lying bound hand and foot at the bottom of a deep dark well, utterly helpless."
This extract is a clear indication of some of the psycho-emotional turmoil the artist was encountering frequently, he goes on to say however:
"How much sadness there is in life! Nevertheless one must not become melancholy. One must seek distraction in other things, and the right thing is to work."
"And yet, Van Gogh ultimately sees his psychological struggles not as something to negate but as his artistic truth, as a vital part of his honest experience, which is the necessary foundation of great art:
Do you know that it is very, very necessary for honest people to remain in art? Hardly anyone knows that the secret of beautiful work lies to a great extent in truth and sincere sentiment."
Within this passage, it would seem as though the artist is attempting to find a balance between spiritual and emotional well-being and is coming to terms (in part) with his struggles as a struggling penniless artist, hinting to it being necessary to do away with material things, in order to find this 'honesty' within the work.
In a letter to his brother the artist asks:
"What is drawing? How does one get there? It’s working one’s way through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. How can one get through that wall? — since hammering on it doesn’t help at all. In my view, one must undermine the wall and grind through it slowly and patiently. And behold, how can one remain dedicated to such a task without allowing oneself to be lured from it or distracted, unless one reflects and organises one’s life according to principles? And it’s the same with other things as it is with artistic matters. And the great isn’t something accidental; it must be willed. Whether originally deeds lead to principles in a person or principles lead to deeds is something that seems to me as unanswerable and as little worth answering as the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg."
It is clear from the above extract that Van Gogh bullied himself to do what he set his mind to, with the one aim that this self-punishment would eventually pay off and lead him to greatness. Although many artist over the years right up to modern day express the same mind set, It is my belief that although skill is applaudable , promiseful works come from a conceptual reservoir, where one can turn our heads on the side and see the world differently.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/05/vincent-van-gogh-myths-madness-and-a-new-way-of-painting
Thursday 17 November 2016
Jean Tinguely - Artist Research
Jean Tinguely
Attempting to bring a precision to abstract, Jean Tingly sets out to make a drawing machine,
His so called ' Meta -Matics' provide movement to create unique drawings and painting, d.i.y abstract art that anyone can make. Referred to a Anti-Mechanics, due to the fact that they work with mechanical disorder. Tinguely loved these machines as they made art so accessible, insisting on the participant to relinquishing control, and allow for chance outcomes, a new unique piece of abstract art could be made.
“The machine sculptures engage in a loud and multi-coloured conversation with the onlooker: Through his works, Jean Tinguely communicates and interacts with the spectator. The machine functions and becomes art. Tinguely’s artworks sparkle with wit, vitality, irony and poetry. Seen against a deeper background, though, they also reveal a feeling for tragicomedy, for the enigmatic and inscrutable.” – museum Tinguely
"Tinguely owed much of his great popularity to the wit, charm, irony and sincerity of his objects. Sometimes the working of the parts and thus of the machines was quite unpredictable, resulting in a bewildering abundance of processes. They are like caricatures of the utilitarian, mechanical world, embodying Tinguely's critical posture towards technological optimism and his divergence from the Italian Futurists' belief that movement imbued with technology represented the most important objective of modern art." - Tate
"Jean Tinguely created his work as a rejection of the static, conventional art world; he sought to emphasize play and experiment. For Tinguely, art was not about standing in a sterile white space, distantly gazing at a silent painting. He produced kinetic sculptures to set art and art history in motion, in works that animated the boundary between art and life. With his do-it-yourself drawing machines, Tinguely critiqued the role of the artist and the elitist position of art in society. He renounced the unicity of “the artist’s hand” by encouraging visitors to produce work themselves.
Collaboration was integral to Tinguely’s career. He worked extensively with artists like Daniel Spoerri, Niki de Saint Phalle (also his wife), Yves Klein, and others from the ZERO network, as well as museum directors such as Pontus Hultén, Willem Sandberg, and Paul Wember. Thanks to his charismatic, vibrant personality and the dazzling success with which he presented his work (and himself) in the public sphere, Tinguely was a vital figure within these networks, acting as leader, inspirator, and connector."
- See more at: http://www.stedelijk.nl/en/exhibitions/jean-tinguely-machine-spectacle#sthash.zYyuZA8h.dpuf
"Tinguely has become best known for his experimental kinetic machines and explosive performances that reject the static, conventional art scene. with an emphasis on play and experimentation, the swiss artist explored his fascination for destruction and ephemerality with his do-it-yourself drawing machines, dynamic sculptural works and self-destructive performances. for tinguely, art was not about standing in a sterile white space, but rather a way to animate the boundary between art and life."
