Final Prints

The brief for this project was to create a series of 11 identical prints incorporating the theme of text, below you can see two of the most successful prints from the two series of 11 prints I created. Through this theme of art and text, I developed my skills as an artist by learning a new technique, which I had not explored before, of screen printing. I did this by creating a series of prints in the workshop and even gained the confidence to return and work independently to create another complete series of identical prints. I enjoyed the entire process of creating the prints, from designing them on paper and editing them on Illustrator to printing using the screens. 

Nonetheless, I did face some challenges throughout this process, which I resolved and improved on when creating the second series of prints. The first challenges I faced were digitally when editing the design on Adobe Illustrator, which was also a skill I was new to, having not used the software before. I had difficulty separating the layers of colour and my biggest struggle was trying to create the text in the shape of a circle around the Mandala I had designed. To resolve this I watched online tutorials on Illustrator and began to understand the program more, so that I would know how to use it much more efficiently in future. I also had some issues with my first prints of human error as I misaligned the second layer, or did not push the paint across the screen hard enough resulting in an inconsistent print. After experience though these issues were resolved and resulted in my second series of prints being completely consistent. 

Independent Printing

Following the session in the printmaking workshop, I enjoyed the process and outcome of screen printing so much that I decided to book another session in the print room to work independently on my prints and create another series in a different colour. This time I mixed a pink colour to use as the base layer of my print. The pink has connotations of compassion, nurturing and love, which I felt reflected the text in a similar way to the calming nature of the turquoise. I also chose a colour that would compliment the turquoise when presented side by side, and to further tie the prints together I used the same shade of grey for the second layer and outline of the print. 

Screen Printing

The screen printing first required transferring the design onto a screen and then printing in a two step process of printing the first layer and colour of the print and then washing the screen and printing the second layer and colour. The first images below show the two separate designs I created on Adobe Illustrator and then printed on paper that were transferred onto a screen. 

When creating the prints, I was very conscious of the importance of colour in reflecting the text. I mixed a turquoise colour for the first layer of the print because of its connotations, with blue levels radiating peace, calm and tranquility and hints of green presenting balance and growth. The colour thus reflects the context of the Mandala design and the text which encompasses it. After printing the first layer, I tested the colour for the outline by smudging it with my finger next to the design, I chose a soft grey colour over black, so that the lines were not too harsh and yet again reflect the softness of the ideas in the text. In the images below you can see the layers separately, as well as the final design with the layers overlapped.

Screen Printing Design

My design is based on the work I created for the drawing elective, which was based around Mandala designs. I started by drawing the design on paper using black fine liner, which I then scanned onto the computer and edited using adobe illustrator. For the screen print we needed to have to layers to the design to be able to print in two colours, so I filled in sections of the drawing and created text in the shape of a circle to follow the outline of the mandala and saved these on a separate layer, so I was left with an outline f my design on one layer and a fill of colour on another, these would then be separately transferred onto the screen.

Choosing the text for this design was very important to the theme of the project. I decided on text that related to the mandala and found inspiration from researching what the meaning is behind a mandala. 

Steve Dutton Seminar

At the end of the lecture we were asked to think about the following questions and reflect on them during the seminar...

How  do you define 'difference' between works of art?

What is stealing opposed to appropriating or is it the same?

Is visible beauty in work of art important?

What do we mean by transformation?

What does ontology mean?

If what is visible is not the most important part of a piece of appropriation art, than what is left? 

Steve Dutton Lecture

This lecture by Steve Dutton revolved around the idea of appropriation in art. We began the lecture with an arguable example of appropriation in the music industry with a song by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams facing a lawsuit for its similarities to a song by Marvin Gaye. This opened our mind to consider at what point is something stolen? What is the difference between inspiration and admiration with theft? It was also interesting at this point to consider the exact definition of appropriation, which is to take something for oneself without permission, in other words, to steal. 

Following this example in the music industry we considered what appropriation in art was. In this case, it is to use pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation and can be found in literary, visual, musical and performance art. 

Next we were introduced to a brief history of appropriation art and the key figures in the form of art. Marcel Duchamp and Picasso are arguably the leaders of appropriation. Duchamp challenged what constitutes as art by appropriating a postcard of the Mona Lisa, by taking the high art and defacing the work and presenting it as his own piece. It is interesting to consider a quote here by Jim Jarmusch "Nothing is original" and Jean-Luc Godard who said "It's not where you take things from — it's where you take them to."

Fifty years after Duchamp, Andy Warhol also made a significant impact on appropriation art in the opposite way to Duchamp by taking an ordinary item and elevating its status with his installation of Brillo boxes. The ontological differneces between the Brillo product and Warhol's replicas is that one is art and one is not. Mike Bidlo then further appropriated the work by replicating Warhol's installation 20 years later in another context, saying he was "adding another loop to the Warhol phenomenon". Art critic Hal Foster comments on how it is not the material of appropriation (eg the Brillo box or the postcard) but what they signify in the world, thus Duchamp and Warhol are transforming signs not materials.

