This installation work involves the idea of human interaction so the ability to be able to touch the artwork is very important as it focuses on textures and sounds to be main interest for the viewer, by scaling up the piece it would create an exhibition that you could walk through and fully immerse your body within the space instead of just having the ability to touch, this would complicate the artwork in the way that you would need to expand the amount of garlands used therefore adding the potential for knots if viewers are walking through the art; along with this the installation would then need to fill an entire room in order for it to look grand and well presented instead of half hearted. Overall I believe that the artwork would be better developed on a larger scale as it would add more of an emotive effect with the higher levels of interaction therefore probably becoming an installation the you would want to return to to be able to get that same sensation.

My blog overall looked at very different areas of art theory such as the development of my own work; contextual artist theory’s and their understandings of certain topics as well as looking at the presentation of artwork and how it can change the effect of the entire image. From this I have specifically learnt how to develop my work further by looking more into the process than the final outcome as well as how the idea of scale can majorly effect the way the viewer sees the final image. Looking into concept, I have learnt about how artists specifically use narration/lack of to make the viewer think more about the ideals behind the artwork.

Colour Schemes,
Gender Stereotypes,
Characterisation,
Stylisation,
Photographic,
Light Imagery,
Subtle

I chose this Wes Anderson image as a reference to my own work because it depicts a large number of the focus points that I am interested in. The initial thing you see is the colour scheme and how they have selected a small number of colours that all flow together with the exception of one that contrasts, I personally am extremely interested in the idea of colour and how it can be used as the main focus of an image. The characterisation within the image shows a single figure sat, I am intrigued with the idea of gender stereotypes and masculinity so the fact that this guy is wearing a pink scarf (a colour commonly associated with girls) relates with my interests. Within a large selection of Wes Anderson’s work the stylisation of the imagery is very similar, something that I like to focus on as I like my work to flow together whether it be with the style or the colour schemes. With the image being a film still it shows how my practice is generally based off real imagery and how an image can be transformed to become a piece of fine art.

Tracey Emin’s sculptural piece named “My Bed” was an incredibly controversial outcome nominated for the turner prize in 1999; Emin herself describes the work as a self portrait of a low point in her life so she is developing and changing the idea of what a classic portrait could become. The level of theory that I would like to look at within this piece is the idea of the artist herself being the art. She is producing an outcome that could work towards the feminist movement; this artwork battles the societal norms of how a woman should behave in a performance art style as even when Emin is talking about her work she is still keeping up the similar standards of being a “bad girl” and someone who wouldn’t particularly want to follow the rules.
Taking this theory further, you could say that artwork is as much of a performance piece for the artist as whatever they produce will be scrutinised in a way that is effected by how they put themselves across within the art world.

Within this piece of work I took an old renaissance image created by Titian and made it into a modern day Instagram post; By doing this I am commenting on the way in which images are seen in the present day and what is classified as art. Using an original Instagram post by Kim Kardashian shows the levels of people that social media can effect in the same way that art would have previously done. The irony of the actual imagery used shows venus being pampered and entertained, and pairing this with the caption “Got to hang with these beauties at my fragrance launch!” almost insinuating that the character of venus would want to come across as being friendly with the people who were tending to her every need. Developing this imagery would be interesting as I could create an entire series comparing the modern day to the past and creating contemporary vs classic outcomes where the lines are blurred, in a similar vein to this outcome I would paint my own imagery in the style of renaissance paintings but still keep the modern figures and frame them within social media handles to contrast to the photographs that you would normally see in that setting.

Richard Serra’s ideals on public art range from discussing the ideas of site specific work to how government controlled art should not be formed based purely on the idea of a piece of art being made for public consumption. Looking into the idea of church’s, specifically frescoes on the walls and ceilings, Serra discusses how the artwork distorts and detracts from the architecture of the building and removes the ideology of a ceiling being a ceiling; Referencing this to his own work the artist prefers to create a piece of art that compliments the architecture around it (making it site specific) without detracting from the surroundings.
In comparison Leo Steinberg looked closer at the idea of how the artwork changed over periods of time along with how a simplistic painting ended up being not the only way to position art, instead people such as Warhol and Lichtenstein produced printed works available to the masses. This different presentation of work also relates back to Richard Serra’s idea of public art as it is a way for a large variety of people to be exposed to different creations without interrupting the spaces surrounding them, this changes the relationship between the imagery and how the viewer interacts with it in different settings.

