The image I have chosen for this task is Renée Cox’s photograph “Hot-en-tot Venus” 1994. In this image, the artist herself poses with a prosthetic breastplate and bottom.

The artist in an interview states that the subject of this image is based on an actual person called Saartje “Sarah” Baartman also known as Hottentot Venus. Born in South Africa but then brought to Europe at the late 1800’s and became a prostitute and was ridiculed. The artist uses this history to create this image is about the media’s portrayal of black women and how it tends to be in a negative yet sexualized way, which was and now extremely relevant. Through posing in this way with the prosthetics the artist is celebrating her own identity.

Renee Cox is a Jamaican-American artist. She explores self-love to self-empower after the what has happened to black people in the past and present. She is noted for her contributions to the Feminist Art Movement in the United States.

In this photo I feel the artist looks determined and powerful with her facial expression and stance. I feel the use of no colour makes an important statement because it gives a more serious tone.

Temple.edu. (2017). Deborah Willis: Black Venus 2010. [online] Available at: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1440_reg.html [Accessed 12 Dec. 2017].

“Taste is a tender subject. What really fascinates me about the topic of aesthetic taste is that people really care.”

For this task, I’ve chosen “The Vanity of Small Differences” by the artist Grayson Perry. This book is about Grayson Perry’s series of tapestries which encapsulate British class culture and the meaning of taste.

The book starts off with a foreword about the context of the book and a bit about the artist himself. He describes his background and how his work is a social commentary about British culture. And then since the book is about some tapestry pieces he created he then proceeds to give a history and context about them and how he personally feels about them. He also describes his inspirations.

Then there’s a section by Suzanne Moore – she gives her thoughts about the subjects’ meanings from her personal point of view, recounting experiences.

The next couple of sections are snippets of information about the artist’s research and sketchbook work. After that is pictures of the final pieces themselves.

The final part of the book gives more information about how the tapestries were made and the process of it.

Steinberg, L. From other Criteria. Pg. 948-953

 Published in 1972, people were craving change culturally and politically, presumably accepting Steinberg’s writing with open arms because of this. His forward thinking, progressive tone discusses how art is changing, along with the way in which onlookers receive Modern and Contemporary art, controversially stating that the work of artists in the Renaissance period is ‘flat’.

Serra, R. From the Yale Lecture. Pg. 1124-1127

Richard Serra discusses materials and their properties in the world of sculpture. To Serra, location and materials matter. This contradicts the ideas of Steinberg regarding the way in which the audience sees the work, as opposed to what physical matter the audience sees. Common in both texts is the sense that society was not yet undisturbed by the content of the artists’ work. There was still an uncertainty from the onlookers because a level of shock was provoked.

HARRISON, C. and WOOD, P. (1992) ART IN THEORY 1900-1990 An Anthology of Changing Ideas: Blackwell Publishers

Above is a large scale painting I produced in 2015.It is oil on canvas and stands 2.2m by 1.4m. I wanted to portray a sense of feminine assertiveness, without the figure coming across as aggressive. I find this is often an issue that women with assured opinions face. I painted a woman in a suit in a comfortable, seated position. However, what makes her most confident is her eye contact with the audience, breaking the forth wall. She has an awareness that is being looked at, however, due to her posture, this seems no problem.

Regardless of the height of the onlookers, the painting causes people to look up. This domineering feature of the painting is achieved through the scale. The model is larger than life size and this effect certainly wouldn’t be achieved so successfully is she was even half the current size.

The ambiguity and freedom in each task has provoked my own reading of articles, books and critical opinions of artists. I have found out snippets that I may not have done if these tasks had not been set, and they have been a good introduction into the ways in which I work productively. I’ve learnt that the meaning and context behind the piece is often more important to me that the aesthetics of the image itself. Thus, I have emulated this approach in my own ideas, for example, my appropriation pieces, and Michael Craig-Martin inspired flower paintings in the Contemporary project.