Some lead female artists who use appropriation are Cindy Sherman and Sherrie Levine. Sherman inhabits the role of movie character in a series of photographs, playing with signs and the representation of women in film. Whilst Levine appropriates the work of Egon Schiele as she inhabits the work of other artists and disturbs the signs. Reflecting on this, I found that the similarities between the artists work was the role of inhabiting the art they appropriated.

We also considered how film can be appropriated in art with the example of the film 'Psycho' (1960). Douglas Gordon transormed the film by slowing it down to last 24 hours, whilst Gus Van Sant made a Psycho remake that is shot by shot the same as the original. Steve Dutton also talked about some of his own work here, showing us how he appropriated Sant's work further by mirroring the film and further transforming the original film.

In contemporary art, Christian Marclay is one of the current most established artists working with appropriation. Marclay also works with film, as we watched a clip of his work 'The Clock' in which he sampled hundreds of films with the image of time to create a 24 hour film that shows the time using different films.

John Stezaker makes simple collages from collecting and finding images and transforming them. Including a series of 'marriage' images where he combines images of classic film stars and overlaps their portraits. Unlike Duchamp, Stezaker uses modern techniques but with romantic ideas. This made me consider how it is not just what is visible, or the materials used but also the process and the action of finding and creating these images that is what appropriates the art.

On reflection, I found this lecture extremely interesting and relevant to my own practice, in both my independent studio project and my studio essay. I also found it relevant to the Art and Reproduction theme, where we had briefly touched on the idea of appropriation. My studio project is influenced heavily by the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, which made me consider whether I was using inspiration from her paintings I whether I was in fact appropriating her work. 

Screen Printing Introduction

Also in Monday's session, a small group of us had a meeting with Felicity in the print making workshop about screen printing. Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil to receive a desired image. In this meeting we were shown how to create our own screen prints and explained how we could incorporate art and text when printing with this method.

Following this session, I revisited the workshop on Wednesday to was my screen and to discuss my design ideas with Felicity. 

Book Experiment

After yesterday's introduction to 'Art and Text', I visited Rob's workshop to further explore the work with altering books. I separated books into pages of about 100 and used a drill to make holes through the section of pages in the shape of letters. To decide what word to spell out I chose the first 4 letter word my eye was drawn to- 'NICE'.

nice

nʌɪs/

adjective

1. 1.

   giving pleasure or satisfaction; pleasant or attractive.

   "we had a very nice time"

   • 
     

     
     
   • 
     

     
     
2. 2.

   (especially of a difference) slight or subtle.

   "there is a nice distinction between self-sacrifice and martyrdom"

Notes on Powerpoint

Mark Titchner (1973)

• Explores tensions between different belief systems- religious, scientific and political.
• Creates sculptural installations without mockery or cynicism, so viewer can reach their own conclusions.
• Uses the inclusive pronoun 'we' to include and challenge the viewer.

Martin Creed (1968)

• Creates light installations using neon lighting and simple phrases.
• Nominated for the Turner Prize.
• Uses ambiguous phrases, such as 'everything is going to be alright', which is often used as reassurance when meaning the exact opposite.

John Latham (1921-2006)

• Incorporates books as sculptural pieces, similar to the exercises we were doing at the start of the session.
• His series of 'Skoob' work (books backwards), involved destroying books, including Greenberg's 'Art and Culture' with the idea of ingesting and regurgitating ideas.

Raymond Pettibon (1957)

• Designed album covers.
• Quotes text rather than creating his own text.

Mel Bochner (1940)

• Uses bright colours and simple words and phrases like 'bla bla bla'
• Political artist.
• Part of group called 'Art and Language'.

Bruce Nauman (1941)

• Interested in the activity of making the pieces rather than the final outcome, as such he moved on to video.
• Creates playful neon lights.
• Works with spoken text about communication and mis-communication.

Wendy Maruyama (1942)

• Interested in political issues and history.
• Created a piece recreating the identity tags of people in war camps- shows the importance of names.

Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948)

• Incorporated recycled materials, such as newspapers and advertisement.
• Part of dada.
• Came to Britain as refugee of war.

Art and Text Powerpoint

In the afternoon of the 'Art and Text' theme, we were each given an artist to research and create some powerpoint slides of them to put together as a group and present. I was given the artist Bob and Roberta Smith, which is the alter ego of artist Patrick Brill, who creates political sign art. I included my references in the presentation (which can be seen below by scrolling down) as I would like to explore this artist further.

Art and Text Presentation

Art and Text

We started by introducing ourselves to the theme of 'Art and Text' in a very practical way, using old books as the basis for some experimental pieces.

