Final Piece Development

A series of photographs just before I put up the last component of my final piece, which is the strings from wall to wall across the entire room capturing the madness and encapsulating the viewer into the mind of my mind.

The Whitworth, More Inspirational Photos

I liked this mirror sculpture in the Whitworth because due to the nature of its shape it distorts whatever is placed in front of it, I could consider whether including shapes of mirrors to distort sections of the room for my final piece to show distortion of the room which in itself is a portrayal of inside my mind. 

I really liked this piece by Gillian Ayres called Reef. The main reason I love it is it is so abstract and expressionist, very similar to my artist I'm looking at Machowski but Ayres manages to create these very subtle textures in her paint which is another avenue of painting I could explore to incorporate into my work.

 This piece by Faith Wilding also caught my attention due to the intricacy of the textile work and how this whole room had been crocheted together and then had to be delicately placed. This piece known as the 'Womb Room' reminds me of synapses in the brain and also due to the fact it being displayed in a pitch black room apart from the light in the middle also caught my attention as it allowed me to see how shadows work on a black background which isn't very well. Seeing this piece has also allowed me to see how dark the location of my final piece is going to have to be to gain the desired effect that I want.

Another piece that caught my eye in the Whitworth was by Anya Gallaccio called 'Red Door With Handle' the reason this piece caught my attention was that the door has been robbed of it's pathos similar to the effect that Parker wanted in her work with 'Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View' which Parker explained in her interview with the Tate for her exhibition there. Rather than being a door this is now a frame for the intricate petal art this is also similar to some of the work I am doing in my final piece where I am taking old out of use furniture and turning it into these beautifully destroyed objects as focal points of my final piece.

The Whitworth, Finding Inspiration

While wandering around The Whitworth earlier today I found a piece that is strikingly similar to my artist Cornelia Parker and I didn't expect to find this but when I did I was so happy because I'd wanted to go and view the artwork she creates for myself but I've never found an exhibition that I was able to go to.

 I decided to take a video with my camera as I could get a better quality with a film and show some of the shadows on the floor that were displayed below due to the use of light.

This piece has given me the motivation to go back into my room and do the very best I can do and show off my use of texture, the 3D form and installations. I needed this little boost of inspiration since I've been feeling very ill recently and that with the stresses of anxiety had put me into little mood to work so I've made slow progress, however after seeing this I feel I am ready to dive back into the studio and do my theme and my personal journey itself the justice I want for it. To express what it truly feels like to live with a mental illness.

After looking at this piece in the Whitworth it made me start to think about the environment that my piece is located in, as looking at this piece despite it being in a room that was pitch black the shadows were still only very faint. So when constructing my piece I need to consider all these factors to make it successful

• Lighting - It needs to be dark so the shadows stand out but not pitch black so you walk into the piece.
• Sound - Do I want ambient sound? Maybe a generic happy pop song to show a juxtra opposition and play it as a sarcastic joke.
• Smell - Do I want it to smell a particular way, maybe like old trash and rotting food or maybe make it inviting to again poke fun at the juxtra opposition.
• Position to view the piece - Do I want the viewer to sit down, stand up, this will also affect were the light is placed and pointed at.

Change of Mind About the Location of Final Piece

After having a think over the weekend I decided that the room I had initially chosen while it being a positive that the room was soundproofed because you almost drowned in the silence. It made it near impossible to hang anything from the walls because the white wallpaper had to be hung so far away walls and it meant that I'd have to spend a long time just setting up the atmosphere for the room to be right let alone all the stuff going into the room and the actual pieces themselves. Whereas down the hall after having a quick look I found this room which is not only already white, it is also full of old artwork and things going into a state of disrepair and not acknowledged.

I decided over the weekend that I much prefer the atmosphere of this room already, as it is in chaos and has this essence of 'where to start' which is something I very much think on a daily basis, rather than the pristine white environment I was going to create. I appreciate the fact that it is an un-organised chaos and all the room needs to be done to it is for my work to be the focal points and the rubbish to be organised into a visually and aesthetically pleasing manner.

 I want to do numerous things to this room such as apply some of the wallpaper I bought so not only can I write words on the wall but also so I can apply it but in a manner that is unfinished and rushed and not looked after and drapes over the walls and the floor, also after taking a closer look at the walls there is numerous crude drawings done in pen which I am going to be leaving and not fixing to add a sense of realism to the chaos and how this room is now ignored and non-important, similar to the artwork that has been abandoned in there similar to how I feel and how I isolate myself when I get very anxious and have anxiety attacks and just in general everyday.

The one important aspect I must consider when using this rubbish is due to it being work from students past is that while I want to have the realism there with all the untouched and chaotic rubbish but I also need to make sure that I destroy the old work enough that it can't be mistaken as my own work and that my work is what the eyes are lead to and focuses on whilst keeping this essence of overwhelm and 'where do I start?'

Beginning of the Construction of My Final Piece

A few photos documenting the process of me turning the old unused recording studio in college into the inside of my mind for my final and biggest installation for my Art 3 personal investigation response.

 To start off I had to clear the old equipment that had been left in the room and just do some general cleaning. I also had to do some planning of the space before I start to put white paper over the walls to make the space seem clinical and work with the shadows when the room is black.

 After clearing out some of the rubbish I could see much more of the room and how big the space actually was and what an opportunity I have to do my piece justice to the idea I want and intend to do.

