Field Term 2 – Art and the Conscious Mind Written Reflection

Along with teaching me how to spell the word ‘consciously’ correctly, I learned about so many theorists and reputable thinkers from the Ancient Greeks to present day.

Field 2 is responsible for my entire year’s worth of work, it completely turned me on my heels and set me right. I was originally making work inspired by still life and dutch flower paintings, which looked like this…

I so badly wanted this work to be exciting but just couldn’t quite make it so. I still love this little painting above, but I just didn’t feel inspired by it at all, I think this may be because I feel more interested in making work more personal and wasn’t particularly fussed about flowers.

Once Robert’s lectures all came to an end we each had to make a presentation which rounded up the topics and theories we covered, what we found particularly interesting and how it would relate to our work in the future, making a piece of work to accompany this presentation was optional. I felt an urge to paint a recent dream i’d had, I thought, why not? We had already been painting/making art based on our ‘visual experiences’ in a Field workshop with James, here are my creations…

This handsome chap above is from a dream I once had…

And these are based on a character I have actually seen before, but it seemed so surreal at the time.

Here is the painting I made to accompany my Field 2 presentation, in which I spoke a lot about the fascinating concept of dreams and why we as artists have such an urge to paint them…

And so began my 2nd year work. I decided not to completely jack it in with the flower paintings, instead I decided to incorporate them into patterns – something I had already started to do, in the bubbles above, for instance – to create a somewhat hallucinatory affect. This can be seen particularly clearly in my painting below…

Floral pattern did, however, become almost insignificant in my project and I began focusing mainly on these characters and animals, working on a narrative for them. Something we spoke about with Robert was the possibility of objects having a consciousness, which definitely rubbed off on my work. I created this small sculpture of my character Jaco, he has a poem written on him which reads: ‘Mostly people stop and stare… and some say he’s a freak…though one should be more careful because Jaco never sleeps.’

This particular sculpture has grown on me, the concept of Jaco is very personal to me as he came from my dream, and I have essentially been making him real. I like the thought of people being somewhat afraid of him. As an artwork he is something that can be picked up and moved around in one’s hands, and this physical repulsion or fear after reading the poem painted on him is something I hope to achieve.

The work I have made throughout the entirety of this year – Including my dissertation proposal (and much of the work I intend to make in the future) – has definitely been a product of taking part in Art and the Conscious Mind.

Field Term 1 – Language Environments Written Reflection

Language Environments was certainly the right choice for Field term 1/project 1 as it pushed me to work in a medium which I was unfamiliar with. After sampling various ways of creating a Language Environment with Camilla, (one of them being a brief introduction into sound art with Neil) I felt really determined to make a sound piece based on my thoughts on technology. I thought it was a rather unusual method of creating an environment, especially as I am predominantly a painter. I expected it to be really difficult but with some help from my technology savvy boyfriend it was actually really easy.

My contextualisation let me down slightly for this module as it wasn’t particularly focused and there wasn’t much of it either. I referenced DaDa because my main aim for the project outcome was to poke fun at modern society, therefore I referenced the DaDaist’s attitude towards the first World War and violence that had taken place at that time. I wanted to make fun of our new dependence on our phones in modern social society, the way we all react to the sounds of our phones when we receive notifications, the way we can’t be alone anywhere without our phones to, essentially, help us avoid eye contact with strangers out in public. Many people agree that technology is diminishing human contact and this is what I was determined to convey through my sound piece.

I used the program Cubase 7.5 (as recommended by my boyfriend) to edit and organise my sound piece. This was the most fun part, as I was able to take all of my sound recordings and edit them to make them sound clear and sharp, and organise them the way I had planned. Every recording was made by me except one, which was a ‘bird song/dawn chorus’ track, which was extremely important but difficult to record in the winter, so I used a pre recorded setting for that. I used a Handy Recorder (a small, simple hand held sound recorder Neil supplied me with) to record all of my sounds.

Camilla’s sessions also got me thinking about various ways sound can be conveyed through visual art; one session involved creating our own sound scores through the use of visual language; colour codes, keys, shapes etc. It was an interesting exercise to take part in so I decided I would somehow include this in my Field assessment. I made a simple score using tin foil and acrylic paint based on the patterns made out of the tracks in Cubase once my sound piece was completed. Here is a photograph of it.

And here is a photo of my work space during my assessment.

I definitely want to make more work in this medium in my third year, I found it really satisfying getting such a positive outcome from working outside my comfort zone. However, I agreed with Camilla who said I didn’t quite inform myself enough to justify my work, so for future sound art projects I shall have to do more research.

Subject – unfinished bits that are now finished

I finally finished this…

I eventually got a photograph of it finished and now here it is. It is a product of the inspiration I derived from things like Mexican votive paintings, frescoes made by Diego Rivera and the religious frescoes painted in the Mannerist era. I liked the idea of my character, Jaco, to be put in the position of a religious icon/deity, in a sort of ironic humorous way. Choosing this architectural shape was a good move, it has been more interesting than working on a plain square or rectangle.

I also finished this guy who I… i just really love him…

The left is his front, the right is his back, where his spare eyes are.

I call this ‘Jaco Resting’, so I decided to repeat the night-sky stars and moon pattern (as seen on my box-man cutout painting) to simulate the sleepy, night-time look I wanted it to have.

Considering the Mexican Votive paintings, I wrote a poem on top of him, like prayers on a votive painting, it says: ‘Mostly people stop and stare… And some say he’s a freak… Though one should be more careful because JACO NEVER SLEEPS.’

I thought it was quite creepy, which was the intention. I like the idea of people picking him up and moving him around in their hands, but then feeling a bit afraid and putting him down again.

MORE ART TO COME.

More Dissertation Notes – Salvador Dali and Jean Francois Millet

Let’s talk Dali! This painting has a crazy long title so I shall reduce it to ‘Dali, Nude, in Contemplation… the Visage of Gala’. I won’t go too in depth about this painting for now, just the bit I find most interesting, which is the dog at the bottom right. A huge part of my dissertation will be dedicated to the use of animals in painting, and their (often disturbing) symbolism. Dali totally nicked this dog from a 15th century painting by Ayne Bru titled ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Cucufu’, he even painted it in the same place. The disturbing thing about the dog is that It’s submerged in water, sleeping soundly.

Another painting Dali referenced quite a bit in his own work was Jean Francois Millet’s ‘The Angelus’ which was completed in 1859 (below).

in Dali’s ‘Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet’s “Angelus”‘ 1935 (below) he clearly references the general shape of the two figures – peasants standing in a field during prayer. When Dali was a child this painting could be seen everywhere, printed on sold objects such as teacups and postcards etc. Dali often found himself daydreaming about this painting, believing it had many potentially disturbing hidden meanings. It was this fixation with this artwork from his young age which drove him to paint the figures like they are ancient monuments, there is something rather humorous about this take on the composition. There are two couples of people viewing the scene; Dali as a child with his father and Dali as a child with his grandmother (seated). Perhaps this painting had become much like an ancient monument in Dali’s mind by the time he reached adulthood. The reference to his childhood links with the time Dali spent daydreaming as a child and reiterates the painting’s reminiscent theme.

This idea of referencing childhood memory through painting is perfect for my dissertation as I am discussing why dream paintings are so disturbing. Childhood memories can often be disturbing, perhaps that is because of the vulnerability which we often experience during this time, things seem scarier. Therefore, this piece of information about Dali’s memories will be very helpful, it has even inspired me to make work about childhood memories for my third year.