Documentation – JAMIE WALTON

As stated with my previous post that contextualises the ideas behind this project, it was my intention to amalgamate this idea of graffiti culture, natural objects such as plants and fine art practice. This led me to attempt to create a sculptural canvas that would allow my idea to come to fruition.

I had consulted tec dem Laura with regards the technicalities in creating such a piece as I would need to stretch the canvas through a circular void with the canvases frame.

After a few set backs, this difficult task was completed and I was fairly happy with the outcome. I then amalgamated more fine art materials such as acrylic with graffiti spray paint to create a painterly surface.

Now I was left with the issue of creating a way of potting the plants within the very limited space within the frame.

To achieve this I decided to create mounds that would fill the space perfectly and I vacuumed formed them into plastic pots. This took numerous attempts due to the long slender shape, as they had a tendency to become fixed within the mounds and break.

Now I seemed to Of over come the challenge I had set myself to create canvases that could harbour potted plants, I decided to keep going with the project and attempt variations, again using predominantly recycled and found objects and materials.

I then planted the plants within them and was ready to hang. Quite the task due to the sizes of a couple of the paintings, however, I attached supportive beams to the walls to take the weight and they were firmly secured.

Overall, I was am very happy with the final outcome. I pushed myself to create maybe a little more than I should of within the time frame but after more than a few very late nights, they were completed and hung. I feel the final outcomes definitely fulfil the initial inspirations and ideas that sparked the project and I am more than happy to of found a use for the multitude of adopted house plants I have accumulated over the time I’ve been in Cardiff.

Selecting and responding to my exhibition space for summative assessment

As my work is usually at least somewhat site responsive if not completely site specific and is sensorial or multi-senatorial in nature, I did feel some pressure to secure a exhibition space that was viable and suited this way of working. As my project had developed, I had made the decision that I would attempt to create an immersive experience in some way which also played a part within my decision making process when selecting a space.

After enjoying the degree show work I found myself eyeing up the possibilities and decided that the converted enclosed cupboard space would fulfill most of my requirements. I then emailed and spoke to David and James to see if this was possible.

Apart from the aforementioned requirements such as a space that allowed for some seclusion as to not disturb other surrounding pieces and that would allow me to be site responsive in some way. One of the main ideas that had sparked with aspect of the project was this juxtaposition created by natural forms such as plants growing amongst and overtaking artificial man made constructions such as buildings as mentioned in an earlier post, especially when the vibrancy of street art is also present. The cupboard space happened to have an entire wall that was simply exposed grey concrete instead of the usual pristine white walls or an exhibition space which I felt would perfectly complement and more accurately portray the pieces I have constructed that play on this idea of contrast between natural and artificial.

UPDATE

Unfortunately due to potential restrictions with regards drilling into the concrete walls I decided to swap exhibition spaces due to not having enough wall space to fulfil my requirements.

I ended up swapping with Scott as his piece was actually more suited to an enclosed space anyway and in hindsight I am pretty happy with the final outcome and repositioning as the new space allows the painting space to breath and the natural light emphasises the vibrancy of the colours.

One aspect that I had to drop in the trade off was the audio aspect. unfortunately due to space limitations and as to not disturb other students works I chose to leave this out. It may be something I attempt to incorporate into the exhibition night though if possible.

Potential artistic career? – Artist, curator, events organiser

After successfully and fairly recently leaving two careers behind me and at this early juncture in my escape, I have to say the occupational aspect of my practice was and is definitely not at the top of my priorities list. This being said, I am not completely oblivious to the fact that living with the society I currently am choosing to reside within and sustaining a artistic practice, has some financial requirements and restraints. So reluctantly, I have started to ponder this question.

Coming into this course, my main aims have been to immerse myself within my practice as well as attempt to create circumstances that will allow for myself, but predominately, other student artists and creatives to exhibit and show work externally and confidentially. I have attempted to fulfil this goal by contacting outside sources, shops and galleries as well as building a good relationship with CSADs careers team such as Es George, who had been a great asset.

This has resulted in two separate overarching projects this year that have encompassed an array of exhibitions, workshops and events all fulfilled by and for CSAD student artists. I have planned, organised, curated and exhibited within them and although a lot of time and energy was put into the projects that maybe could of been redirected into other areas of my study’s, I feel that I have gained a lot of knowledge and gratification from the experiences. I will definitely continue and have contemplated and had conversations with Es regarding events organisation and curatorship as a potential career path projecting forward, and with her help, have started to construct an artist Cv.

Self directed final project artist research – Jessica Stockholder

As part of the research and idea development for my final project, I reviewed the works of Jessica Stockholder as I felt an instant connection to them when I first encountered them. She uses found, everyday or items that are not traditionally seen as artistic mediums to create sculptural forms and paintings. In a very similar vein, I will often employ the use of organic and artificial found object within my own works, regularly letting the found materials dictate the project almost entirely, hence the affiliation to her works.

