A Museum Or Two Does You The World Of Good!

While I was focusing on the technicalities of the painting I made for the first year crit, I was also developing my interest in cabinets of curiosity and the ownership of objects. I have expanded my reading, looking at Mark Dion's digs and development of his exhibition of Cabinets of Curiosity in an American university. I am also reading Jean Baudrillard's "The System Of Objects" and "Simulacra And Simulation".


After a recent visit to the Freud Museum, I have become interested in the museum as a means of display of objects in contrast to a display in the home. When does an object go from having substantial sentimental value, to a monetary or historical value? Is there a difference? Does putting a porcelain ornament in a well lit glass cabinet amongst millions of others, change the status of it if it were placed proudly on a mantlepiece in a family home, passed down through the generations?


So I visited the UCL Petrie Museum and the British Museum out of curiosity and found myself photographing the museum's displays...


UCL Petrie Museum
Cabinet upon cabinet of Egyptian artefacts, it wasn't so much the artefacts themselves that interested me as I found the colours too dull. But the current contemporary art on show in the museum got me interested in the display cabinets and the museum layout. 
'Soul House' by Sara Bevan is a series of manipulated images in response to the space and atmosphere of the museum's layout. She plays with scale and incorporates the magic and myths surrounding the artefacts on display.
These are a few images I took of the museum's displays...

The British Museum
I went straight to the 'Europe' part of the museum and found I was most excited by room 46 (Europe 1400-1800) and room 47 (Europe 1800-1900)
Here I just took a few snapshots of the cabinets and close ups of a few of the objects that caught my eye.

The 1st Year's Crit

Since returning from Heal's store window I have been working on a larger painting (4ft x 4ft) for the first years critique in Slade Research Centre. After a helpful tutorial at the Slade I got back on track with my work and what I'm interested in, and with this larger painting I gave myself the chance to take care in the formal aspects of painting. I bought myself some better quality oils and decided to try out an impasto medium with them, more importantly, I wasn't going to rush through it.

Until now, I haven't had the patience to work on a painting in stages, letting it dry before working on top of it, so it was a challenge for me to both go up in scale and take my time on this canvas. I'm quite pleased with the results, it took me 4 days in total, gradually building it up.


So on Tuesday this week all us little first years had to take our work over to Slade's Research Centre in Woburn Square and curate the rooms to make an exhibition of sorts. It was a great opportunity to get some curating experience and a good chance to see all of our work together (there's only around 40 of us). The crit was all day Wednesday and each person's work was discussed, I was happy to receive a lot of interesting feedback from my paintings, and overall the tutors were impressed with our efforts!


Today wasn't the fun part... Taking the work down and tidying the walls up! But we did receive a documentation workshop, learning how to professionally photograph our work whilst it was in a 'gallery setting'. It will be a valuable skill to have!


So here are some photos of the making of my large painting and my work installed at Woburn...

Heal's (Days Six and Seven)

Saturday


A surprisingly quiet day for the weekend, not very much to report. Had a lovely visit from family and I completed my last two paintings. My wall is positively stuffed! It will be lovely to sit back and enjoy now there's no more work to make!


Here's my pictures and a very happy, work-completed me!

Sunday


Ahh, the final day of our residency at Heal's!


Looking back the week has flown by, I'd be lying if I said it was easy. I'm so tired! I've managed to generate a ridiculous amount of work, and I've gained a valuable amount of experience and insight into the business side of art.
I enjoyed another lovely couple of visits from family and friends today, the store wasn't too busy either. The packing up was the most difficult part!


I'd like to thank Heal's and Slade for providing me with such a valuable, exciting opportunity, and thank you to my fellow Slade students for making it such a fun experience! Most of all thank you to all of you who sent messages of support, visited and generally showed an interest :)


So here are some final pictures of today's fun and clearing it all away
...back to normal at Slade tomorrow!

Heal's (Day Five)

Wow, the end is in sight. It's been a long, hardworking week but we still have the weekend to go! Today the shop was nice and busy at lunchtime, made the day a bit more exciting after a quiet (and incredibly early) start this morning.

The main event of today was the constant repetition of Duffy's album playing in-store for the whole day. I never want to hear one of her song's ever again! I was never a massive fan, but now any inclination I ever had to listen to her music has been well and truly destroyed!

Anyway, rant over, today I completed 3 paintings, only 2 more canvases left now and minimum wall space!
Here's my photos from today, enjoy!

Heal's (Day Four)

Another day, another set of paintings and sketches!

I was happy to see more public come in-store and see what we are all up to today, but it was a VERY long day. I was in the window from 9am this morning to 8pm this evening (late night shopping). However, the longer hours meant I made 4, yes 4, paintings today!

I was also ecstatic to see Creative Review have written about the residency on their blog...

www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2011/february/the-slade-at-heals

So here are today's photos, enjoy!