Critical essay

Grace Gummer Critical Study, 5.3

Where I work,

Where I work really depends on what I am trying to produce. I have several favorite spots where I like to work and where I think I work best. The library is one of my hot spots when I’m collaging; it gives me an instant larder of different images, textures and material to work from. It’s like being in a sweet shop and being able to have what you want. I search around on all the floors and collect a large pile of books and attentively go through them page by page, looking for a suitable image to work with.

I really enjoy this “hands on” approach a lot more than looking for an image on the Internet, its more playful, the pages have different textures and you come across things you might not have been looking for but you really love.

Another reason why I like the library so much is the space available to work by the windows. I prefer working with a large amount of natural light, and enough space to spread my images out so I can actually see what I have, and unlike my small student flat in Hyde Park, which is dark and the size of a shed, the library gives me enough space and light to work comfortably. If I need more material or I find something doesn’t work in my collage and I want something else, I have the facilities there to create work quickly and easily. The Library is also quiet and the workspaces are sectioned so it allows me to be very antisocial and the space is more private which I like. I work much quicker on my own however I enjoy the company in the studio for support and advice and also being able to see and talk to other people about their work as well as your own. I find its often easier to talk and help other people with their work than your own, therefore I appreciate any help from other people on the course, as they often look differently at your work then you do.

Working with my hands is defiantly my preferred approach, things like collage and printmaking appeal to me a lot more than working on a computer trying to get a similar effect. There is something very personal and honest about making work yourself with your own hands it also gives you a lot more space to experiment and make mistakes. I really enjoy working in the print room and dark room as it allows you to be quite independent when you get the hang of it. It allows you to create one off individual pieces of work.

You have these processes that you are controlling and can manipulate in your own way. I revel in the process and the experimentation and not knowing what you’re going to get, and the pressure of making mistakes that can often enhance your work. Both the printmaking workshop and the dark room are quite old processes now and it’s going back to manual ways of working that I enjoy so much.

Introduce yourself

Art and design runs in my family, my dad is a graphic designer, my mums a florist, my grandad and cousin paint, I suppose I can say that it’s in my blood; a passion that runs deeper than just doing it at school and liking it. I was brought up with it around me and it’s always been the one subject I have put before any other, putting all my effort into getting better and being different.

Who am I? My dad always inspired me with graphic design and visual communication more so than fine art, it was his profession and I would sit and watch and try to help whenever he worked at home. It was mainly him that helped me with the decision of choosing graphic design over fine art.

So what is graphic design?

“Graphic design is a creative process that combines art and technology to communicate ideas. The designer works with a variety of communication tools mainly image and type in order to convey a message from a client to a particular audience.

This idea of creating art with meaning and being able to solve problems really excites me more so than fine art. The work I create is very image based, working with drawing, printing and photography processes to create a piece of “art” with application, the image carries the entire message; there are few if any words to help.

I’m interested in creating quite aesthetic, textured and layered work, like Tomato and Aesthetic Apparatus; creating art that is surprising and different but for communicational purposes. I particularly like Tomatos

. d a e h r u o y n i s n i a r b e v a . s e o h “You h s r u o y n i . e t e s e o f o h e c v a u h o y u on Yo i t c e r i d y n a . n w i o f n l k e s u r o u y o y t a r h You can stee ur own, and you know w here to go.”

You’re on yo re the guy who’l decide w And you a Dr Seus

experimental photography and short films and the layers and imagery in Aesthetic Apparatus screen prints. I believe to do well you must have new ideas and not to be afraid of what you’re doing, don’t be scared to make mistakes and experiment and do something a bit odd.

The main reason I chose graphic art and design was the idea of some sort of stability in my work. The idea of painting because I want to but not to please anyone or for no reason scares me, I don’t want to make work that might just sit around, but I want to create work that people want, talk about and ask for.

Proposal, part B

Currently I’m obsessed with Tomato’s work in general, their mixed media and collaborative briefs working with a number of different mediums and people. I love the richness and difference in their work and particularly their photography, which I find beautiful to look at and really aspire to. Since being exposed to tomato their way of working has really inspired me further with my own work, and where I want to take it. I have always been interested in photography and printmaking and therefore want to further my knowledge and learning in these fields. I particularly like the idea of working with other people in a multidisciplinary field and not only focusing on one medium. I also like film, particularly more experimental film, using light sound movement etc, and possibly taking stills and printing them or taking the process of print making into film itself. It aspires me so much because it reminds me of my own work, but executed better. The use of layers, photography over another image, working into an image and on top. The more experimental films. Their work is what I want mine to look like in 5/10 years time.

