Jackson Pollock ( 1912- 1956) was born Paul Jackson Pollock and was an American abstract expressionist painter. (Coates, 1952). He was well known especially for his unique style of drip painting.
His Blue Poles painting is a very controversial painting with a history of its own. The actual Blue Poles are 8 blue pole like lines down the canvas at different angles to each other and really do dominate the painting. (Fitzsimmons, 1952).

So my theory would be to make the canvas smaller and less significant as we know it fills a wall with its memorable measurements. I then feel by simplifying it, I would remove the Blue poles, which would redefine the whole characteristic of the painting.

This wouldn’t make it to significant it would just look like another one of his work where he splatters different paint. The bold blue lines adds something to the painting and breaks it up, making it different form his other works. The effect of the removal would be astounding and would completely change the juxtaposition and features of the painting. I also felt that if the canvas was smaller he wouldn’t be able to be so gesturally with his art and his movements. Which is what he is best known for.

Bibliography

Coates, Robert M (1952) ‘From Ingres to Pollock’, Direct. New Yorker, p 179.

Fitzsimmons James, (1952), ‘Jackson Pollock’ Art Digest.15 p 17.

Through reflection of all my blog posts, I feel thoroughly pleased with each individual blog post. Each post encapsulates my thoughts delicately and the reader is able to capture a view of my work. The structure, form and quality of each one is acceptably written. Personally, I devoted many hours of time and effort to create them as well as enjoying each task and learning from them However, the main aspects I have really gained from making a blog is that it has increased my use of vocabulary. I now feel more confident when reviewing a piece of work or an image, or even just consuming a book or a section of text.

The highlights during the creation of my blog post was analysing images of artists work, as this is something I have always enjoyed. Making observations of a well-known artists piece of work and then reflecting on it, giving my opinion and thoughts about it and sharing this with other people. I thoroughly enjoy recreating pieces of work I have reflected on and I enjoyed reflecting on my own work as I find it helpful when I critique what I have created.

On this process of making my blog I did however come across some challenges from one or two tasks. These revolved around the subject of application than practicality. By this I mean within one of my tasks I was asked to write and then reflect and compare both texts. Even though I enjoyed reading them and gained much knowledge from them I did find comparing and writing about them difficult.

Performative, masking, expressionistic, chaotic, feminism , juxtaposing, rebellious, distortion, symbolic, beauty

Through my time at University, I have been looking at a specific theme of appearance and cosmetics and how they are used. This has been a common theme within each project. This then lead to the theme and ideas behind my film. I’ve always been intrigued with makeup and, so I wanted to really explore this idea of how it can be used to enhance, or even change one’s features, so when making my film I thought about this and wanted to explore this idea further. Therefore, I felt makeup was a great symbolic way to connect these two ideas together.

My film entails me, sitting in front of a camera applying and smearing makeup, mainly lipstick across my mouth and slightly onto my face. The pace of each clip in my film varies, some are fast, some slow and some are even in reverse. I did this by using an application that could change the speed of my video’s.

I feel the overall outcome of this film is very performative, which is something new to me as I haven’t created performative art before. I was inspired by the artist Pipilotti Rist, 1962.  Watching her video “Be nice to me” ,(2000). This video opened my mind to the possibility of making a film centred around the concept of make up and the symbolic power that it has. I really enjoyed creating my film through performance art. I definitely want to pursue this further in my practise as a medium.

Tracey Emin ( 3 July 1963) CBE is a well known Contemporary Artist born In Croydon, London UK. Her interests lie within Conceptual Art and confessional artwork.  This year she has an exhibition called The Memory of Your Touch, 8 September – 21 October 2017 displayed at the Xavier Huftkens in Brussels, Belgium.  

Her painting “Mother” is an acrylic painting which depicts a body, this is not clear or defined as she only has used minimal brush strokes to achieve it and the form of the body appears to be in line art. She has unquestionably left the viewer to come to terms themselves with this painting. It is set on a white background with underlying tones of pale pink with darker tones of crimson throughout the lower half. The outline of the body itself is created with black acrylic, which appears very fine. This really gives this piece of work a sense of freedom and imagination for the audience. I also find that the use of only two colour, which are very diverse to one other and aesthetically pleasing.

Emin allows you to question this painting. Is she remembering someone’s touch or is she mourning someone. The questions are endless. I believe though that it links nicely with the work of (Cy Twombly ,1928-2011). It is a fine example of abstract expressionism in the contemporary world of Art. His influence inspired the autobiographical and confessional medium of work that is still alive today in work by Emin.

