Cabin Baggage

The brief for this project was to create an edition of five prints 30cm x 45cm in size for cabin baggage. I decided to make a design using the phrase ‘I am here’ that connects to my theme exploring time. The phrase suggests both space and time and I will be researching space-time for my dissertation.

I used my DTP program to create the design, starting with the text. I altered the default spacing to arrange and join the lettering in a way that I thought was more visually interesting. I then experimented with several different backgrounds and a circular shape.

 

 

 

 

 

This is still work in progress and I may come up with something different. So far, I like the circular design, which draws more attention to the text. I think the sphere is suggestive of a globe, which would symbolically connect with travel. I have experimented with large halftone dots and need to decide whether to add colour. I don’t like the way the green goes off the edges so will experiment further. I plan to screenprint the final design.

I could also make further work (not for this project) such as relief prints using the altered text pursuing my interest in the use of text within art and exploring the borderline between fine art and graphic design.

 

Collaboration: Group Exhibition Nunns Yard Gallery

 

Final version of poster

A group of us who meet regularly decided to collaborate for an exhibition. We chose not to have a specific theme for contributing work, which led to a diverse collection being exhibited. This included paintings, photographs, sculpture and digital art, with a range of different themes.

We planned the exhibition using Facebook Messenger and face-to-face meetings and I have documented this separately in a planning folder.

Poster Design:

There were several different versions of the poster before we decided on the final one. Suzy started the design work with our input and as she had other commitments I took over at one stage using the same image and fonts, but altering the layout.

I wasn’t altogether happy with the image, but as I had already made a number of constructive criticisms I decided to just go with it. A week or so later Suzy said she wasn’t happy with the image as she thought it could be confusing as to what we were advertising and wanted to make a new poster. Several of us posted some possible images and then I suggested we could use a photograph of a circle of Linda and Mae Ling’s stones that I thought would be a good symbol of us collaborating. Linda had such a photo and Suzy developed the poster with our suggestions. I much prefer the simplicity and also symbolic aspect of the new poster.

First variant of poster design finalised – not used

Leaflet & Labels:

Rachel made a two-page leaflet with a list of our work and artist statements that we could hand out to visitors. She also printed labels for our work on clear vinyl, which were informative but discrete.

Exhibition Installation:

We exhibited in Nunns Yard Gallery in Norwich, which is a lovely exhibition space. It is partially divided into two rooms, which worked very well for displaying diverse work that could be separated into two distinct areas. The curation took place on the day of installation, working out where things were to go. One person had a very definite idea of where they wanted to place their work and the rest of us worked around that. Wall-hung work was placed where it visually looked best, taking into account the size of the walls and the other work around it.

There was a difference of opinion over having a flowering branch in a jug on a corner cupboard near Ellen’s work. It was placed there without discussion while some of us weren’t there (including Ellen). I thought it detracted from both Ellen’s work and mine and the height of it drew the eye upwards away from the work. I persisted in saying I was unhappy about it (initially my comments were brushed aside and ignored) before it was removed and I found this to be a difficult aspect of collaborating.

 

Installing work

 

Private View

 

click for larger images

 

Reflections:

I was very pleased with the work that I chose to exhibit. I think the series of three photographs worked very well with the box of clay beads on a plinth. The simplicity of both the photographs and the sculpture echoed each other, as did the use of black-and-white.

Overall, in retrospect, I don’t think there is anything we could have done differently as we started planning well ahead of time. We could have experimented with the placement of one of the pieces, but other than that I am happy with the way we arranged the work.

By collaborating there was enough work to fill the large gallery space and we also were able to share the expense of renting the gallery and hosting a Private View evening. The exhibition was only up for three days, but it gave us all more experience in organising and curating a group show and I am also discovering who I would like to collaborate with on future projects.

 

Marking Time: Experiments 3

Marking Time: Clay Beads

 

Clay beads made from Hobbycraft air drying clay

I started making clay beads with air drying white clay. Each bead represents a day and when thinking about how to display them I decided on rows of seven across, there being seven days in a week. I liked the idea of a square format so I designed a shallow box to accommodate seven rows of seven beads. I made this in the 3D workshop at NUA. The wood was cut for me, and the sides were rebated to allow the base to be inset and glued without nails. I then filled, sanded it and painted it black.