I like the idea of using more photography and print making into my work and really getting in depth with it and seeing what i can create. I also want to experiment with scale and film more. working possibly more with layers and textures to make my work more appealing and aesthetically different.

After Laura Pannack’s lecture on weds her work also inspired me greatly, her photography is truly beautiful and simple. I like the way she researches and integrates herself in the subject she photographing and also how she always works with people, with being the predominate word. Her work is a passion and has never really been about the money but about the love of what she does.

Tomato.

I liked the fact she mentioned that ever moment she has taking a photograph is an opportunity to enjoy and pleasure herself by taking a photograph she wants to, not necessarily for the project in hand but for herself.

I can also identify with her when she spoke about not liking her own work, I think you are always your biggest critic and like her I strive to learn and further develop my work and I’m never truly finished or happy with what I have created. There is always more to learn and improve in a media driven world where grades, ticking box’s and parents rule how young people feel about not only themselves but their work as well, creating an almost suffocating barrier through our childhood years and school to meet what we think is expected and wanted of us, to please other people but not ourselves.

Making us create work that is not to make us, the artist happy but the critics. And its this that I feel I want to get away from.

WHAT PROCESSES (TECHNICAL) WILL YOU USE FOR YOUR WORK - DO YOU NEED TO LEARN ANY NEW ONES TO DO THE KIND OF WORK YOU HAVE IN MIND? Personally I wish to expand my knowledge to as many different processes as i can, I particularly want to explore more photography and projection as well as printmaking such as screen print and etching. I don’t want to just be good at these processes but great, I want to know exactly what I’m doing and be comfortable and confident in what I’m doing and push these processes to the limit.

Film is something I’m going to go back to in the next project, looking at experimental film as they did in poetry in motion, i really liked the films created by other students and would like to explore it myself.

I will be looking at layering different processes, such as photograph and printmaking, and also maybe working further onto of my work with collage and sewing…. painting and typography.

WHAT KIND OF CONTENT (THEME/SUBJECT) DO YOU THINK YOUR WORK SUITS BEST? My work has always lent towards the theme of people more than anything else. I find doing work around people more interesting and I find there is always something interesting to discover and research. Research is a huge part of my work and I always enjoy doing it as it adds an extra depth to your work that you wouldn’t normally get when just meeting someone.

Research and working with people also makes my work more personal, not only for the people I’m working with but for myself and the relationship I have with them. Your work I think often represents this relationship and I was really inspired by Laura Pannacks’ lecture and how she integrates with the people she’s photographing and gets to know them. I think this really helps in the way she photographs them and the way she decides the way her work looks with lighting and backgrounds. I think this often reflects my own work and the way I execute my photographs, collages and often my films by getting to know the people I’m working with.

It’s often the differences in people that really interest me, we have different hair, features, accents clothes etc, and this has always really interested me putting two people together or really looking at what people are like, the colour of their eyes, shape of their face, colour of their skin. I think it’s these differences that often make your work in different ways to represent the person your working from.

I have never been interested in landscapes and still life, people always have motion and life to them. They are never still and always have stories to tell. Like Tomato My work is often very visual and textured with many layers and I enjoy working with a number of different materials. I think the excitement I have to experiment is because I enjoy looking and finding different ways of creating marks and life to my work.

WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR WORK TO COMMUNICATE AND WHAT IMPACT DO YOU WANT IT TO HAVE ON AN AUDIENCE? My work has never been to please anyone but myself, and a lot of the time its doesn’t really communicate a great deal.

However I want it to. Depending on what sort of project I’m currently working on depends on what I want it to convey.

Working mostly around people or personal projects myself I tend to want to communicate an emotion or a feeling that I, or the person I am working with has. I think my recent project with type will really help be further my communication skills as it adds yet another layer that I now feel confident to explore. Mainly I want my work to be more about what the process can communicate and not necessarily focused on one thing, I want an audience to not always understand my work but to enjoy it and to see the different layers of process. the impact of my work is based mainly on how I create it, it’s size, medium and research behind it and therefore will be different each time, but generally I just want people to admire it and want to get involved with it either by wanting to feel it, read it, look at it or make it. I would just like my work to me more interactive, by developing what is just image making into things like zines, postcards etc thing that can be felt and read and interacted with.