Moving forward with extended pieces of writing, my shorter blog entries have given me some security regarding my ability to eloquently express my creative intentions. In particular, Task 4, to write a review on an exhibition I’ve recently visited, sparked considerable excitement. This I found, along-side Task 2- to consume a book summarising it’s content, the most beneficial. Seeing artist’s work in the flesh gave me a greater insight into their practice, offering impact via scale, richer colours and accurate side notes on the wall nearby. Similarly, reading a book written by the artist themself, it gave me the inspiration due to their contextual purpose, to create a section of work myself that I feel was successful in terms of meaning, also, perhaps less importantly a conclusive feel at the end of a project.

“A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” was an oil on canvas made from Édouard Manet, a France artist, in 1882. The most vivid women in the picture seem to have pulled out of the crowds emerging from the mirror behind her. She is elegant and charming, yet stands alone on the back of the bar, in a seemingly indifferent and extremely exhausted look at the viewer; this ponders upon what the charming woman is thinking? The young woman’s face was rosy, the men and women in the mirror behind her were having a love affair stealthily, the bright roses on the table were placed in the small goblet, which represented the splendid and fragile love.

Name: Jiao Lin Ting Yu; made by Fengjie Li (Mu Feng)

This is a larger version of what I had imagined, a miniature sculpture made from olive kernels. The size is generally not more than two centimeters, is a small piece of art. If this unique work becomes bigger, then the material can not use the olive core, but should use the nature and the olive core is more like a large material; and the original small and detailed will have more details of the internal sculpture, for Engravers are also a different challenge. This small carving is an object for Chinese people to play in their hands and belongs to high-priced collectibles. If the finished product can be enlarged, the miniature carving will be transformed into a large-scale sculpture, which will allow more people appreciate it. Similarly, because there is a very high demand on the eyesight for engraving such tiny objects, once expanded, it allows more sculptors to understand this form of engraving and protects their eyes from using their eyes over.

While writing this blog, I got to know some artists I did not know before and knew more about the artists I knew but did not know enough about them. During this period, different genres and ways of presenting my own art made me learn different ways of expression and let me try to create works in my own way. In addition, a review of my own work made me fully aware of my shortcomings, and at the same time I found out how to make progress. The different materials I encountered during the blogging process kept me from trying and kept me writing a lot about the material and how to use them. Different materials do not need to be limited to their original purpose. They can also be used for new functions. For example, I try to use tape to make a picture in a roll, and the effect is quite different from using a brush directly. These new and interesting experiments expand my imagination and make me more daring to know new ways of making art and different applications of materials.

Drink                                              Marker

Simple                                            Half stereo

Thin                                                 Sweet

Black and white                            Icy

Creamy                                           Fruit

At the beginning of the painting I tried to translate three-dimensional objects into two-dimensional ones, which was really difficult and let me try many times to succeed. What I drew is a widely acclaimed drink in China, with a unique blend of different teas, milk and fruit. Among them, I would have been three-dimensional ice cubes, fruits, etc. into a flat image, so that has been in the three-dimensional space of the two-dimensional drinks, to be able to clearly see the contents of drinks. This is the first time I tried using a marker pen and it was the first time I tried to create a semi-solid model. The process of using markers was very enjoyable, and I wanted to try out a new, more colorful marker pen work; simple cropping allowed the original two-dimensional work to have a three-dimensional effect, detached from the two-dimensional image, Three-dimensional state also makes me feel very interesting.

This is Neel Azevedo’s “Melting Man” in Berlin, a kind of transitory installation art. The iceman in this picture was completed with the help of the author and his helpdesk, because it was not long before it was completely water-filled, unable to be preserved for a long time outdoors and was therefore a temporary installation art. Time and weather were all conditions for his accomplishment of this unique installation art. However, the implication of this is that the impact of the greenhouse effect is getting bigger and bigger. People are paying the price for this and have been widely disseminated and attracted more attention. But in this space, if no one noticed this unique artwork, then the author’s content and existence significance of this work are not complete.