Design and construction of wooden box

 

Forty-nine days – painted box with clay beads

I was very pleased with the final result and I am going to think about how I can continue to develop this idea. I think the simplicity and strong contrast made it a strong piece of work that effectively expressed my concept of marking time.

Collaboration: JIC Exhibition – Inflorescense

Collaborative exhibition at John Innes Centre, Norwich
Fine Art students from Norwich University of the Arts

Poster designed by Jade-Ashleigh Squires

2-26 April 2019
Viewing by appointment
Mon-Weds 10.30am-5pm
Contact: sarah.wilmot@jic.ac.uk

John Innes Centre
Norwich
NR4 7UH

Exhibiting Artists:
Anna Ward
Caitlin Cochrane
Jade-Ashleigh Squires
Emily Stewart
Grace Farman
Marg McCune-Colbert
Rachel Buck
Rebecca Scrivener
Roisin Delaney
Suzy Gyde

Instagram: @jic_exhibition

 

 

This project was organised by Krzysztof Fijalkowski from NUA in collaboration with John Innes Centre in Norwich (and has been an arrangement for the last 5 years). It was based around their archive of books and scientific material, which includes rare books of botanical illustration. Our work was to be installed within the archive room among the collection for a month.

For this group collaboration a group of 10 students were selected by the tutor on the basis of our proposals rather than choosing who we collaborated with. There was a diverse range of work with a common theme responding to JIC’s archive

Communication & Planning:
Email
Facebook chat

Shared out roles:
Instagram
Poster
A4 leaflet with details of work

After our initial visit to view the archive we each made our work on the basis that we would negotiate where it was placed on the day of installation. I set up a Facebook group chat for us to discuss and plan the exhibition. There was less active participation in this than in previous collaborations I’ve been involved with. Rachel suggested the name and Jade made the poster. I set up an Instagram account to help publicise the event. I also suggested having a list of our work with thumbnail images for visitors on an A4 sheet. Rachel came up with a great design and also made labels for us to put alongside our work.

We had not preplanned where everyone’s work would be placed and that was to be decided on the day. We all turned up on time and there was enough space in the vitrines for those who wanted to use them. Other work was installed on tabletops or against bookcases.  It all went very smoothly and harmoniously in a friendly atmosphere.

Sarah, the archivist, was very helpful in assisting us by finding the books and illustrations for those of us who wanted to display them next to our work.

Reflections:

Although there wasn’t much active participation from the group as a whole in sharing ideas and areas of responsibility there was a tiny group of us who actively engaged to cover the key areas so that it didn’t all fall to one person.

Overall, the collaboration was efficient and harmonious. We all turned up on time for setting up the exhibition and our work looked very good in situ. I think our information sheets were a very successful aspect of our presentation. All of these things contributed to a professional approach. It was an enjoyable experience and a privilege to be able to exhibit at JIC.

Documentation of work for JIC exhibition

This was a project for year 2 Fine Art students organised by Krzysztof Fijalkowski (from NUA) in collaboration with John Innes Centre in Norwich. It was based around their archive of scientific material and rare botanical books.

There wasn’t a strict brief, but I thought it was a good opportunity to approach it as another site-responsive project. During our first visit to JIC’s archive I took a series of photographs, but found it difficult to get good results due to the low light, angles of the books and reflective surfaces. However, I wanted to use photographs of material from the archive to bring together the botanical illustrations and scientific research. This also combined the historic and contemporary, which related to my theme that is concerned with time.

Contact sheet of photographs I took in JIC archive

I chose to use a botanical illustration and a photograph of a virus from an electron microscope, which I was able to improve using Photoshop. I then digitally merged both images in Photoshop and experimented with different settings. However I was not happy with the results and decided to reduce the amount of colours to integrate the two images and highlight just parts of the flowering plant.

Botanical Illustration (left) & photograph of virus using ectron microscope (right)

Several examples of my experiments with coloured overlays

I was not happy with the results and decided to reduce the amount of colours to integrate the two images and highlight just parts of the flowering plant. I further experimented with the settings and coloration, warming the grey tones.

variations with selective colour

I was pleased with the result and would have liked to make a three colour screen-print, but given the short amount of time to make the work I had them digitally printed on cotton rag paper. I used a bought frame, which I painted to complement the image.

 

Final Image Archive, 2019

 

Reflections:

This work made use of my skills with Photoshop and I was pleased with the final result, visually and conceptually. I think the simplification of colours was particularly effective and is something I could think about using in future.