Self-Assessment Tutor-Led To expand, deconstruct and experiment with the potential Brief. of type as image, shape and form, through six structural

frameworks; to better understand how typographical structures can offer greater possibilities beyond the grid, and constraints of legible structure through commercial typesetting. Exploring this through experimentation over 3 weeks using material from various poems by William S. Burroughs and Charles Bukowski.

I decided to participate in this group as type has always been something I have thought of last, or ignored all together in my work. However it is something I really wished to learn, challenge and increase my confidence on over this project and I thought it was one that would most benefit my personal practice.

Over the course of the project I have really tried to explore as many different and new things as possible. From the beginning of the project I decided to let the process lead me and be less precious about the work I was creating and to take a step back and reflect on what I was making. I focused more on the forms of the letters rather than a word or sentence with a meaning. Martyn also helped me by reminding me to use what processes I know and not to see type as anything different than an image. So initially I decided to collage cut out type on a scanner and see what compositions I could create. I really wanted to try and keep away from the computer as much as possible and see what different processes I could use.

Image and photography has always been a huge part in my work and I didn’t want to just focus on making an image out of type but to greater enhance the work and images I already create, therefore I collaged type in the grids given and then placed over photographs I had collected or taken and started to manipulate them.

Up to this point I was finding it difficult to open my mind to type, I was still thinking about it in a structural way and was being quite restricted and flat with the work I was creating, I wasn’t looking at enough artists or designers until Martyn lent me a book; Process; A Tomato Project.

Their work really inspired me as I was starting to find it difficult to think of new ways I could use type with my images. Tomato’s work used a lot of photography and had a real rawness to them, which I envied. After critically looking at my work I wanted to make it more “real” and honest to myself, I wanted to be able to feel it and give it some movement.

Having the opportunity in the print room really enhanced my work as I learnt how to photo etch. I took one of my digital images into the print room and recreated it through photo etching and tissue paper. This process of working gave me the texture and feel to my work that I was looking for. The flat digital image I had created out of a collage became very tactile and far more exciting to create.

I also wanted to create my own photographs to work with and from a digital perspective of overlaying type over image I decided to do a hands on approach by projecting my collaged type printed onto acetate over Sam’s face, this gave me the effect of overlaying type on image. However I was able to manipulate it in different ways and this created a certain distortion to my type I really liked. I was really pleased with the images I came out with at the end of the day. I was happy with the compositions and the atmosphere the images had.

‘Something I learnt was the importance of time and how long a photo etching takes to set up therefore I only managed to create one of TRACING PAPER PICTURE the 3 finished etchings.’

I then took the photographs of projecting type and one of a digital image into the print workshop and experimented with tissue paper to recreate the effect I have on my digital image as well as printing in different colour inks rather than a solid black I muted it with a red or a blue to add a different tone to my photo, this made the prints more interesting and I liked the texture the plates gave my photographs. I purposely peeled the edge of my plate to create a worn untidy effect to my plate, yet another tactile gain as well as relating to the image, which is an old found family photograph.

I also printed on Cyclus recycled paper as it has much more or a browner colour and rough texture. The plates for the two other images are set up ready and is something I am going to finish off next week when the print room isn’t fully booked up or have plumbing issues. I think working in the print room and learning another process will and has benefited my work further and has really inspired me for the next project.

I mainly looked at typographers and designers in this project as I don’t often look at type, however I have come to realise how type can add to apiece of work yet it doesn’t have to be legible and the different ways you can create it.

Looking at David Carson and David Lynch’s photography in particular really opened my eyes to the concept that type doesn’t have to be graphic design based it can be very pictorial and artistic.

With more time I think I could really finalise some beautiful tactile and detailed photo etchings, learning photo etching has also added to processes I want to continue, it has inspired me to create more hands on work but to also incorporate more printing into my work. Possibly over collage or screen printing and to be less worried about creating ‘graphic design” and just create work that is honest to you, whether that be classed as art, photography, design or sculpture, it is all applicable in the world.

Collage has become my practice over the past couple of years, and I have been experimenting with different processes to find my own style.

Willy kessels

I started looking at the idea of body image and ways of covering or disgusing the face or the body. I experimented with long shutter speeds creating ghostly images of people not quite there inspired by Katja Mater and collages covering the face or using textures to cover body parts. I also played with the idea of mixing the grotesque and the beautiful together.

Since then I began looking at cosmetic sugery using the ripping technique to remove and replace parts of my portraits with images from glossy magazines, this then evolved to using stitching to edge parts I replaced representing the stitches done in such procedures.

