It seems artists can hit a wall.

Good evening everybody!

With any luck I'll turn these posts into a weekly Sunday activity!

Anyway, a little bit about what I've been up to! I visited the V&A Museum this afternoon to see the two current exhibitions 'Power Of Making' and 'Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990'. The former was a delightful eye-opener to the craft and skill involved in making the absurd and the everyday, it's free admission and definitely worth going to see! My highlights were the dressmaker pin dress, Alexander McQueen's armadillo shoes and Charlie Le Mindu's fabulous lips wig!

The Postmodernism exhibition was also an eye-opener and a complete lesson in the attitudes of the time period. I was most interested in a few postmodernist potters and ceramic artists, naturally I also loved the music and pop culture side to the movement.

I went and looked around the permanent collections too and gathered some more visual information in the ceramics and porcelain areas, but I can't help feeling that me making pots or failed paintings just isn't enough. 

I'm interested in the decorative, and how it sits on a pot or a plate. I thought about this further, asking myself 'Why pots?' It's the curve and shine of the surface, and the colours. But the nature of the raw material means the making process is very tactile, almost fetishised. Worked with hands that warm the material. It becomes a body, that is then decorated and is fired to ensure it's permanence.

Bodies, decoration, permanence...

...Tattoos

Bingo! I seem to have worked out the reason why I am fascinated with tattooed bodies and take great joy in designing them. I have one myself and no doubt I will get more. 

However, one thing is still niggling in the back of all this reading and research. There's nothing to act like a spanner in the works. I've got two pots made, drying out before they can be fired, and a large number of watercolour sketches of pots and vases that caught my eye in a book on European Ceramics. But I don't feel like I can just reproduce images of finely made objects, or attempt to make the shapes I find pleasing to look at, without having something to mix things up a bit. Otherwise I fear that's all they are, knock off reproductions that are nowhere near meeting the level of skill the originals were made with.

The worst thing is I simply don't know what to do about it!  I saw Grayson Perry's fantastic exhibition 'The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman' at The British Museum and was so interested in the way his own works and artefacts sat with those from many years gone by whose makers are unknown. I admire his imagination, he has the ability to conjure up his own unique pattern and history and put them into his works, giving them a dimension that goes beyond the historical context behind his choice of shape or method of decoration.

Gahh. Is this the artist equivalent to writer's block?

I sure hope I get past it soon, wish me luck! 

xx

Frieze Art Fair 2011

I just thought I'd share with you all a few works that caught my eye!

Yee Soo Kyung (Timothy Taylor Gallery)

With my love for ceramic surfaces and odd shaped forms, seeing this actually got me rather excited about the prospects of where my work can take me.

Katy Moran 

I've looked at Ms Moran's work before but I found this piece of great interest and find the marks she's made on the glass surface quite beautiful.

Carl Hammoud (Galleri Magnus Karlsson)

Yes, call me shallow, I only like this painting because it's of an antique!

Klaus Weber (Andrew Kreps Gallery)

I quite liked this combination of imagery, the face also creates quite a humorous, slightly tense atmosphere I think.

Cornelia Parker (Frith Street Gallery)

I love love love the aesthetic of this, 30 pairs of silver objects, its magical and delicate and a pleasure to look at.

I don't have the artist's name (Gagosian Gallery)

I just loved the obscure perspective you get by placing what would normally be seen horizontally, upright on a wall.

Ryan Gander (Lisson Gallery)

Am a big fan of the movement of the paint around the glass, it has an almost glazed look about it.

So that's Frieze over for another year, no doubt I'm sure I will put myself through it all again next year!

xx

Meanwhile, back in the Slade...

Good evening everyone, hope you're all doing well!


It feels great to be back in a busy studio now that my incredibly long summer break is officially over! I thought it would be a great idea to show you my latest completed painting and to tell you all about the exciting new directions I'm moving in.
As you all know, I am a very big fan of all things ceramic - especially the ugly stuff - and I am also partial to a cluttered interior. So in my latest painting I decided to combine some different pieces of imagery in a bid to fuel an unclear idea.


Here is the finished piece...

Untitled

Oil on canvas 4ft x 4ft

As you can see it's pretty different from the work I was making at the end of my first year. I think this is because I have been influenced by the reading on the eighteenth century I have been doing and my search to find a platform for the development of my fascination with these objects. I didn't find this painting satisfying once I completed it, although it's the most time and detail I've put into a single work (4 Days), I think the interior is the wrong setting for what I'm trying to portray through the ceramic objects.

My 'touch' when I paint the objects has been likened to the glazes used in making ceramics and for the past week I've felt that I need to take a more tactile approach and actually make some of my own 'objects d'art'. Of course they won't be anywhere near as skillfully crafted as the real deals, I simply do not possess the know-how, but I think my ignorance to the skill of the craft could work in my favour to produce some interesting outcomes. 

The biggest challenge I'm facing is what to put on the things I make! I'm a fan of the decorative and take influence from the aesthetic movement - William Morris' wallpapers playing a main role. I still feel paint will be my medium of choice when it comes to putting something on the objects, partly because it's something I am familiar with and partly because I'm worried about the work being seen as a Grayson Perry rip off.

I'm currently reading some of Edgar Allen Poe's works and am a fan of how he uses description to create tension, and I'd love for that literary influence to come through into my work, but I'm not quite sure how that will surface as yet.

It's all very exciting and I have no idea how I am going to house all my little creations, I'll probably have to make a slapdash shelving unit. The next step for me is to get a load of clay and make make make! I'm also looking for a reasonably priced pottery course that's preferably local to me so let me know if you can suggest somewhere!

Thanks for reading! xx