18 April: Exhibition visit – SCVA

Exhibition:
The Body Observed – Magnum Photos
Sainsbury Centre Visual Arts

Today I visited this exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich. There were two photographers whose work engaged my attention – Werner Bischof and Antoine D’Agata. Both photographers simplified their photographs to a single human form within a plain and uncluttered background. However they were very different in other ways.

Bishof treated the human as an object that was patterned by light or markings in a bold and visually graphic way. Although I found these images visually stimulating I did not connect with them in an emotional way.

Werner Bischof, Zebra Woman 1942   Werner Bischof, Breast with grid 1941

By contrast, in D’Agata’s photographs the human subjects, although abstracted and altered to a degree, retain their human characteristics in their portrayal of a world of sexuality and drugs and they had an emotional charge. The use of very dark plain backgrounds that reminded me of paintings found in the history of Spanish art.

Antoine D’Agata Untitled Lithuania, Vilnius 2004

Collaboration: VFX

A collaborative two-day project was organised for Year 2 VFX and Fine Arts students. The brief was to create a 27.2 second (680 frames) video, which was to be a short sequence of one or more still images, with the optional use of audio. We could either create a scene from scratch or use pre-existing scenery or images (e.g. stills from a movie).

 

We worked in small groups with about five fine art students and one VFX student. As a collaboration the workload was very uneven, with the VFX students doing most of the work for the two-day project as they had to create and render the virtual environment. In our group the Fine Art students contributed work we had already done and came up with ideas for the setting. We further discussed the progress of our project in a Facebook Messenger group.

Our group’s video mainly included a piece of work already made and we discussed ideas as to what scene or scenario we wished to create for it. Several people wanted a gallery space, but I saw this as opportunity to create something more surreal. After some discussion the idea of incorporating Esher’s stairs was suggested, which led to looking at Escher’s lithograph print “Relativity”. We decided to use this as the setting for our images, creating a gallery-type space with a surreal quality. The VFX student rendered a virtual space based on Escher’s print, placing our work on the virtual walls. An interesting addition was the idea of using a countdown timer. This emphasised the pressured feeling of moving around and looking at all the work before the 27.2 seconds ran out. Although it wasn’t my idea to use the timer, it fits very well within my theme of time passing.

 

Selected slides from video

 

 

I enjoyed collaborating with someone from a different discipline and it expanded my idea of what outcomes could be possible by doing this.

 

18 March – Interchange

There was the opportunity to sign up for several things from a wide range of activities across different courses. I chose to do a workshop on digital tools and another making collage from physical materials.

Digital Tools:

This workshop was based around using Photoshop and a graphics tablet and for me it was an opportunity to learn new things and develop digital skills. This included learning how to blend colour using a graphics tablet and stylus and how to make a brush from an image. I found the workshop informative and useful.

For the first exercise we used a photograph of a ball of string against a plain white background. We then coloured the string and added two blocks of colour on lower layers.

The second example was based on the shape and contours of an apple, and was created using a stylus and graphics tablet to select and place colours.

The third example uses tools in Photoshop to change the colour of the sphere.

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colour gradient

Gradient created in Photoshop using stylus and graphics tablet

for this exercise we created a gradient in Photoshop using a stylus and graphics tablet. As I was new to this I found it difficult to apply the colour evenly and the result is very patchy. It would be a matter of practice to improve the outcome.

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Creating a brush in Photoshop

next we created a brush in Photoshop using a black-and-white image and the create brush tool. This ‘image’ brush could then be changed to whatever size was required and be used in the normal way.

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Collage:

This activity was traditional collage using physical materials. I sometimes use this type of collage in my work, but had only created one so far this year for the postcard project. Previously I have used a combination of elements to create a composition, but I seem to have developed a more pared down approach. I found I was choosing to use only one cut-out image against a background, giving it a new context. I enjoy the surreal aspect of recontextualising images in this intuitive sort of way and find that I express a different side of myself (particularly my sense of humour) in this process.

 

 

Collaboration: Exhibition – NUA PS4/5:

UV Print on rusted steel – final work

 

Site-related project PS4/5

There was the opportunity to submit a proposal for site-specific and site-related work in response to a corridor space and small room in St George’s building NUA on the second floor. I was interested in responding to the challenge of making another piece of site-related work so I submitted a proposal. Successful submissions are to be exhibited in that space.