I have also experimented with different images in my collages, using older skin and metal and meat, keeping with the idea of the grotesque and the beautiful.

Since then I have refined and developed the process; ripping the portraits in the direction of the actual cut lines in cosmetic facial procedures as well as photographing my own models to work from and experimenting with scale when printed.

Penny Jensz

katja Mater

Initially I started interviewing people about parts of their body they didnt like, and photographed them with the idea of printing the image life size and cutting away the features they didnt like and displaying them in jars, however the project moved on when I came across this image.

The Work

When beginning this project I didn’t really have an idea to base my work on initially. My influence was mainly the process, and ways I could explore and manipulate them. I began just making work around my own interests such as the human body, portraiture and science, creating collages using old or found material. I was mainly looking at work

by Martin O’Neill and Tomato, creating unusual images, but with no idea or point to them. It was then that I started linking found words and sentences with the Images, to create meaning. These words were mainly found in graffiti or poetry.

After discussing my work with Martyn, I started thinking about body image and the idea of hiding and layers; which had been evident in my work so far, so I started thinking about other ways I could portray this using other processes. I wanted to take a step bag from working on the computer so I looked at photographs by Katja Mater which were almost ghostly shapes, however you could tell they were people, I liked the way that they were unrecogniseable and I particularly liked the group ones.

This then took me off onto another tangent where I tried to mimic this same effect but in my own way representing a more personal and recognisable struggle with body image and insecurity. This series of photographs were more about personal identity more than anything and my personal struggle to find an idea in my work.

However I found just making work really helped me through idea generating and experimentation and I started looking at more practitioners to inspire me. I decided I wanted to create more hands on work using several processes, I also realised my work was based around the idea of layering and textures. I started looking at photograms

by Raoul Hausmann and collages by Jesse Treece, (one image of which would stay with me and inspire me further into the project) Willy Kessels, Nude double exposure, 1933, Belgium and David Lynch’s work with working on top of photographs, scratching onto them and adding layers inspired me to try my own photograms, using images on acetate and layering and scratching into them to create different textures, however this was mainly experimentation and hasn’t been used in my work since, it was a helpful learning point as I wasn’t hugely confident in the dark room and I enjoyed how playful it was and the uncertainty of it all and how you could manipulate it.

I think developing is something I would like to experiment with further next year, possibly with my own photographs on film.

My projects took an important turn after speaking to Martin O’Neill and doing his collage workshop half way through this project, as it not only rekindled my love with collage and reminded me that I was more interested in the making and with processes that I could use and experiment with but also gave me a new lease of life in the project as I had begun to get fed up with just experimenting and not creating anything concrete in my eyes.

Although the collages at this point didn’t really link to the work I had previously been doing, it still kept to the running theme of women layers and the human body and covering something, which I did with flowers and different layers in the pages of the book we created. I also began sewing into my collages, something I had only recently been doing, but not for any particular purpose just to add another texture or layer to my collage, however this point in my project was a real turning point, as from then on sewing became more and more important and was one of the things that inspired me with the ideas I later came up with.

The sewing was then reintroduced into my project with a book given to me by Dave, this was a photo album and some of the images had been sew into, however he thought I would be able to use some of the remanding images for my collages. I really love the look and feel of old photographs and loved the idea of sewing into them, although some were less exciting some were really delicately done and I liked the texture it added to the images. My work began to use more sewing, mainly on top of images from magazines and women’s bodies, by this point I was becoming increasingly interested In body image and parts of the body people didn’t like and or wanted to replace, I started sewing body parts from magazines together and sewing the words I had found IThis research really kick started the project again for me as it inspired me to start looking closer at body image and the parts peopled disliked and wanted to replace.

To this point I hadn’t really thought about how I would display the work I was creating, I had decided I wanted to do more than create an image for print that I wanted to make something both physical and have some sort of tactile appeal to it. I was looking at the idea of creating a small book, made from a mixture of papers, such as acetate and tracing paper, representing the layers I was so excited about. I was winterested in the idea of being able to see through each image to underneath, and peeling back each layer when you view it.

I was finding generating ideas difficult so I interviewed several people about parts of their body they disliked and wanted to replace, I found it really interesting about the difference in some people, and how body image can be so important to some people. One person in particular was interested in changing a large amount of things about herself, and the group of us was all surprised as we would consider her and an attractive person and possibly aspire to look like. I also found the concerns in body image were similar in both men and women, whereas I had been more interested in women.

