An exploration of Fine Art within the Graduate Diploma at RCA
In order to explore the way that memories are presented, I tried placing the oil paint prints in a photo album format.
The prints represent memory as they have a dream like quality and colour. They were also printed from oil paint on cloth and therefore directly represent memory. They depict how a memory changes with different influences as the prints look different to the marks painted.
Referencing the work of Ian Kaier, I tried displaying the veils on a frame with a light cotton backing that was also a little transparent. I thought this setting could “frame” memories in the way a photograph does.
In the light, the biro on the netting almost completely disappeared and so I added further drawings onto the three layers including the cotton. This provided a much clearer image and worked well in conjunction with the idea of the stereograph. I would like to explore this in future, and play with more saturated imagery so that there is less raw canvas showing through.
I also tried lighting it from behind with the light of an iPad to see how this affected the image and affect. There was a satisfactory glow and the drawings were less inclined to disappear.
For the purpose of the ‘veils of memory’, I decided to hang my work loosely. When hanging, there is more movement to the cloth and it is therefore more interactive. The viewers movement creates a current that moves the veils, distorting and changing the imagery. This fits in with the idea that memories are fluid and changing. Though many people may experience the same event, everyone’s recollections will vary. People process information through their own lens of understanding which means that no ones account of an event will be exactly the same. Different contexts will also change the nature of a memory and the transparency of the cloth allows it to blend into its setting to an extent. Memory is subjective. The objects in the setting can be seen through it at times.
The photographs that the drawings reference are taken from my Grandad’s photo album. There are moments of holiday and moments from work and travel. Although there are personal elements for me and I bring to the photographs stories that he has told me or information that I know about the family, most of the people or places I do not recognise and therefore employ imagination when engaging with the images. Similarly, though viewers may not have an affiliation with the photographs, they can be engaged with on an imaginative level and bring their own stories to them.
Ian Kiaer uses materials that he’s found to create works that incorporate on intentionality and chance.
The simplicity of his materials contrasts the complexity of his message. “Kiaer’s works are inevitably imbued with a wistful romance, whose transience is eloquently articulated through the ephemeral materials used”.
“Rather than illustrate specific narratives, Kiaer evokes a context in which ideas and motifs overlap, encouraging a dialogue between the disparate components.” He takes motifs such as Brueghel’s windmill but places it within a new narrative. This holds parallels with the photographs I reference but place within a new context.
“The viewer cannot hope to grasp all the intricate associations that permeate Kiaer’s compositions. The links he makes are intuitive rather than academic; by layering references and leaping across centuries Kiaer generates relationships between complex ideas and individuals.” – The importance of intuition in works.
https://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com/artists/25-ian-kiaer/overview/
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/other-venue/exhibition/art-now-ian-kiaer
(Quotes from here)
The veils outside felt like memories coming in and out of focus. On the netting in natural light the drawings almost completely disappear at times. Sometimes, the veil completely covered the visual so that I was looking at the scene behind with subtle drawings moving in the foreground.
The currents of wind moved the veils gently, they changed with the breeze. There was a synergy between the work and nature.
I liked the work on the trees close to water as the fluidity of the pond echoed the fluidity of the cloth and memory.
As I moved further into the park, the sound of the playground felt like a memory. When placed the veils onto the trees they looked almost ghostly which was not a reference I was going for. I tried tying different points to the tree rather than just one point and this seemed to be less ghostly.
Adding the ribbon also seemed to resolve this a little. Tying it onto the tree felt almost ritualistic. The ribbon had interesting interactions with the environment and could be wound round the branches to interesting affect. Moving in the wind it looked like a flickering memory.
I like the linear quality of the ribbon that feels like a narrative or a camera film. I also had the capacity to be manipulated and moved in interesting ways.
If I ultimately decide to frame the cloths or hang them inside, they will carry a memory of the interaction with nature. Parts that have been tied to the tree might have been snagged by a branch for example.
A different context provides a slightly different response. Outside I found the animation of the wind meant that when hung from one point the veils looked too ghostly. I therefore preferred the veils stretched out and attached at various points when outside. They were almost screen like and the drawing were more visible.
I chose images from my grandads photo album. I was drawn to images that seemed to have a narrative. Captured a moment. Intrigue of rhythm.
I was drawn to images with blurring or blemishes. We so rarely see images that haven’t been altered now and there is something genuine and intriguing about a photograph that does not have everything perfectly laid out. Authentic mistakes leave a human trace and raise different questions, the person taking the photograph somehow feels more present.
I drew onto netting as a transparent fabric that layered well, held its own fluid form and references a veil of memory. It somehow seems reminiscent of dream catchers. The layers reference the stereographs I saw in the V&A.