I particularly am drawn the way Jessica will strip an object down to its fundamental form and simply chose to collate and amalgamate objects based on their form and the overall composition that is created by the combined objects. This way of working and looking at objects directly informed the work I then produced in response to this project and although I had a pre-existing pool of influences and ideas from other research and the previous project, the materials I have and will be using to fulfil the project have been almost entirely found and repurposed. This has then enabled me to relinquish an aspect of the decision making process initially but had then enabled me to explore and represent materials and forms in different and sometime completely paradoxical ways.

‘It’s ok to leg go (unpegged)’ by Janet Blackman

In an attempt to avoid dashing the experience of viewing the degree show works in their entirety, I had made an effort to turn a blind eye whilst navigating around the third floor. However, one piece that eluded my efforts entirely, partly due to its allocated position but predominantly due to its presence within the space, was the large scale, seemingly contorted and finely, yet tentatively balanced wooden sculptural installation by Janet Blackman.

Upon eventually being asked to privately view the exhibition of now completed works, I found myself being drawn to sculptural piece once again, however, this time for a much more intimate and in depth encounter than my semi-voyeuristic stares from across the landing.

Now able to closely examine the piece I was initially struck by its materiality and form within the space. It’s laminated wooden sections were reminiscent of delicately formed and folded origami paper machetes and this fluidity was juxtaposed against the rigidity of what seemed to be bronze casted clothing pegs. The overall piece presents a very real sense of balance both literally as a number of the warped wooden sections suspended from a wooden pole that closely resembles a clothes hanger illustrate and metaphorically as alluded too within Blackmans accompanying synopsis.

Her work aims to reference her ‘conscious and subconscious understanding of the world as a mother, wife and dancer’. She aims to create work that is true to herself and that bestows qualities such as balance, movement, fluidity and tension that has culminated in ‘it’s ok to let go’ (unpegged) a piece which accurately and quite beautifully reflects the ‘balancing act’ of life.

Artist research and contextualisation from gallery visit – Ian Kirkpatrick

I came across this mural piece by Ian Kirkpatrick whilst visiting galleries and museums in oxford. His work is inspired by the history of art and design from Ancient Greek amphorae to contemporary street signage. His pieces are filled with iconography’s and texts collected from across cultures and time periods which he combines into narratives that respond to world history and current global events.

Kirkpatrick’s bold and vivid colour palette present with his pieces is an aspect of his practice that bares similarities to my own. This coupled with his tendency towards deriving inspiration and iconography from past time periods obscure or remote cultures and the potentially occult or esoteric, makes him an artist that I find inspiring and of particular interest.

Third year install – Luke Mills

For the 3rd year degree show I was allocated Luke Mills and tasked with being a helping hand to prepare and construct his exhibition piece.

I had encountered Luke’s work previously and had some knowledge of the premise of his piece due to having curated an exhibition earlier in the year in which I selected some of his work, so I was happy to help and give some advise as to the layout of the space and how one may navigate his work.

Initially, we prepped and painted the space and I was especially tasked with marking up and accurately painting a section of wall on to which Luke intended to project. from then my role was mostly to construct both framing for pertruding plug sockets that were an eye saw within the space, plinths for his tvs and to measure and hang his headphones and shelves for speakers.

Overall, I was more than happy to help with the construction of his installation and found it very rewarding having a hand in materialising Luke’s vision for his work. I not only derived a more thorough understand of what will be expected of me going forward in my studies when preparing for assessments and exhibitions but was also able to make connections with both Luke and other third year students that will positively effect my future artistic and social endeavours.

Interventions -photographic source material and final project context

For as long as I can remember I have been captivated and awestruck by natures resilience and ability to survive and thrive even in the face of greatest adversity.

I find solace in coming across these occasions of juxtaposition, we’re the natural meets, disrupts and with enough time even engulfs the man made or artificial. I find these occurrences of particular interest when the vibrancy of street art or graffiti are present which is fairly prevalent with urban situations. In some way I see definite similarities between the two quite paradoxically opposed entities as both the natural growth of plants and weeds and the vibrant street art seem to be acts of defiance to the conformity and mundanity of urban and industrial landscapes in some way.

At some point I began documenting these occurrences, either by taken photographic documentation, making drawings or even just taking in conscious recognition. This coupled with my recent foray and interest into the possibilities of paint and painting as a practice, sparked an idea that I feel compelled to pursue.

Since the painting material project with James in the first term had sparked my interest in the subject of painting, I have made an effort to regularly explore the potential application and possibilities of painting and have ensured that I’ve used the medium, even if only as a precursor to all of my projects since. The last material project ‘an introduction to performance’ with Davida was no exception and although the two practices do not always coincide with one another, I decided to construct a series of paintings that explored the same ideas and conceptual narratives as the material explored within my performances which were tribal traditions, symbolism, contemporary means of communication and psychedelia. This then led me to some interesting outcomes that took me beyond my usual painterly repertoire and had me amalgamating cross disciplinary practices such as film, performance, sculpture and painting in an attempt to create unexpected outcomes that pushed my usual artistic boundaries.