I started by looking around the space and taking photographs of things that attracted my attention. I decided to use the pictogram from the women’s toilet within the work I made.

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2. Please provide a brief rationale for why you would like to participate in this event. What do you hope it will allow you to explore?
(Group or individual proposals will be welcomed)
(maximum 200 words)

This project provides an opportunity to explore both the history of a place and my own response to it. What is its history, including the changing demographic of those who have used the place. What do I notice in the space itself? What do I find interesting? Identifying these things is part of deepening my understanding of my creative process and I value the challenge as how to best express this in visual terms to communicate it to others.

I would also be able to gain further experience in learning how to curate a collaborative exhibition of diverse work.

3. Please include a visual proposal in support of your application.

Proposed UV print on rusted steel 31×49 cm

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I decided to use rusted steel to symbolise the passing of time suggesting the history of the place and contrast it with the modern pictogram for the women’s toilet. The gendered symbol could bring to mind the changing demographic, particularly the presence of women within fine art. I have observed that at the moment Fine Art students seem to be predominantly women.

Originally I was going to make the piece of work A2 size, but the tutor organising the exhibition suggested that I make it the same size as the original to cover the original sign as an intervention. I thought this was a great idea so created a template on paper by rubbing the edges of the sign with graphite. I transferred this shape to cardboard and then cut it from metal. I used tin snips and a file to create the curved corners.

Cardboard template and cut metal

I edited my image in Photoshop to create a transparent background for the pictogram.

Process of erasing background in Photoshop

 

UV print on rusted steel – final work

 

 

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Exhibition – setting up etc

there were 14 of us from across all three year groups selected on the basis of our proposals rather than choosing who we collaborated with. Some of us knew each other and a few of us had collaborated on exhibitions before, which contributed towards a positive atmosphere. The work was diverse with a common theme as a unifying concept. There was active participation through group chat with planning and taking on roles.

Not everyone was able to be present for setting up, but there was clear communication about this and enough of us to make a great team.  A group of us cleaned the floor (it had been left with big patches of white paint) and we helped each other put up work in a friendly atmosphere.

Curation and installation:

The exhibition was curated by Sarah Horton. After Sarah selected the work, she had thought through the placement ahead of time, along with any potential issues. So when we arrived we did not need to negotiate where most of the work was to be placed.

Installing the work went smoothly. Everything worked in relation to each other with a rhythm and flow of varying heights. There was a spacious feel with muted colours interspersed with smaller areas of bright colour and both correspondences and contrasts between the different works.

Learning from working alongside other people with more experience or different skills. I got ideas from how the work was placed, particularly the use of varying heights with the placement of some paintings on the floor to use the whole space (that is not something I would have thought of doing).

 

 

Thought had been given to the placement of Nayeon’s work in relation to mine, with her use of bright tape contrasting with my small piece that could easily be overpowered.  So no tape was added to the wall with my work.

I think it worked well having her bright outline drawing attention to the area, as my intervention could easily be missed. One of the benefits of collaboration is having the interaction of very different work creating interesting dynamics.

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Reflections:

One of the unforeseen benefits of working with other people related to my own work. In response to my proposal for the project Sarah suggested that I replicate the WC sign’s size and shape, and temporarily fasten it over the original as an intervention, which I thought was a brilliant idea. As a result of implementing Sarah’s suggestion I benefitted from her idea and ended up with a much better piece of work. It also developed from a piece of site-related work into something site-specific. This meant I moved from responding to a site to interacting with it, which was a new development for me.

I also gained ideas about how to use space when curating an exhibition e.g. placing work on the floor to create a rhythm of different heights.

I feel this was a very successful exhibition, in terms of the work, the curation and our collaboration with each other. There was great teamwork and it was a very enjoyable experience.

Marking Time: Experiments 2

Marking Time: Painting

with this work I was thinking about creating something in which I would mark time in a way that was both sequential and cumulative. The idea was to make a painting over seven days with the canvas divided into seven roughly equal sections. Each time it is painted the sections representing previous days are left untouched.

This is still work in progress with the third image representing three days. I am not approaching this in the way I would normally paint as once a section of this is is finished I do not add any more paint to it.

The process is the work and the work is the process.

 

acrylic paint on canvas  – sequential painting