Creating a piece of art generally has a similar structure within the development process in which you look at the ideas of size, composition, colour schemes and materials. My new mode of practice would look closer at the idea of development instead of the actual outcome; taking the little things that you experiment with and placing them in full view. As part of this practice I would create the final outcome as usual but instead of displaying it I would create an exhibition of the process with all of the colour palettes, mock pieces, first hand images and tools to build an interactive piece. This outcome style would allow the audience to participate with the work that I was creating; so that they could also create art using the same techniques and products. This would build up a large collective piece of work where many different pieces of art that were created by lots of individuals could be compared in a reasonable way, since they have all had the same working situations. By doing this you could involve many people with completely different walks of life to be part of the art world and also have a collaborative project without a developed final piece.

The work of Rebecca Louise Law is an installation in style so an entire exhibit is only classed as one piece, therefore making the individual work the main focus point. Her work “life in death” is a hanging piece where over 375,000 dried flowers are displayed on copper wire in a singular square room, the effect of this is enormous due to the fact that there is no one piece that you have to focus on. You could argue that each garland is an individual piece.

Being within the installation was an amazing experience, something that cameras can never fully capture as you cannot see the panoramic view or the depth in which the exhibition is based on. Being able to walk between the garlands created a particular atmosphere that is hard to describe, but the entire piece definitely wouldn’t have been so successful if it was created as a singular flat piece instead of an installation as the main enjoyment for the viewer was the ability to see the art from many different angles.
The question to consider would be whether each garland is an individual piece, they have all been thought out with colour schemes and textures in mind but individually they would probably look more like a decorative house wreath instead of a fine art piece; looking closer at this you can clearly see that the garlands work as a collective, the display within the room shows swaths of particular colours and textures that blend seamlessly around the room. Taking this into consideration you can see why the ability to take a photograph within this exhibition is hard as you cannot capture the panoramic view the entire way around the room as every different angle shows off a new collective of colours and textures placed together, therefore being able to walk around the exhibit is really the only true way to get a full understanding of the artwork.

The Queer British Art 1861-1967 exhibition held by the Tate modern explores the connections between art and the range of sexualities and gender identities during the time period. The exhibition depicted many different styles of showing queerness with a closer look at particular artists or specific works that are notable for their relation to the topic. Going around the exhibition was an interesting experience because the design of the rooms was very simplistic with a basic presentation of each piece of art, this brought the viewers attention straight to the art however it forced the atmosphere in the rooms to be quite timid as people tended to follow each other around in a basic clockwise manner.
Based on the context of the exhibition you wouldn’t expect there to be a clear theme between all of the works however I found it very hard to connect anything together at all just by eye, the main information given about queer art was within the texts and without those small descriptions the art would not create a collective that flowed.
I found that the more in depth rooms such as the David Hockey and Francis Bacon were the most rewarding as you got a real sense of a personality/character behind the artwork that was created, along with being given so much more information that related to the topic. So overall the theme of the exhibition was very interesting with sections of it giving lots of valuable information, however some of the areas were a little disjointed and could probably do with more of a narrative.

Nikki S. Lee
Part (14), 2002

This particular image created by Nikki S. Lee is part of a series that explores the idea of unknown relationships, with each photograph in this series having a different settings and different characterisations the only similarity is the familiar arm being pushed into frame. The arm in this particular image is draped around the shoulders of the figure of Nikki S. Lee and is unidentifiable, this however is different for the character in shot, she is positioned slightly off centre and is gazing off to the right of the image indicating that she is clearly not looking at the figure to the left of the image, the reason for this is unknown but by the expression on her face you can infer that she is not entirely comfortable with the situation; this is shown further by the depth of colour used within the imagery as the surrounding areas are dark and gloomy with one bright window of a car highlighting the focus point. Overall the imagery in the piece leaves the viewer with a number of questions; Who is the mysterious figure?, Where is their destination? and lastly Why is capturing this moment in particular important?. By doing this the artist has created an outcome that sparks debates, on both the individual artworks along with looking at the ideas of the dynamics of different relationships.