After I had completely cleared out the room I wanted to measure where the holes would need to be in the wall as I am covering all the walls in white paper and due to the soundproofing on the walls the paper hangs quite a way off the wall so I needed to have all the nails sorted before I begin to put the paper up so I can measure around these nails and accommodate the gaps needed for the pieces. 

Practice Final Piece

For my practice final piece I decided that I wanted to do a whole room installation. To do this though I had to amp up in size, so I found this old unused dresser upstairs near my room and decided that I was going to present my ideas for inside my room inside a dresser.

I am happy with how this piece looks as a whole and feel it presents an accurate representation of what I want to do in my final piece, I am going to leave this piece where it is and present my work around it and continue the environment into the corridor slightly so you have to go on an actual journey to get to my final piece, and that all my ideas are displayed on the walls leading up to my final outcome and that it shows not only my journey of getting better with my anxiety but also how I got to the full room installation and what it means to me.

Beginning of Final Piece and my Idea Behind It

For my final piece for my personal investigation I am currently at the time of this being posted considering to do a small room filled with textural canvases and windows all with either fabric or words written out of thread similar to 'Help' and 'Am I Worth It' and suspending them from the ceiling in all manner of angles and heights and have a light in the middle of this room so that when you walk around the piece the light is reflecting all of the words onto the walls behind you and all around you similar to Parker's 'Cold Dark Matter' but in amongst the hanging canvases and pieces I want to have personal effects with them to make the piece more intimate and personal.

 Almost in essence scare the viewers, almost choke them with the size of the room and the amount of canvases in it to really get people questioning what is the meaning behind this piece and make them feel like they are in the mind of a person with a mental illness.

This has all sprung from this one piece of work I did that gave my the idea to do it which I want this piece to be a part of, this piece has yet to be named but I love the way that it's like a hospital screen and it blurs away whatever is behind it due to the texture on the window itself and I like this because it takes the personality away from the person as they or whatever body part is behind the window into this blurry haze of colours and dehumanises them.

Adding Peeters' Influence into Fabric Experiments

After experimenting with the different colours, textures and compositions with the different fabrics I decided that I wanted to bring Peeter's influence into my fabric experiments and start to bring all my artists together in the lead up to my final piece as I had an idea about it earlier today which is explained in the next blog post.

I particularly like this experiment as I like the way the photo paper burned which I'd experimented with in my texture sketchbook back in the summer, and I decided to use the fabrics that burned really easily so it would melt into the photo paper and create this lined effect. I love that when this material is burned it not only creates lines throughout it but the edges don't burn they only singe which means you get these really nice dark outline around the texture which in certain areas is hidden by the melted and curling photo paper. On top of this I feel that the sewing I had added is just enough to emphasise the lines the fabric created without overpowering them, and the tone of pink in the thread matches with the tone in the fabric so it suits well and doesn't add too much of a contrast while still being visible.

5/11/2015 Exhibtion

I feel as a whole the exhibition went very well for me, I am happy with the work I presented and feel that it showed an accurate representation of my work and where I am going with my project in the course so far. To critic it though I would have to say that due to my piece being horizontal and very long, the space that was available for me to do my piece wasn't great as it meant that people walked straight by my work rather than stopping and looking at it especially through the proper angle the piece is supposed to be looked through by.




















The one major thing I struggled with a few days before the exhibition and on the actual day was stress and stress on a level that I'd never experienced before, I went through many things from hating all my work the day before the exhibition and having a breakdown because I didn't know what to do about it, to just generally being very unhappy about my work. However once the exhibition started I was fine and realised I was being irrational and was just overly stressed. The main thing I am going to be taking away from this exhibition is that the placement of installations in a complex shaped room is key so that people look at it but also so that it doesn't take away from the other work around it.

Another thing I did with the room was because the area I had chosen to present my piece has a skylight in the roof it affected the light and meant that it was very bright around my piece and devalued what it actually looked like so I decided to use the skylight itself creatively and bring in more fabric and material into my work so rather than adding tons of texture to my boards I added it to the actual space around my work so it served a practical use to block out the majority of the sunlight as well as drawing in my influences of fabric and texture from my sketchbook into my work without actually being on my work and I feel this was very successful and is certainly something to consider next exhibition.

 After I did this I felt happy with my work and I feel that it fitted in better and had a better all round showing of my ideas up to that point in the course. I naturally as well also took many up close photos of this to show off all the texture with my use of photography which is something I've loved exploring so far throughout my coursework.

Essay Sketchbook

This sketchbook I decided to do for the exhibition was so I could create textural pieces to not only experiment but also to have an interesting way to present my actual essay rather than in blocks of writing on my presentation boards. This is a work in progress book and won't be finished till I am 100% happy with my essay, this is among other things such as personal photos and anxiety tests that they make you take before you have CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy.) I am super happy with how this book has turned out so far as I wanted to create an unusual yet personal way to view my essay. I also feel that this book is beneficial as it has allowed me to experiment with fabric something which I know I have been interested in texture wise but needed a lead into it and this book has provided that lead.

This page I feel worked the best out of all of them as it not only brings together all my experiments and refining them that I had practised throughout my personal investigation. The subtlety of all the multiple textures of the fabric combined with the subtle and fragile melted sellotape letting you see the textures underneath. 

The page displayed on the right didn't work as well as the other ones I feel due to the fact that the subtlety is destroyed with how heavy handed I was with the ink and it takes away from not only my essay but all the subtle other features in the piece such as the sewing and the melted essay itself.