As we were now asked to now construct work as a self directed project I decided to use the aforementioned ideas as a starting point with the intention of creating a small series of painterly sculptural hybrids that would amalgamate my affinity for nature, addiction to adopting reduced and sad looking plants and love for recycling and reusing unwanted materials with my new found interest in painting and particularly spray painting and it’s applications within a fine art context.

Smells like teen spirit: Constellation documentation PDP

Due to the way we are allocated our constellation groups I found myself within the ‘smells like teen spirit’ study group which, being truthful was not my preferred choice. I had very little prior experience of or interest in the subjects explored within the group and the subject matter was not something that instantly resonated with me. Unfortunately, I missed the first lecture and swap shop due to being away at the time and then for other unforeseen circumstances such as a university snow day and illness, over half of the sessions were missed leaving me with a large gap in knowledge about the subject when assessing what to write my summative essay on. This is why I have subsequently decided to revisit my previous essay and constellation ‘The philosophy of art and design’ and elaborate on that for my summative essay instead of constructing one for this study group.

Even though ‘smells like teen spirit’ was not my preferred choice, that doesn’t mean I did not enjoy or extract a lot of positive aspects from the group. Upon attending the remaining lectures, a particular highlight for me, was the diversity of the group of students participating and the range of ideas and ways of seeing that were brought to the debates and conversations. This diversity of both artistic approaches and ideas regarding the subject matters and debates, meant that I was able to view the concepts explored within the groups from completely different angles and I found this a very useful asset, both for informing my own practice within the studio and for strengthening my own knowledge of the explored subjects. This has also lead me to take a much more sincerer approach to the views of others even if I do not fully agree with their stance. The course leader Cath, was also an asset to the group as her enthusiasm for the subject matter, as well as her dedication to the students was more than apparent throughout and meant that even a subject that I would not usually find of particular interest and influence to my practice, became such due to being presented in a very engaging manner. Her clear and concise delivery within the lectures helped me to understand fairly complex matters and her organisation was very beneficial and helpful.

Another positive that I extracted from constellation this time round, has been the lasting connections I have made with some of the other students in the group. This has not only enabled me to expand my network of friends within the school of art, but has also introduced me to other makers whose approaches differ from my own. This may result in collaborations within future projects and result in those experiences enriching my own palette of expression as I am introduced to other ways of working and potentially mediums I have not yet encountered such as clay.

Over the course of the lectures I attended, I have to say that even though there were some positives I brought out of the experience, alluded to above, I did not find the subject matters that engaging and discovered that the study of subculture, or at least the ones that were touched upon the lectures, is not something I will pursue further. I found that the subjects were not very easily relatable to my own studio practice and were opposed to the way in which I conduct my own life, as well as my approach to creating the majority of my own works. Meditation, intuition, unconscious feeling and being non-judgemental of a person and their appearance play fundamental roles in the majority of my works and my life conduct in general and I feel this way of working didn’t quite relate to the subject matters within the groups. However, this is in no way an attempt to undermine the relevance and significance of this group for others, it is simply not of particular interest to me personally. With this said, there were aspects of the lectures that I found particularly helpful and informing, specifically the historical aspects. I was presented with an array of artists and movements that I had not a lot of prior knowledge of and this helped me to devise a more thorough understanding of sub cultures and their historical background as well as the cultural basis of some of the items of clothing I have worn in the past without any conscious acknowledgment as to what my clothing may be saying about the me and how different people may interpret that. My ability to make connections and links between theory and practice has also been improved though, or at least I am able to more accurately contextualise my stance regarding the interplay of the two subjects.

An area of strength that attending constellation has highlighted is my ability to construct a more thorough argument when articulating a point. It has also very much strengthened my networking skills, which will only positively impact both my practice and my life as a student within the University.

Areas I could do with strengthening would firstly be my academic writing. Although I have completed a small number of essays in the past and do regularly write in other contexts, I have been out of the education for quite a while and have struggled with the transition from writing for leisure to constructing a clear, concise and academically correct essay. This is only further hindered by the fact I have Dyslexia and although I do not allow it to dictate my academic life, it does slow the process quite dramatically and add additional complications. Another area I will improve for the next round of constellation is definitely my organisational skills. Again, the transition into academic life has been difficult as I lived a very simple existence prior to deciding to further my artistic studies and since I commenced the course, I have immersed myself within everything I possibly can including outside exhibitions, events and clubs etc. This has meant that I have really struggled to correctly balance my time and have prioritized the practical and networking aspects of my practice over the theoretical. This was a conscious decision and one of the aspects of my practice highlighted within the last round of constellation study groups that I have not yet been able to correctly address. However, I must continue to work on this aspect going forward in my academic studies, as to not risk my development on the course.

Going forward, I intend on attending the follow up meeting if available, which I feel will be essential in discovering how and where I can improve when approaching academic essays in the future. I will strive to attend additionally available workshops that will improve my academic writing as I have struggled more than I thought I would with constellation this year. Partially due to my lack of engagement with the subject matter but primarily due to my unbalanced approach to the course and my artistic practice this term. I will strive to maintain a much better and more balanced theory to practical approach and not allow my efforts to be stretched as thinly as I have this term.