An Overdue Update

Good evening everybody!

I know it's been a while since my last post, but I've been awfully busy in the studio making work and generally starting to stress about the upcoming end of year presentation and assessments!


I have a lot of pictures for you all :)


Basically for the last month I have had my head down and been working hard on developing the ideas I shared with you at the start of the year (you can find that post HERE) as well as reading around the topics my work deals with and looking at contemporary artists to contextualise it all!


After the completion of my pots I decided to focus on the development of the strange figures I  made and the relationship they had to the horror fiction I had read (and am still continuing to read).


They are in the kiln ready to be fired this week, but here are some photos of the 2 'batches' I made before they went to the drying room...

I would describe the forms of the pieces to be influenced by the tension, setting and sometimes characters found in the horror fiction I've read. As individuals they have familiar forms that I purposely didn't spend a long time working on in order to retain some of the ambiguity I'd like them to have. When I put them together they create an interesting visual of a mass collection, which reflects my previous research on collecting and the importance of objects in people's lives.

Once these little guys are fired I am going to show them in next Tuesday's seminar. Having a deadline to meet means I've had to consider how I would like to display them, so I decided to address my interest in interior spaces.

I've recently realised my love for horror stories lies especially in those that are set in a gloomy, unnerving interior. Below you will find a list of the books I've been reading recently, all of which have stories that describe an interior that is integral to the story at some point or another. It seems so obvious now! So I decided to try and make sense of it by making some paintings, trying to capture the sense of an interior.

Here are a few of the paintings I made, they're simply acrylics on pieces of un-stretched canvas...

I think I've decided on a way to display my work for the seminar, so I will definitely make sure I document it all for you in a post next week!

Going back to these figures, after I completed the porcelain set, I used them as a still life for some sketches. I enjoyed going back to drawing after so long making things!

Here are some photos of the studies I made with coloured pencils, ink pen and watercolours...

I really enjoyed using some colour in the two sets of watercolour studies above, so keeping this in mind, I decided to use the packets of plasticine I've had under my bed to create some coloured figures!

Pretty colourful aren't they! I had looked at the work of ceramic artist Rachel Kneebone and liked the work she made with references to literature such at Dante's 'Inferno', she creates these uncannily familiar forms in large numbers which I found really interesting and beautiful.

So with a recent re-discovery of bright colours, I decided to take out my chalk pastels and do some studies of forms from memory, just really enjoying controlling the medium and colour combinations. Needless to say I made a right mess and was covered in pastel dust!

In keeping with my recent exploration of colour, forms and interiors, I made a few sketches onto some photos and screenshots I had of interiors from the Geffrye Museum, This Is England '86 and BBC's The History of the Interior. I did this to explore the possibility of installing my forms in an interior setting and drawing on the ideas of the uncanny and material cultures in anthropology that I have been reading about. 

These drawings really excited me, forms that filled the gaps between clutter and possession, entities that witness human experience and retain it like the walls of a home do. 

I wanted to make these a reality and so, today I sat and created plasticine forms in preparation for the exploration of these ideas.

I'm really pleased with my recent progress and hopefully my work will get a good response in the seminar next week! I hope you enjoyed all the pictures, apologies again for leaving it so long to update you all! 

Also, I've put all of the books I've been reading in a list below, just in case you're interested in any of the ideas I've touched upon!

Have a good evening,

Xxx

Book List

• The Works of Edgar Allen Poe (Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Raven, Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat)
• The Works of HP Lovecraft (The Shunned House, The Lurking Fear, The Rats in the Walls)
• The Works of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (The Tale of the Boy Who Set Out to Learn Fear, Little Brother and Little Sister)
• Home Possessions: Material Culture Behind Closed Doors - edited by Daniel Miller
• The Comfort of Things - Daniel Miller
• The Uncanny - Nicholas Royle
• Quilt - Nicholas Royle
• Victorian Hauntings: Spectrality, Gothic, the Uncanny and Literature - Julian Wolfreys