Theory that underpins Emin’s work is conceptualism, feminism and abstract expressionism. I  focused on the sociological theory of Fouclaut (1926-1984). (Foucault, 1985).

Emin’s art reflects a notion of authenticity with feminism and political democracy through storytelling and truth telling. If you were to apply the theory of the French Philosopher, Michel Fouclault (1926-1984) you could see that his principles form part of her storytelling through emotion. His theory of power and the struggle with time known as “Foucauldian” displays his theory of abstract theoretical issues of power, knowledge, sexuality and selfhood. (Horrocks, 1997). Emin utilises this theory through her work of emotion, sexuality and exposure of problems and dysfunctional issues in society. This is a consistent theme throughout her work, which I feel is clearly shown time and time again in her work.( Harrison and Wood, 2003)

Bibliography

Foucault, Michel 1985 (1984) The use of Pleasure: The history of sexuality, Vol 2 translated from French by Robert Hurley, Pantheon, New York.

Harrison Charles and Wood Paul, (2003)  Art in Theory 1900-2000. Blackwell Publishing.

Horrocks, Chris and Jevtic, Zoran (1997) Foucault for Beginners, Icon Books, Cambridge.

Standard Evening (July 2014)

For this task I decided to use an artist I had previously researched Jenny Saville (b1970-). She is famous for creating paintings of the face, in a figurative form and sometimes texturizes her work.
Saville uses images of her own body or others and makes realistic paintings. However, the images I decided to appropriate were two different paintings of a squished face. Reference (closed contact (1995) by Jenny Saville.) Saville was fascinated by the idea of surgery and how this could change it for better or worse. The colour tones within the paintings are marvellous.

However, I get a sense of danger or pain, the reason for this is her face looks swollen or bruised. Though, I feel this is not the case and not Saville’s intention. My version of her images turned out to be very accurate and were very funny to observe. I decided to do mine in black and white as I wanted more depth in my images. The actual process that I used was to lay my face flat onto a photocopier and take pictures of my face squashed onto the frame. This is how I was able to appropriate an image of her work and assimilate it into a piece of my own work.
Overall I found this work to be very fascinating and satisfying.

Text 1
Leo Steinberg (July 9th 1920- March 13th 2011). This text predominantly focuses on the classic work by Steinberg Other Criteria which consists of 18 essays on various discussions”. It also compares and dissects work by Pollock, (January 28 1912-August 11 1956), and many other famous artists.  It is based upon Steinberg’s opinions from his perspective as an art historian.
Leo Sternberg was a Russian born American art critic and historian. Steinberg discusses inparticular the concept of the flatbed picture plane, defined as a horizontal bed on which a horizontal printing surface rests. It attempts to explain the way in which we paint vertically but that a picture can be viewed just as acceptable from a horizontal view. Pollock demonstrates this concept brilliantly by initially dripping paint whilst the canvas is horizontal on the floor and then lifts the canvas to the wall to allow the dripping of paint.
Something happened in 1950 which linked with this idea of moving art pieces around, why can’t a rug be viewed upon a wall or why can’t a story be recreated in a mosaic tiles. Artwork displayed in this way can be found in many churches and cathedrals.

Text 2
Richard Serra (1939).
This text relies heavily on opinions and analysis of the work of Richard Serra (1939). Serra was born in San Francisco California and is an American Sculptor best known for large scale steel abstract sculptures.
The work “Titled Arc” (1981) by Serra is discussed and references are made about it and how it has influenced industrial steel works. (Brenson, 1985). Serra is adamant that it is a sculpture and that to remove it would destroy it. But when he tried to appeal against its destruction he failed and during the night it was cut into three pieces and removed.
Titled arc was a very controversial piece of public art in the centre of New York. It was displayed between 1981 and 1989 in Foley federal Plaza. The installation was a 120 feet long and 12 feet high solid unfinished plate of rust covered COR-TEN steel.
It created a very acrimonious debate. (Glueck, 1981).

When comparing these texts I considered my thought towards the text and the points discussed. I found the main difference between them was that text 1 was more about art history and theory. It discussed a lot of artworks by many famous artists.
Text 2 was more modern, commercial and to do with steel installations, large constructions, needed for such projects. It was interesting because it is not an area of art that I have really thought about. (Harrison and Wood, 2003).

Bibliography

Brenson, Michael (1985) “Art View”. The Case in Favor of a controversial Sculpture. The New York Times. May 19.

Glueck, Grace (1981). An Outdoor Sculpture Safari Around New York. The New York Times. August 7^th.

