Exploratory 2 - Research

Research into skeleton artwork

Aaron Kuehn

Skeleton Typogram

This is one of my favourite pieces I have found during my research. I feel this could inspire my own work in that I could recreate a section of this using the wooden letters to develop my original piece using typography. 

Sam Hamrick

Skeleton with a Cigarette, lino cut

Guitar Bones, linocut

Van Gogh

Skull of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette, 1886

Carl Kauba

Bronze Sculpture of a Skeleton

 

Andy Warhol

Skeletons, 1987

David Oliveira 

 

April Wagner

'FC 23'

Christian Ristow

Breathe

Saul Hernandez

Exploratory 2

For exploratory stage 2 we had to select one piece of work that we had completed in exploratory one and develop it further. We then had to consider and justify why we had chosen that piece by asking ourselves a variety of questions. I had a few options;

Collages

 

What interests me about this piece of work? I found the process of completing them enjoyable and it explores an interesting issue; real suffering and trivial issues. 

How could I develop it further? Turn them into screen prints, use typography (wooden letters), increase in scale

Could I use all the facilities? 2D and 3D? Not sure how I could develop it into 3D and therefore couldn't use all facilities. 

Pear 

 

What interests me about this piece of work? The process, colour, mark making and the form. 

What does it explore? The form of an object, curvature of the pear, the unique colours of the conference pear, light and shadows. 

How could I develop it further? Screenprint, linocut, wire sculpture, clay sculpture, wooden sculpture, increase it in scale, experiment with colour and texture, create a collage. I could use all facilities and explore 2D and 3D. 

Architectural space drawings

 

What interests me about these pieces of work? Use of mixed media, texture, colour, mark making, abstractly explores space and structure, use of light and dark. 

How could I develop one of them further? Create screen prints, linocuts, collages, increase them in size and create sculptures out of wood, wire, plastic and metal. For the piece on the right I could create a wooden frame with a wire net. 

Skeleton

 

What interests me about this piece of work? The subject - it explores the internal structure of the human form, the lack of colour and it's complexity. 

How could I develop it further? Screen prints, linocuts, wire sculpture, metal sculpture, wooden sculpture, collage, animation, digital media and more in depth drawings. It may take more time than the other options as it's a challenging subject. 

In the end I decided to develop my skeleton piece as I feel I could explore a lot of processes with it and the subject itself interests me. I also felt it would be the most challenging and interesting piece to develop.

Drawing Week

Drawing Week

After the Exploratory 1 stage we spent a week drawing various installations. We had to complete various drawing tasks for each rotation so at the end we would have a large body of dynamic work. 

I began at the nature installation which was a large pile of flowers, leaves etc. I found this rotation the most challenging of the 4 and I wasn't happy with my outcomes. It was the first rotation and I thought we had to use our viewfinder and draw the entire composition including what was behind it etc and only use pencil or pen. I ended up with some rather plain pieces of work which I was not happy with compared to the pieces created nearer the end of the week by others who had taken one flower/leaf out of the pile and drawn that using a variety of colour and mix media. I would have loved to go back to this installation and completed all of the tasks again but there wasn't time. 

 

The next installation I drew from was the pears on the crumpled up pieces of paper. I found this rotation a lot more enjoyable and I really tried to explore colour and mixed media in it. My favourite piece from this installation was my drawing from memory (second image) as I felt I explored the colour of the pear, light and dark, mark making and mixed media. This piece of work was quite light, although it explored the shape and curvature of the pear it did not consider the weight of the pear and how it would feel if you held it. I therefore tried to explore this in 60 minute drawing (second from last image, on parcel paper). 

 

The next installation I explored was the architectural set up in the photography space. At first I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy working from this installation as it's quite angular, exploring straight lines and positive and negative space. My first few drawings weren't that exciting and I wasn't having fun with it so I turned my technique on it's head and tried to explore the space more abstractly. I wanted to accurately represent the structure of the space in terms of where the wood met and what was in the foreground/background but I wanted my technique to be more loose, using more vivid colours. I ended up really enjoying working in this space, although it was quite dark and hard to see what I was doing, but I thought it was an exciting installation to explore mix media and mark making on and I created some of my favourite pieces from the whole week.  

 

The final installation, and probably my favourite, were the skeletons. I have a strong interest in the human form and I could really explore that here. My favourite drawings from this rotation were the smaller ones from my sheet of nine thumbnail sketches. I loved my ink sketch of the skeleton torso as well as the first skull sketch and the white acrylic skeleton and the black background. I enjoyed exploring colour when there was none, for instance the rib cages where I've added red. I also created my favourite continuous line drawing of the week in this section, the large charcoal skeleton upper body. 

Surface

Surface

For the one day surface workshop we were given the task of creating a number of surfaces on small squares from four different materials. I chose masking tape, tissue paper, string and bubble wrap. I felt I could create some quite interesting pieces from these materials, however I found my ideas were limited, especially concerning the bubble wrap. I had a glance at other people’s work in the group and felt they had come up with much more exciting pieces using card and thread which made me regret the material choices I made. Therefore if I were to do this task again I would consider more carefully the possibilities of different materials.

Collage

Collage Workshop

The brief for the collage workshop day was kept very open. We were only instructed that we had to create six or more and that an interesting theme to follow would be juxtapositions, however we did not have to go with this. 

I did stick to this theme and chose to explore the juxtaposition between consumerism/trivial issues and real suffering. I created six collage pieces and tried to explore this juxtaposition slightly differently in each piece. 

 

My first collage piece tried to explore this theme quite generally. I found images in fashion magazines, an atlas and a book about the conditions of British industrial workers and here I decided to put the images of suffering in the background, just like they seem to be in the real world. In front I placed the cuttings found in popular fashion magazines in which they talk about trivial things that don't matter as much, such as the fact 'polka dots are in' or that we spend one year of our lives hungover. These things are completely irrelevant to the sufferers in the background. 

In this piece I focused more on suffering juxtaposed with wealth that is thrown away. I included the amount of money people actually spend on clothes at the moment, money which would be put towards helping the sufferers. I also included the title of an article about how making that amount of money doesn't mean you've made it in some industries and that people with that amount of money still aren't happy, whereas the people in the background would be incredibly grateful for the smallest fraction of that money.

This piece explores how the suffering women in the background images do not care for the trivial issues in the foreground. They don't care about having 'liquid cheekbones' or having grey hair, they have more important issues to worry about, such as having enough food.

This one was kind of a mix but my favourite part of it is the 'new season's luxury leather' against the cattle which are important for the survival of some populations. I also included the suffering of children creating clothes against runway fashion and the amount some celebrities eat and drink at parties against hunger. 

 

Here I placed an image of a hungry child next to food we take for granted. I also included a cut from a recipe page in a magazine where someone talks about their food 'problem' which is a trivial dinner party issue, where in reality the real issue is the starving children that are in the background of life. 

 

Here I juxtaposed images of suffering adults and children with fashion week and everyday innovations such as cars and phones that we take for granted. 

 

I really enjoyed the collage workshop day. I enjoyed the process and I found the brief interesting the explore and I liked trying to find images to fit it. I hadn't collaged since I was younger and I felt like these pieces mean something, in comparison to just cutting and sticking when I was younger. We also looked at some interesting artists who incorporated collage into their work whom I would like to complete further research on.