Post 13 - Seminar week 11-15th April

Artefact as Text

Tuesday 11th April

Introduction to Autumn Seminar

Artist talk - I focused on the key ideas important to me

  • light

  • time

  • editing

  • context

Sonya Lacey

Totally Dark (Chrorophyll) at Dunedin Public Art Gallery

She talks about Infrared light illuminating an object without drawing attention to yourself, this light is not for humans or animals, it is reciprocal with chlorophyll, scientists use it to test the health of plants.

what do I think about light?

she uses the camera as an extension of herself - it augments her sense of the world. Her work also explores moving image expressing time, borrowing from Foucault with regards to work and power. Politics impose order on the world which is similar to artists working with form.

the politics of making work for a woman, time is carved out of domestic life

Editing Early Modern Women” by Sarah Ross is something I could explore further “editing is always an ideological intervention, it is transitive…”

I can find the meaning in my work by investigating the contextual ideas around work I love, this will bring me closer to my studio work.

Wednesday 12th April

Group Critique Briefing - Form Gallery

with Kerin, Molly, Esther and Mike, Yolunda and Henry

great opportunity to see what everyone has been doing in the last few weeks and to give and receive feedback.

the comments were

  • first thought it was a landscape, when I moved closer I observed the figure. Its interesting how it ‘pulls you in’

  • is it a landscape - it reads like a quilt

  • landscape re the title : is ‘Mother’ relating to birth, fertility etc?

  • it can be read figuratively, there an interplay and complications between the distances

  • colour theory. Fiery, energetic, violence to the colours

  • Is Mother opening or closing? the group says it helps show the figure, however there is a generalist, universality about it.

  • Modernist canon about ‘form’ or ‘mother’ the could inform the work

  • Colour ‘theory’ versus ‘feeling’

  • Red suggests ambivilance about motherhood 0- blood

  • heirarchy within the canvas - figure is centrally positioned

  • floor vs flow state (?)

  • gender Hierarchy, invokes abstract expressionism

  • sketching charcoal brings the figure out and captures movement

  • Colour palette - Henry notes the decisions around temperature

  • brushes? other tools?

Light from the Tate 1700’s to Now

We walk to see this show at the Auckland City art gallery together as a group.

Introductions to the start of show by Noel and Yolunda

Detail of Turners

The Angel Standing in the Sun ext 1846

oil on canvas - JMW Turner uses atmospheric effects of light to amplify a sombre biblical theme from the Book of Revelation. The Archangel Micheal appears with his flaming sword, heralded by a rainbow, standing for truth and justice on the day of judgement.

Crit 2 Friday April 14th (day 4)

Molly, Kim, Michelle, and Trish, Yolunda - some of their thoughts

  • when standing too close, almost get lost in the chaos

  • Standing back reveals lines and shapes

  • enjoying the variety of marks, it doesn’t settle, something more spontaneous

  • some marks more deliberate, others more spontaneous

  • ‘fauvism’ hard to read the colours

  • Hills are landscape marks

  • which is first - abstract or figuration. Bits that are concealed or revealed

  • enjoying the extra dribbles of inverted gravity

  • that are productive/non productive marks?

  • enjoying certain sections - perhaps one to many elements - like the fresher colours, some perhaps muddy - scale of the marks/concentration

  • if the figure was looser and less centered

  • Sarah F-?

  • read from left there is a confidence in the marks

  • red is a nice punch, strong colour associated with love, blood etc

  • less marks in the landscape is successful

  • skilful in colour, maybe focus on this

  • Its not about learning something new its about recognising what you have!