I took photos of the people I interviewed, with the intention of printing them out life size and cutting away the parts of their bodies they disliked, and placing the parts in preserving jars, suspended in clear jelly. This idea was mainly inspired by organs and animals being preserved in jars for scientific purposes, the jars also gave me an interesting way to display my images, however by this point the photography studio was booked only for 3rd years and I was finding it increasingly difficult to manipulate this idea in way for it to still be affective and suitable as my idea was further developing with the research into cosmetic surgery and ways you can alter your image.

During my research I had come across Bruno Metra and Laurence Jeanson who had created a photo series of people who appear to have had cosmetic surgery. However, the models odd looking surgery were actually created using cut out parts of fashion magazines. These almost comical photographs poked fun at the fashion industry by placing new noses, lips and eyes over models faces to show how plastic surgery can form entirely new face. However it created an odd almost disturbing array of images, which are made from removed “be autiful” images of mainly women and layered over normal people creating a surreal final image.

This article got me thinking about different ways I could represent and demonstrate cosmetic surgery in my work in a way I’ve not seen done. I had already decided I wanted to use sewing in my work and that I wanted to create something that was quite tactile and was created with different layers. I had also come to the conclusion that I wanted it to be quite personal, using the responses I had got from the interviews but focusing only on the face as I thought it would be more effective and shocking to an audience, as I believed an image of the full body would be to distracting.

I played with the idea of sewing surgical cut lines into my images and then I discovered Penny Jensz, a photographer who created mixed media collages mixing both her stunning subtle portraits with grotesque images of what look like fish.

Professional photographer Bruno Metra, 45,

“In the media we are bombarded by images of others.

Magazines, cinema and television keep creating and imposing codes that become social references. What one must look like, how to wear make-up, what clothes to wear, how to behave. The act of representation has taken over what’s real; models erase themselves in order to gain another self.””

I was really excited by one in particular which was more subtle, and I loved the way the image was constructed, using different colour skin tones and the different angles of the body parts where she had replaced them with parts of the fish but how it blended so beautifully together as a single image. Her technique was also inspiring, as she had ripped each feature she had collaged, creating a rough white edge, that stood out on the image itself, creating a gentle edge around each feature. I had never created a collage by ripping, and it scared me a little, it was less tidy and exact, however this risk excited me and I loved the effect so much as it was exactly what I was looking for in my collages. This piece of work also was the point when I came up with the idea of replacing the parts of the face that people wanted to replace with “perfect” parts from magazines similarly how Bruno Metra and Laurence Jeanson had done in their photographs, but on paper.

I particularly liked the idea of using magazines, as I liked the texture of the glossy magazine advertisement, and the contrast between that and my matt images and the idea of the media’s representation of people, with false photoshoped perfect images, that in a sense get cosmetic surgery done on they’re images to look the way that we also see as beautiful and aspire to. The different skin colours also appealed to me and I have been experimenting with different ways I can layer them on the portraits I photographed myself.

I still wanted to include my sewing into my collages, and cosmetic surgery was the perfect semiotic, linking my sewing with the idea of stitches. Going back to a collage by Jesse Treece I had found earlier in my project, joining each facial part together with a crude stitch across the join. The ripped white edge also added to the effect, creating a disturbing looking image from beautiful parts, giving the belief that no matter how much you change to be beautiful it only makes you look more ugly, reminding me of joining flesh together like that of Frankenstein.

Semiotic Analysis In this project it was important to include semiotics in my work as a means of adding meaning without words, as this is mainly how I enjoy to work. I find sometimes using words can be too much and not always needed.

When my project started to take shape I experimented with different semeiotics to create different meanings and experimented with the extent of use of them.

Often using subtle ways to communicate my idea through material process and technique.

After looking and experimenting with the idea of body image, layering and covering the body/face up I start researching cosmetic surgery and the most popular procedures, I decided to focus on the face as I wanted my work to be dramatic and simple and not over complicate it by using the entire body.

I wanted to express the idea of cosmetic surgery and mix the idea of beauty with the grotesque and started to look at the idea of replacing facial features with “better� parts from models in magazines. I liked the texture of the magazine images as they had a glossy effect, which looked commercial and contrasted well with my matt images, referencing that the glossy high contrast images from the magazines were better than the plain matt original photographs I had taken.

I worked with images from magazines to represent the ideal but fake image created by the media for a capitalist and consumer society where men and women strive to change themselves to look like the impossible perfection we see around us in our everyday lives. The idea of beauty coming out of something so ugly as cutting into the skin and injecting or filing bone really intrigued me.

