VISIT TO TATE MODERN

While visiting Tate Modern I got to see Cy Twombly's work in person, seriously overwhelming. I didn't expect them to be as large as they were. Great day out, sorry for the low quality. Everything was taken on my phone. 

CY TWOMBLY

ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH.

I think the concept and idea I had while designing my body of work for ‘Environment’ could be seen as quite unorthodox to the original briefing. I wanted to study into the body and how this is your own personal environment. So inevitably I was inspired by quite a lot of unconventional artist such as, Jackson Pollock, Cy Twombly, and Jenny Saville. My body of work, was split into three different categories through my thought process. Figure drawings, Incidental markings/mark making and mark making into the theme of ‘Motions’. All under the umbrella of ‘The Body’.

Jenny Saville was one of the first people I look at when I came up with the concept of the body and relating that to the environment. I mainly began to look at her drawings, especially of pregnant women. I think I done this because it was the obvious option and plainly looking at the body as a simple silhouette rather than what’s inside. Jenny Saville is well in my comfort zone as I’ve studied her work many times before, and I think moving away from her style of work was a good choice on my behalf.

Pollock was my main source of inspiration into incidental markings. What most intrigued me about Jackson Pollock’s work was his ability to change a tone or connotation to a piece, simply by using different techniques of mark making. He was able to create a sense of rhythm and style to simple marking. Making it not so simple. The style he painted in was almost as if he was distorting an image to an extent, where you can re-interpret it in whichever way you wanted. My final piece was basically a collection of different mark making techniques into bodily-functions eg. Burping, coughing, swallowing, pulse etc. And by what I had interpreted from Pollock’s work helped me understand how to visualize something that can’t necessarily be seen. He also inspired me to work on a much larger scale. Once I had collected a variation of different mark making techniques I organised them into a complete composition.

As I began to research deeper into mark making artist I came across an artist called Cy Twombly. Cy Twombly created a more poetic way of representing mark making in comparison to Pollock. Pollock’s work represents to me marks of a distorted image, but Twombly’s shows more of a distorted concept. Which was a really interesting insight to grasp and contribute to my work. I could definitely describe my work as both of these things. While researching this artist I came across a video on YouTube of Twombly’s exhibition at the Tate museum (19^th June- 14^th September 2008) The director spoke about his interpretation into Twombly’s work and this was a good source of research for me because it questioned my own perceptions. Tate's Director Nicholas Serota - “You close your eyes and you make a mark. Then you make another mark and then you make another mark. Then you build up an image which is coming from within, rather than representation”. Toward the end of the brief I understood that, that was exactly the way I wanted to express myself during my mark making process so Twombly was an ideal person to look at for this brief. Twombly was someone I began to look at toward the end of my briefing and his inspiration moulded a lot of what I had created and covered a lot of what I was trying to do, including clarifying my own concept. I don’t regret looking at him last because my thought process through this brief was a really interesting too see come to life through visual recordings. 

CY TWOMBLY

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JACKSON POLLOCK

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JENNY SAVILLE (DRAWINGS)

STUDIO WORK

Not the best photo, but studio work on 'Environment' and Body. More to be posted tomorrow.  

ENVIRONMENT EVALUATION

My overall interpretation of the ‘Environment’ brief was to make the brief relate more to myself and the way I done this was basing it around the Body. Rather than looking plainly at what’s around you I wanted to study what’s inside you. I found my thought process through this idea very difficult to come across in my visual recordings.

First I started looking at figure drawings and artist that mainly have work based around the human silhouette. But while writing in my reflective journal I realised that I had been slightly led astray from my initial concept. I think this was because I was looking at it far too literally. Whether that was a success or a failure to add to my body of work I don’t know. But by doing this it led me to think the totally different and I began to do studies of incidental markings. Drawing ink splatters on the floor, photographing random scuffs and marks that you wouldn't usually look at. This helped me understand and realise that what I was actually trying to make visual recordings of, I couldn't exactly see. Following the similar idea that Picasso had when he went to a market. He went to a market when it was closed to see what hadn't been bought rather than what had been. This helped me to think more ‘outside the box’ and look at conceptual artist such as Dario Escabar, Jacob Dahl Gren etc. This inspired me to create pieces that where based around every day object that could be related to organs e.g. Lungs- Balloon, Stomach- container.

I then began to look at motions for example, swallowing, breathing, heart beat etc. This then progressed to my final piece. I sat in a spare studio space all day and recorded these motions by simply listening to myself and ‘the way my body ticks’. I tried to replicate this in my recordings but I found that I was thinking far too much and not actually listening to myself. So I went on youtube and played a ticking clock sound effect and played it out loud as I work. The clock ticking replicated my own pulse and helped me create different pieces to a rhythm. Once I had collected a decent amount of recordings I then stapled them to the wall to create a complete composition. It almost seemed like a brain storm of visual recording of the internal body. From my many struggles throughout this brief, I think it was a well suited way to sum up the brief for me as a final piece. The body is a very difficult thing to understand and I think this brief made me realise the difference between the body and the mind. They work totally separately and we subconsciously dismiss our own music.

I don’t think I would have done much differently apart from doing more research, but I think I have gained an awful lot from this brief into my own understanding of myself.