This passion for art being something that is not pure and shiny, and instead being reflective of life, sometime broken or neglected but pregnant with potential and able to be re-worked, is highly regarded as being the opposite of the mind set of the day. However, show a more contemporary way of thinking that mirrors the thoughts of today. I am fascinated with the life colour the artists injects into every piece and how it lifts and contrasts with the mettle around it.
The scrape-yard nature of his work, posses questions of back story towards the past lives of the objects associated.
"the presentation features tinguely’s early wire sculptures and reliefs, which include imitated, animated versions of abstract paintings by malevich, miró, and klee. these interactive drawing machines and wild dancing installations were constructed from a mix of mediums, including salvaged metal, waste materials, and discarded clothing. tinguely’s ‘méta-matics’ are provocative: as automated versions of american abstract expressionism, they play ironically with the dominant artistic forms of the 1950s. the subjective, intuitive creative process is no longer driven by ‘the unconscious’, but instead by an electric motor. the ‘autonomous’ automatic drawings of the ‘méta-matics’, however, are more than a mere reaction to contemporary art movements: tinguely also articulates a criticism of technological advances and human dependency on machines." - Erco
Photographs taken at Nottingham Graveyard - Primary Research
Nottingham Graveyard
I took these photos whilst visiting Nottingham, what first grabbed my attention about this grave yard was of course the scale of it, is over-whelming, with graves dating back hundreds of years. It is easy to get caught up in the history of the place, as the whole site screams of it whilst feeling sombre at the inevitability that one day we all destined to end up the same way. I noticed the sculptural qualities of the angles of the rocks, and how they seemed to posses a installation resemblance. Walking through I felt calm, and yet like i was in the mists of a surreal experience, particularly when spying locals walking there dogs through the graveyard, as if it were a park. This spoke to me neglect in a sense and re-laid how accustom you can become when faced with the sight of something on a daily basis. I decided to adapt the ideas that arose from this experience into an etching, which is currently in progress...
Wednesday 16 November 2016
Tracey Emin Artist Research
Tracey Emin
What fascinates me about the seemingly 'childish' drawings of artist Tracey Emin, is just how charged they are with human experience and emotional content. The materiality of the drawings, particularity in mono-prints, is the relinquish of control that allows for moments of chance outcomes to occur, which mirrors the artists life. The quality of line also suggests a fragility that the content often hints too. The text that often accompany the images are direct and in your face, screaming out in desperation, sometimes very private and personal messages that can make the viewer feel uncomfortable, as if they are peering into something they are not meant to see.
The men above are pictured just as heads, possibility because it was mainly the faces of the men that stuck in the artists mind. This in turn suggests a traumatic event, or situation the artist is describing.
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A lot of the female figures the artist depicts are usually face less, this may be taken from a feminist point of view. describing a unity with other women who may have shared similar experiences at the hands of men. Emin's work depicts in places a desire to be loved and cared for, that demonstrates a naivety that is more in line with teenage expectations of love then of mature ones.
Her relationship with art, she says, only gets more intense over the years. Pointing at a bronze sculpture of two figures called The Wedding, Emin says gleefully that her studio manager had reservations about the piece because she said that the bride reminded her of Princess Fiona from Shrek. “And I said, ‘Oh wow, I watched it at Christmas and absolutely loved it.’ Subconsciously I must have taken in this supreme childlike character. My idea of marriage is like Princess Fiona, so I was so pleased when she said that.”
Emin points between the legs of a bronze, a figure on her side titled I Just Wanted to Sleep With You. “Her vagina’s just like this hole,” she says. “It’s not used, it’s a vacant thing. It should be a vortex, you go up inside it and come back the other side as another human being, but it’s no good. So it’s a different place, different space.”
"My Bed (1998) was Emin’s first readymade artwork that displayed all the forensic marks and detritus of a debauched couple of weeks where she had stayed in bed drinking, fucking, smoking, eating and sleeping, all in a state of emotional flux and dysfunctional crisis. Looking back on this scene, Emin felt appalled yet fascinated by what it had become. She shipped the bed in its entirety to Japan for an exhibition, installing it next to a pair of chained-up suitcases and a hangman’s noose which served to emphasise the painful isolation and entrapment of that whole episode. Other major sculptural works are recreated from memories of good times and inconsequential things from places in Margate such as the theme park ‘Dreamlands’ or the beach with its pier, huts and tide markers. Emin reconstructed Margate's conical helter-skelter in reclaimed timber, placing a small bird perched towards its top, representing, as its title reveals, a Self-Portrait (2001)." - white cube
The honest of Emin's work is refreshing, if not a little jaw-dropping, the use of the ready made is an provocative way to tie in context, and authenticity into the work.