We started by defacing the books- tearing them and crossing out words or even lines of text. This action seemed very unnatural at first, to deface an object that is meant to be read and changing its purpose, so that it no longer reads the same way.

We then found a single word from the book and tore that out- I was drawn to the word 'moist', because by taking it out of the context it was used in the book, which was in reference to baking, it has a variety of connotations, including sexual connotations. This action highlighted the significance of single words and how they can mean completely different things when taken out of context. 

We also chose a phrase in the book that had a personal link to our own manifesto in art, I chose the following phrase-

Painting Progress

Hilary Gresty

Hilary Gresty is Principal Lecturer in Arts Advocacy, Cultural Policy and Engagement in the School of Art and Design.  

Creating Book Cover

In this session we began making the cover of the book, as well as cutting the edges of the book using a book guillotine in order to get smooth professional looking edges. For the spine, we attached book binding fabric with a thin sheet of card the width and length of the spine for support of the cover. We also cut the cover out of thick board, which will later be covered in book binding paper and then completed. 

Painting Progress Day One

Symbols in Nature (Black and White)

I also took this opportunity to explore my photography and editing skills, using Adobe Photoshop. The above images have all been edited to grayscale with contrast and light being adjusted accordingly to emphasize the flowers and the layers of petals which are key to reflecting the female form.

Symbols in Nature

Following my research into Georgia O’keefe’s large scale paintings, I collected first hand recordings of flowers to use as reference for my own painting. For these references I chose flowers that represented the yonic shape, as well as having flesh like shades of pinks and yellows to further reflect the female body.

Mary O'Neill Seminar

How could film change the way you work?

• W.B Yeats says there are two subjects for art- sex and death.
• Symbolism and imagery prominent in the film, eg coffee and ice cream is the first time of pleasurable sensation in the film.
• Under reactions, understated film with internalised emotion; importance of understating in art- was considered an unnatural reaction to death.
• Narrative created through constant blue colour- in swimming pool scene children jump in pool wearing red and white- importance of colour. 
• Kept the blue chandelier as a symbol of freedom.
• Cinema doesn't reflect the way we react it teaches us- we learn patterns of behavior.
• Connections between new life of isolation and old life through music.
• Follows fairytale narrative: death, trial, rebirth.
• Film is disorientating, reflects the disorientation of grieving, the film embodies the grief.
• Can reference films as well as text in art.

Mary O'Neill Lecture

Instead of reading a text before the lecture, we watched 'Three Colors: Blue' directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, this is more than just a film but also a philosophical statement. The context of the film is very important, including the French motto: liberty, equality and fraternity, in which the film heavily portrays one of these ideas. The colours of the French flag are also important, with blue being prominent in this film but white and red also having significance. In France there is a strong sense of public responsibility, what would happen if you were completely free (or tried to be completely free) is explored in this film.   

The lecture itself with O'Neill focused on the themes of death, as well as film: we will all encounter death in our lives and yet it is something we can never be prepared for. 

Starting the lecture, was a brief history of the portrayal of death in film. Classic films of death bed shows the traditional image of death in media as peaceful and spiritual. By the war, death became more stylised in film, showing the death of soldiers in war as dramatic. There was also a shift with films like 'Ghost' and 'Truly, Madly, Deeply', where the dead return as ghosts, however at this point there is still a clear distinction between the living and dead with the ending showing both the dead and living moving on. Media further shifted to allow a complete return of the dead and portrayed a relationship between death and curiosities. 

Furthermore, 'Three Colors: Blue' explores many events and experiences with death. The main character Julie faces the death of her child and husband in a car crash which she survives, as well as the later death of her marriage with the uncovering of her husbands infidelity, and the social death of her mother who has Alzheimer. Ironically, with her condition her mother has achieved the state of freedom from the world that she desires but can not find. 

Second Session

In this second session we started creating another book.

Making a Stretcher

The dimensions of the stretcher are 120cm x 80cm. I created the stretcher with Rob in the woodworking workshop, helping to cut the 4 x 4 frame, sand it to 45 degree angles and screw together. 

After making the stretcher I primed it using a mixture of emulsion, PVA and water. 

Exhibition

Group Crit

Wax dolls-

• Something religious about wax doll- looks like Virgin Mary.
• Looks flurescent, like it would glow in the dark- reminicent of cartoon monsters.

Plaster dolls-

• Like trophy awards at Oscars.
• Importance of the pose; calming pose, could appear like wings (links to religious ideas) frozen hands.
• Head without makeup; like a baby, looks tribal- tribal mask, African tribal head, melted body.
• Narrative emerging from object.
• Innocence of white, frozen calming pose.

Plaster dolls as a group-

• Become units.
• Slaves, killed, burnt.
• Repetition, loses history, meaning, becomes less special, less valuable, less unique.
• Repetition also suggests the importance of the original.

Research

Tee Corinee 'Cunt Colouring Book'
Judy Chicago