The images are intended to be somewhere between representation and abstraction. They allude to the photographs but are open to interpretation and change as the fabric moves. In this way there is a parallel to the way that clouds change, they’re transient and people see different shapes within them. The viewer brings their own interpretation and memories to the veil.
I put paper under the layers of netting as I was drawing which left it’s own distorted image, it’s own trace.
I tried incorporating the oil paint prints I’d taken previously. The oil gives the paper a translucent quality which when layered with the under layer of the biro rubbing creates a new narrative. Like putting a slide in a view finder, the new context adds a different dimension. The effect was dream like.
When the netting is placed over another image it adds further dimensions, like a stereograph. It creates almost a new virtual reality as memory does.
As in memory and Long Chin-San’s collaged photograph from the V&A, there is no perspective. There is a continuum of space.
Referencing the use of mirrors in cameras, early photography and the use of mirrors at the South London Gallery, I also tried layering the fabric on a mirror. I wanted to explore the effect of bringing the now into an image that also references the past. To have the viewer bringing themselves, their perception to the work.
Vo’s exhibition feels like a collective memory. Gathering works from other artists who have impacted his work including his father, lover and tutor, there is a sense of community, a gathering of perspectives.
His work considers his own biography as well as wider historical and artistic environments. I think the idea of placing oneself within a context is so relevant to memory as an environment influences an individual. The past informs our lens of understanding.
“When you examine the present you must understand your past: the past that has identified your own present.
I also believe you must look into the future. That’s definitely a philosophy of life that I live with and that hopefully shows in the work that I do”.
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He questions how different combinations of elements relate to each other, how they interact.
I particularly liked Peter Bonde’s work within the exhibition. I have thought about using mirrors as a reference to photography and as a way of adding movement and visually bringing the present into a piece. To have the viewer see themselves interact with a piece. His use of paint on a mirror did this for me, often blurring the image of now, leaving it unclear.
I love the artists use of cloth to reference architecture. There is a paradox in using something so fragile to recreate something so strong.
His use of translucent polyester fabric is something I have done myself but rather than creating an exact replica of a subject, I have drawn into fabrics, loosely referencing a photograph and memory. Although in this project I aim to create something that feels tangibly intangible (like a memory) I would also be interested in creating a larger and more interactive piece with fabric in future. Something which people could physically engage with, maybe leave their trace, an exploration of collective memory.
I went to the V&A photography room to consider possible options for displaying the layers of cloth.
Potential to display the cloth in a box with light like an old camera?
This Daguerreotype is a compilation of drawings, prints or photographs of paintings cut out and photographed together. It feels almost like a collage. The mirror quality has an interesting quality that frames both last and present. The burnished edges feel like an old photograph.
The negatives of an image feel contemporary, perhaps because it’s a mode we don’t always see. Feels X-ray like.
I like the idea of composing people within a landscape. Perhaps creating my own dreamscape from photographs and memories, creating a new narrative.
Solarisation makes me think of Man Ray. I love the effect and like the idea of reversed tones. The images are so close to reality but provide a slight shift in perspective.
Long Chin-San’s image combines “several images in one print to create poetic landscapes that evoke traditional Chinese ink painting. I love the idea of combining different images, each with their own narrative to create a new one. There is an absence of perspective which provides an image that is close to reality but with a shift.
The idea of the stereograph feels close to my exploration of cloth, both require layers to create a shift in reality.
Photogravure as a type of photography printed in ink.
The brownie camera made photography more affordable and accessible to households. “Its name was inspired by household spirits known as ‘brownies’, which appear in traditional British folklore and were popularised in children’s literature in the 19th century”. I like this idea of a photograph being spirit like.
Photographs as a collection. A physical collection of memories.
The possibility of 3D collage to create a new scape.
Looking through some old slides at home, I loved the randomness of picking up a slide and not really knowing what you were going to see until the slide was in the viewer.
At times it felt like different dimensions were being observed. There was the past, observing moments permanently captured from another time but the present was also visible in the viewer since there was a reflection from the window behind me.
Simon Roberts explores how we experience landscapes. The artist revisited landscapes Hitchens painted to create a new series. Although Hitchens work is more evocative to me, the idea of revisiting, experiencing a space knowing that it has been experienced in a particular way before is interesting. There is a sort of usurped memory that is then built upon.
“Roberts moves beyond just looking at the fabric of the landscape and explores ideas of the ‘modest beauty’ of these secluded spaces. The title of the series ‘Inscapes’ was a term coined by the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins to suggest that every living thing has a unique set of characteristics which distinguish it from the next – something akin to a God-given essence. Hopkins suggested it was the artist or poet’s responsibility to recognise this ‘inscape’ within nature and convey this to others through their art.” – elements of this remind me of Wabi Sabi.
OSJ Wells Fine Art 