While researching I came across this collage by Penny Jensz where the portrait was ripped up and parts replaced by what looks like fish scales, I really liked the effect of ripping the image and the harsh line it leaves, creating a much more obvious join between the separate images, almost frankensin esk. I researched the different procedures and where the cuts would take place and ripped my image accordingly to the different procedures, sometimes only one or several on one image. I decided to try and use different skin tones to also emphasize the fact that this piece of skin was not their own.

I wanted to add more meaning to my images and make it more obvious what I was thinking about and I decided to stitch the ripped pieces with white cotton; similar to that which they would use to stitch wounds and cosmetic procedures. I also experimented with the way I would sew, one quite crudely joining the edges and one around the edge, both giving different effects, the first was very rudimentary and rough looking, which added to the grotesque effect I was aiming for, the second added a much more subtle soft effect to the image, like it was meant to be delicate and tidy, almost fixing the untidy edges making them less crude. Both were interesting.

One thing I would have liked to change about my semiotics would be my models’. Restrictions to people and time limits I played it safe and used people from university. All are roughly the same young age, and I would have liked to experiment with my own older portraits as I think the image would have represented my ideas better. However I have used older skin to represent this in my current portraits, the skin also adds to the grotesqueness of my images, like the skin is dying. However with more time this is something I would like to try.

There must be more to life than this.

Anthony Gerace

Really honest, believes that collage is no lomger subversive, believes that people want to create popular collage, but he is more interested in the surface, rather than creating a single heroic image.

“Hey, this naked woman from a 60s issue of playboy would sure look good with balloons over her breasts and a radio for a head” That kind of collage is reductive and almost impossible to do well at this point.

- Admires Kurt Schwitters.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/artists-perform-plastic-surgery-fashion-1837885.

Finding this website was a real Turing point in my project, after researching cosmetic surgery this really inspired me as it was basically what I was doing but on real people. It gave me the confidence to believe in my work and what I was trying to communicate. I could relate to the fact it was headshots rather than full portraits as I had decided to avoid them, as I believed it would be more effective just on the face. The features used in the portraits, like mine are from magazines, similarly the images have been used to represent the falsified beauty in such magazines, replacing facial features with “better” more attractive features.

However in my work I liked the aesthetic feel of the glossy magazine images against my matt portraits.

- Can relate, the idea of collage, more interested in the image than type. interested in tactile look of the image -Anthony Gerace is a photographer and also a collage artist, he experimented with images and type, using national geographic and his own poems. (use/write poems in your work) - Interested in colour and form - He gives himself restrictions and bounderies, created zines and experimented with different mediums.

- Uses his own photographs and I like the simplicity of the images and the repetition in the squares, colour is important to his work.

Contextual Lectures

Reflecting on my contextual lectures, I found them to be a great help to my personal practice and my own understanding as well as an insight into the history of graphic design and its development.

I particularly enjoyed learning about the history of illustration and learnt a great deal about how it has changed through the centuries because of historical developments and the new and different processes that could be used. It was also interesting how education significantly changed the way we see illustration and design, as what once was for the elite few, but soon became an easy, and global way of communicating through word and image.

The idea of a story has always interested people, stories were used as a way to inform and remind people about history, morals and a way of escapism. Before the mass could read and write, images were created as a ways of communicating these stories. During the lecture we were shown an image that was communicating information about gin, possibly warning or even advertising it. It was intriguing the way the image was like a wordless novel, there was so much going on, you could understand and separate the individual characters and stories the image was telling, almost like a newspaper or a comic and you read each scene. I have never been a great fan of type or any information and my work was mainly based around images communicating all the information I wanted it to, and I was able to really relate and understand where this idea originated. I like the idea of breaking down barriers such as language to create something that can be understood by everyone through a single image, perhaps using emotion or things that globally people can look at and understand without the need for words, I think its one of the most powerful tools going.

Visting Lectures

I was really inspired by two of the visiting lecturers this year.

Both Laura Pannack and Laura Stevens were both very honest and down to earth in their talks and it was a real help hearing how they got to where they are now.

Laura Pannacks portraits were really beautiful; the subtlety In her work was really interesting. Also the subject matter of young love and how she portrayed the subject matter was really well done as she avoided stereotypes and got really close with her subjects, creating really personal portraits of intimacy.