Harrison, Charles and Wood Paul (2003). Art in Theory 1900-2000). Wiley-Blackwell

For this task I decided to choose an existing form of artistic activity and develop it. I focused on the artist Elly Smallwood, (b. 1989). She takes images of models, (usually females) either of their faces or body and then paints them in a figurative style. Her paintings are quite outgoing and expose the human body in all its glory and beauty. I decided to recreate one of her images by using my own face and putting my own creative thoughts on it. I chose the piece “Into the Dark” 60 x70, Oil.(2017). I  drew a brief outline to get the features placed and then restyled my piece using the style of Smallwood.
She used Oils in this image, but I evolve the piece by using watercolours instead. This would give it a more subtle look. The outcome of this painting satisfied me, the colour palette compared well to Smallwood’s with deep, pink, rosy and warm but equally light tones.
I enjoyed this task and feel that it is an area of fine art that I may like to develop further to enhance my skills in figurative painting. I feel that there is less of control and allows for freedom of expression.

The PACE Museum is situated in Burlington Gardens, London. I attended the exhibition of Transcending Boundaries. Which was organised by Team Lab.

Team Lab (Tokyo, 2001) is a group of artists who bring together art and technology to create a practise. They influence art with technology and the natural world. They are based in Tokyo and therefore all their exhibitions have a great sense that relates to Japanese Art.

There were different areas within this exhibition which included a total of 3 rooms. The first room consisted of a big piece which took up most of the room. It was companied by 3 other smaller pieces of work. The second room consisted of a piece called Black Waves and the final room consisted of an interactive piece.

One piece that really interested me was the very first installation I saw which was; Flowers and People Transcending Boundaries a whole year in an hour

In this piece of art work, A whole year is compacted into a smaller segment. It suggests that flowers and people cannot be controlled. Flowers are born, grow, bloom and die. This installation shows the whole cycle of birth, life and death. If people move more flowers grow and if they touch it the flowers scatter all at once creating something quite spectacular.

This work attracted my attention as it made me feel almost a part of the exhibition which I’ve never really experienced with other exhibitions I’ve visited before. The world seemed a better place whilst there.

This image belongs to a series of photographs surrounding the theme of Nikki. S Lee’s life. However, to each photograph she has cropped them, leaving just an arm or half a face. This image shows Lee sitting in a car next to a significant other or friend, looking distance and saddened. Whether this is due to the company or the destination she is heading is unclear. However, there is much distance between her and the adjacent person therefore suggesting to me she is uncomfortable with the presence of this person.

To me this image gives off the impression of isolation and a deep unhappiness, I get this purely from her expression and the juxtaposition of both people. The colour scheme as well adds to this low atmosphere as the colours appear dull and lifeless. These gloomy tones also reflect into her clothes and makeup. This makes me feel cold and lonely as these colours are usually uses to refer to these emotions.

My conclusion of this images is that it conveys connections between existence and non-existence.

Girl with a pearl earring by Tracy Chevalier

This book is told from the perspective of Griet, a 16 year old girl from Holland. The book is set into 4 chapters of years. The story is about the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). It tells of Griet’s life of working as a maid for the infamous painter Johannes Vermeer.

Griet is a mere existence and is paid very little for what she does when she starts. In early 1665, Griet secretly becomes Vermeer’s assistant. Griet starts to help Vermeer by fetching supplies, grinding colours and cleaning. She has an eye for Art and when she gains her confidence she often offers her thoughts to Vermeer.

In 1666 Vermeer starts to paint Griet and the erotic tension starts to enfold between the two of them. The Author of the book does a tremendous job at creating the sexual tension between them.

Towards the end of the painting and when it is nearly finished Vermeer believes it needs some jewellery. Griet pierces her own ear in readiness for the pearl earrings to be painted. When Catharina returns she believes Griet has stolen the earrings and is in rage. Griet realises there can be no future there and leaves.

The story then resumes years later in 1676.  Griet is asked to go to the Vermeer house. She is shocked to discover that Vermeer in his will, left her the pearl earrings. Which reluctantly she accepted. She sold them for 20 guilders. This is a truly romantic story, no action is ever taken upon the feelings between Vermeer and Griet but the fondness is felt. (Chevalier, 1999).

Quote

“I could not say why I had laid out the vegetable as I did. I simply set them as I felt they should be, but I was too frightened to say so to a gentleman.”

This conversation on page 5, is the first exchange between Griet and Vermeer where she is too shy to look or talk to him. It sets the tone for the whole book, and is the start of the chemistry between them. It attempts to show Vermeer’s clear and keen eye for detail, for him to have even noticed that Griet set the vegetables in the specific way that she did.

Bibliography

Chevalier, Tracey, 1999, The Girl with the Pearl Earring, Harper Collins, Complete Book