Tracey Emin has married her rock. This isn’t a metaphor, by the way – some coy way of saying that the artist has finally found her soulmate. This is a story about an actual rock.
In a ceremony conducted beneath an olive tree in her garden in France, Emin joined herself in matrimony last summer with a lump of stone. It sounds a nice stone, in fairness – she has described it as venerable and impressive, with the undeniable advantage that unlike a less reliable bridegroom “it’s not going anywhere” – but still, a stone.
Needless to say, this marriage owes more to high artistic concept than kooky life decision, with drawings of it forming part of her latest exhibition (the bride wore her father’s white funeral shroud, apparently). But as ever her timing is uncanny. Emin made her name exploring taboo aspects of female sexuality – promiscuity, forbidden desire, rape, abortion – but she is now drilling down to the most dangerously provocative idea of the lot, namely the possibility of building a life without a man at its centre. And for the one in three Britons who now live alone, this idea of the search for a life not solely defined by what’s missing could hardly feel more contemporary. " - guardian article
There is something extremely melancholy surrounding marrying a inanimate object, an intrinsic loneliness, of a women unlucky in love. Worried about losing another 'love', she decided to be legally tied to something that will always be there. This is partly due to the systemic pressure to be wed by a certain age, a pressure particularly aimed towards woman. This performance is not completely a descent into madness however, but an artistic statement as part of her latest exhibition.
Monday 14 November 2016
surrealist automatic writing/drawing
Surrealist theory's
There were many influential artists during the surrealist movement which took place though-out the 1920's to the late 1960's. Amongst such talent as Andre Breton, Max Ernst, and Salvador Dali, Sigmund Freud also had his own theory's regarding the subconscious mind and what the imagery found within it was telling the viewer.
"In his singular emphasis on the structure of the human mind, Freud paid little to no attention to the impact of environment, sociology, or culture. His theories were highly focused on pathology and largely ignored "normal," healthy functioning. He has also been criticised for his myopic view of human sexuality to the exclusion of other important factors." - Source: Boundless. “Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality.” Boundless Psychology.
The Id
"The id, the most primitive of the three structures, is concerned with instant gratification of basic physical needs and urges. It operates entirely unconsciously (outside of conscious thought). For example, if your id walked past a stranger eating ice cream, it would most likely take the ice cream for itself. It doesn't know, or care, that it is rude to take something belonging to someone else; it would care only that you wanted the ice cream."
The Superego
The superego is concerned with social rules and morals—similar to what many people call their "conscience" or their "moral compass." It develops as a child learns what their culture considers right and wrong. If your superego walked past the same stranger, it would not take their ice cream because it would know that that would be rude. However, if both your id and your superego were involved, and your id was strong enough to override your superego's concern, you would still take the ice cream, but afterwards you would most likely feel guilt and shame over your actions.
The Ego
In contrast to the instinctual id and the moral superego, the ego is the rational, pragmatic part of our personality. It is less primitive than the id and is partly conscious and partly unconscious. It's what Freud considered to be the "self," and its job is to balance the demands of the id and superego in the practical context of reality. So, if you walked past the stranger with ice cream one more time, your ego would mediate the conflict between your id ("I want that ice cream right now") and superego ("It's wrong to take someone else's ice cream") and decide to go buy your own ice cream. While this may mean you have to wait 10 more minutes, which would frustrate your id, your ego decides to make that sacrifice as part of the compromise– satisfying your desire for ice cream while also avoiding an unpleasant social situation and potential feelings of shame.
Freud believed that the id, ego, and superego are in constant conflict and that adult personality and behavior are rooted in the results of these internal struggles throughout childhood. He believed that a person who has a strong ego has a healthy personality and that imbalances in this system can lead to neurosis (what we now think of as anxiety and depression) and unhealthy behaviour."
These highlighted sections go to show the three major sections of a personality according to Freud, I myself disagree with the 'making of a personality' according to these rulings, as it completely disregards social and cultural factors which i strongly believe, are essential components to understanding what makes a person tick. assuming that an individual is identical to another,and it is only an balance or imbalance of the 'id, the ego and the super ego' that makes them healthy or unhealthy mentally cannot be accurately tested as every individual would have be exposed to social and cultural factors since birth, therefore there development as a individual has already begun.
Source: Boundless. “Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality.” Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 17 Aug. 2016. Retrieved 14 Nov. 2016 from https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/personality-16/psychodynamic-perspectives-on-personality-77/freudian-psychoanalytic-theory-of-personality-304-12839/
Sunday 13 November 2016
Jabberwocky
Related Poem Content Details
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
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