She also told us she got involved with the people she worked with often spending a lot of time with them and even living in their homes, this allows her to relate to her subjects and get to know them, which I believe gives her portraits a stunning realism and personal touch you would only get if you were photographing a close friend. I particularly like her series on young people called THE UNTITLED and a commission by Save the Children, both are really interesting but very different. THE UNTITLED, are classic portraits with natural lighting and staged, whereas OUR LIVES, is much more spur of the moment photographs, capturing special moments in the everyday lives of families. Both have the same emotive feel to her images, which I really admire.

Laura Stevens was another interesting lecture. I was able to relate to her growing up in a small town and feeling isolated.

Her work is very much a self portrait and coming to terms with herself and her own sexuality and body. For her, her work was a way to express her emotions and things going on in her own life. Her style uses light painting to gently illuminate her subjects in a narrative set up. Her subject often looks at the camera creating a connection with the audience.

She was very honest with us as she described hard times in her life, like breaking up with her boyfriend at the time triggered another idea for her work and was a way for her to deal with her emotions by creating a series of images about couples living together and their private moments.

Unlike Laura Pannack her work is constructed as a set, however her work has a similar emotive feel to them, but in a more theatrical almost cinematic way. Her images often remind me of stills in an old film and her chiaroscuro lighting has clear representations and links to old renaissance paintings, of which she admitted to being interested in during the lecture.

I feel I can really relate to both these photographers, although my practice isn’t really about photography, it is about people and portraits mainly and photography is something I have become increasingly interested in and the process, and is something I would like to develop to create my collages in different ways. I really appreciated their honesty in their lectures and I felt they have the same personal passion for their practice that I have.

Photography is in their lives; day in and out and they put their own emotions and personal issues into their work as a way of expressing them.

Bibliography Penny Jensz - Mixed Media - Visceral - Alex. 2014. Penny Jensz - Mixed Media - Visceral - Alex. [ONLINE] Available at: http:// www.pennyjensz.com.au/mixed_media/visceral/visceral_alex. html.

Beautycheck - characteristics of beautiful faces. 2014. Beautycheck - characteristics of beautiful faces. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/prototypen/prototypen. htm.

Melissa Zexter interview: Embroidered photography - TextileArtist.org. 2014. Melissa Zexter interview: Embroidered photography - TextileArtist.org. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www. textileartist.org/melissa-zexter-interview-embroidered-photography/.

Artists perform plastic surgery with fashion magazine cut outs - Daily Record. 2014. Artists perform plastic surgery with fashion magazine cut outs - Daily Record. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/artists-perform-plastic-surgery-fashion-1837885. laurapannack.com home page. 2014. laurapannack.com home page. [ONLINE] Available at: http://laurapannack.com. home. 2014. home. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bobbyneeladams.com.

Reshaping Chins and Cheeks. 2014. Reshaping Chins and Cheeks. [ONLINE] Available at: http://baaps.org.uk/procedures/reshaping-chins-and-cheeks.

Case Study

- What kind/style of work are you interested in and currently doing?

Loads, really! I’ve just finished a live YCN brief for Nescafe, as well as having stop-motion animation and experimental film projects nearing completion.

- Who are you inspired by and why?

moving image zhas broadened the range of responses I can produce because I’m not solely focused on working within a certain medium, which on reflection can often be constrictive. Working with someone else also allows for a lot more scope to improve ideas and work on little nuggets that could have something in them but just need input from somebody else to really blossom. Discovering the joy of bouncing ideas off one another has been a massive highlight to finding the right student to work with intensely.

This has changed as my approach to creating work has.

During my second year I began to get more involved with collaborative filmmaking when I used to consider myself a strict illustrator and nothing else. As my practice and methods of working have changed, I’ve found myself looking for inspiration from different sources. Little film production duos like Bison who work commercially in both advertising and music have recently been a massive influence on me because their way of working mirrors that of mine and my collaborative partner quite closely.

- How has your work developed and changed since first and second year?

As already said, I’d say it’s differed significantly in terms of approach. I used to rely quite heavily on my ability to illustrate but began to feel constricted by what I could do with the medium, as if my style wasn’t really developing.

I could never find a real method of experimenting with illustration the way I can with film work, neither did I ever consider working collaboratively before choosing to take up a brief involving moving image last year. I think often it’s quite daunting taking a step outside familiarity as was definitely the case with me, but I feel my work has come on immeasurably because of making the decision to learn new things and processes, no matter how difficult it may seem at first. I’d still always consider solving a problem / responding to a brief with illustration work but knowing I’m now more than competent with

- Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

I honestly haven’t thought that far ahead specifically. Obviously I’d love to tick all the standard boxes (well-paid job I enjoy, etc) but I can’t definitively pin down any particular job as of yet. My more immediate concern is applying for placements to build up the experience of working in a studio, for example. I’d say this applies to your next question - “What do you hope to achieve?” too. It’d be lovely to run and build up my own independent moving image production company with my work partner Dan further down the line, I’d say that’d be the ideal outcome.

- What sort of work are you creating, how does it look, what does it feel like?

-How do you feel about your own practice and work at the moment, do you like it?

As in the answer to the first question, it varies - and for me it’s always felt important to produce a range of work that spans across different processes. The work I did for the YCN brief was very commercial, working with elements provided by a client and responding to a problem regarding marketing / product and packaging design. My film work with Dan has become very experimental and abstract this year with a real focus on sound as well as the actual moving image. My stop-motion work was the probably the most ambitious thing I’ve ever tried to do at university and has been very labour intensive in it’s preparation, measuring, cutting and punching 800 individual discs, each forming a strand of sound in a soundwave. This should all come to life when they’re slotted one by one onto a steel rod, photographed and put together in Premier Pro at 24 frames per second. The key thing with each project I’m working on is I felt genuine excitement when thinking of them, or ways to improve them - and I think it really comes across in the work itself if you’re excited or passionate about what your investing time in.

I do, and looking back at my first year work I’m really pleased with my progress over the course. When I arrived I would have never expected to be creating work I am doing now, nor would I expect to enjoy working collaboratively. It’s imperative for me to continually compare my work to what I’ve previously done just to recognise where I have improved and to really comprehend any progression.

-What processes and materials do you use?

Various processes and materials depending on the project.

Software such as Final Cut has become a tool of choice over the past year or so.

-What or who inspired you to do art/graphic design etc?

I had a teacher at GCSE and A-Level who really pushed me into graphic art/design and it’s him who I’d argue really set my mind on taking it up at degree level. Encouragement from him gave me some kind of belief that this was perhaps something I could further myself in and really got me pursuing the subject.

-What advice would you give for 3rd year?

Try not to preoccupy yourself with the fact that this counts for 100% of your time at university, and don’t attempt to come up with a definitive set of projects immediately after you start the year. I’ve found that my best ideas have sprouted from others, or through observations. The list I created at the start of the year featured a tonne of projects but none of them had much substance or depth. Go to events like exhibitions or shows, make the most of your tutors and definitely use the library to it’s full potential because it’s a diamond of a resource. Don’t be afraid to experiment because it might not work in the way you intended, it’s important to learn from failed mistakes and take risks.

The future:

The future doesn’t just frighten me, because of the unknown and the prospect of doing things for myself and no longer having that help and support, it also excites me; the idea of having the freedom of choice and the anticipation of the next adventures ahead of me still full of learning are what has kept me going through the past year and will do through the next.

Although still hazy about the true direction of my practice I have come to several conclusions about my work and the course id like it to progress through. My work is and will always be tactile; it’s an adjective that I have often used to describe my work more than any other. Not only does it describe the way I create my work, but also the appearance and feel, this tactile nature of my work is something I still want to explore further in the future, experimenting with different materials and layers of processes, such as in the print room, dark room and photography. The idea of overlaying different processes in my work really excites and inspires me because you never know exactly what your going to get with hands on processes. Both the idea of layering and process is something I want to explore further, not only in third year but also after university. Working with a company such as Tomato or Mother with resources and facilities like screen print, etching and photography is definitely an aspiration of mine.

“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.”

Vincent van Gogh I can’t see myself working in an office on a computer all day like my dad does designing magazines, I’m more interested in creating work by hand such as collage and printmaking and then further developing it by overlaying using other processes or then working with it on the computer, much in the way Martin O’neill works in his studio. It would be great to have a studio like his with various draws of imagery and facilities. I would love some work experience there and to have a look around the studio, as it is exactly what I aspire to have myself in the future if not working for a company.

I would also like to possibly work with a small group of people, perhaps a mixture of practices as a believe it allows you to bounce around ideas and discuss them easier than it would alone, creating potentially better, original ideas.

However until now, I have been very much a lone ranger with my work, finding it difficult to put faith in anyone other than myself to get the work done and to a standard I’m happy with. So far I have hardly worked in any self initiated collaborations, however I think it would benefit me to do so in third year to combat much larger and more difficult briefs.

Overall, the future I want is still blurred and probably will not be clear till third year, my main aspiration is to keep learning and making work that makes me and others happy, work that solves problems and is exciting and different.