Response to GB comment again

GB said...

These images look as if the environment itself is part of them. The wellingtons peeking out from behind an image or the bike etc even the garage walls all combine to develop an atmosphere that could be used. Another issue is scale. Looking at http://www.faeriefactory.com/art.html it’s interesting to think about the whole UV black lighting issue and how it can be seen as an environmental extension. Perhaps the audiences issue could be extended into whether or not your work would be suitable for the club scene.

I felt as though the photographs that i took of my work where quite interesting as you say the environment is quite different and if i could i would quite like to have exhibited my work in my garage as it was the place of contemplation, decision making and creation but the problems would arise as it is a private property and not many people would know where it is and it would have to be at night for the garage to be dark enough so i could use my UV light. As it turns out i am not going to be using it even though i wanted to but it didn't flow with the rest of the open plan of the gallery space and it would have looked out of place. As for having it in a club i think it could possibly work but there are certain dangers of people using the artwork and smashing the glasses which would be in a way quite interesting to see them destroy the work as it would show both the lack of respect and care for the work and also them helping me destroy the past and to look to the future. Using UV lighting does create a whole new atmosphere therefor completely transforming the atmosphere in which the viewer see's the work.

I took a look at the website you suggested and i liked what i saw. Although i must admit i have searched on various websites and i have not yet come up with pieces which are similar to my own. So i feel that i have combined what i have found from other artists and created something quite new. Although unfortunately due to the curating decisions I'm not able to use my UV light but i think that if i was to show this work again i would have it in that environment.

Response to GB comment

GB said...

The interesting thing with Sophie Calle's work is how she brings in so many other people. Would you employ a professional graffiti artist to spray up some of your own messages?

I feel as though that would be an interesting idea but i feel with my piece it is more of a memorial style piece as it is a sortof shrine to my old self. And you don't really get people re-adding parts to shrines unless it is for the death of a person at a roadside where people would leave flowers and photographs. I think that if i was to re-visit this piece i could possibly have the public engage with my work and have it more interactive by having them spray paint possibly on the gallery space walls around it or possibly add their own bits to it but i feel that it would make it less about myself and more about the public if i was to do that. And this piece is a sortof personal celebration of the death of something that i never want to return.

Artists and their audiences.

I came across this website which talks about the relationship between the artist and the viewer. I think that this piece of writing depicts how artists are seen and their relationship to their work. I feel that Art can cause anxiety as i have shown in my practice it also increases it when you are under pressure to create.

http://library.thinkquest.org/20868/ang/aaa/aaa.htm

Most people see art as something complicated, incomprehensible and unnecessary. Artists are often treated as "harmless fools". Why is this? Because art is always a new occurrence, it is original and it causes anxiety and therefore people are often ill-disposed towards it. A layman likes to say: "Even though I don`t know much about art I at least know what I like." But these aren`t actually their own preferences as their habits and the conditions they live in have made them like certain things and dislike others. We like the things we know and don`t trust the unknown. The past (which we know) seems better from the unpredictable future. We think of art in a similar way. Such thinking leads to the isolation of an artist who likes to penetrate new grounds of imagination.

The process of creating is always accompanied by loneliness and a certain incomprehension. Yet an artist doesn`t create just for his own satisfaction. Every artist wants other people to admire his works. The desire to be admired is in fact the main incentive of creating, while the process of creation itself requires a receiver as a natural supplement. One should realise however that as important to an artist as the audience is, it is not the quantity, but the quality of the audience that counts the most. The virtues of a work of art can never be described in terms of its popularity. This means that to an artist only the opinions of the people he respects and values are important. These are often just a few people - his friends, other artists, critics and people that show interest. The audience of course is also not completely without a word to say, but it is usually that little group of people (if the artist manages to convince them with his work) that encourages the creator to continue his work.

The audience can either accept or reject an art work. It is hard to forsee how people will take it. There is an emotional tension between an artist and the receivers, a feeling of insecurity and challenge, which are essential to an artist. A creator has to have the certainty that his work will overwin the public`s obstinacy or otherwise he will not make sure that what he has created is original, whether it was a work of art not only in his plans, but the actual outcome is as well.

The Observer

Art has changed. And so have the people running it. A sharp-minded breed of iconoclastic curators is revolutionising both the gallery scene and the way that we experience art.


This article is from a curators point of view i thaught it would be interesting to show as it is not from an artists point of view.


Curating art used to be a straightforward enough, if onerous, occupation. Typically, curators thoroughly versed in art history would use their research skills putting together what they saw as the best art works of a particular movement or historical period. For figures such as David Sylvester, curating wasn't really regarded as a major profession - more of a side show in the ongoing business of being an art authority. Things, however, have changed drastically since then. University courses in curating are springing up. And where once museums looked to the art historians of places such as the Courtauld Institute for the next generation of art supremos, they are now turning to something like the Royal College of Art's curating course, fast becoming the inside track for tomorrow's leading curators and museum directors. In turn, today's curators and museum directors have ditched anonymity.
'The curator of contemporary art is now concerned with the whole physical and intellectual experience of an exhibition,' explains Teresa Gleadowe, head of the RCA's curating course. Simply doing bucket-loads of art historical research is not enough. In the ground-breaking 1972 exhibition Documenta 5, Harald Szeemann - perhaps the first major freelance curator - dumped aesthetic categories and instead arranged the art through themes like 'Idea' and 'Individual Mythologies'.
Gleadowe argues that there's a huge difference between today's curators and those art historians of the past. 'Curators are now required to engage with new art as it emerges and find a critical context for the reception of that work,' she says. In reality, those critical contexts tend to act almost as curatorial trends - for instance at the moment there is a definite turn away from 90s irony to either some sort of return to socially committed art or art about everyday situations. And the broadening of the art world from a European-North American axis to a global scale means most contemporary curators now spend huge amounts of time flitting to and from art festivals around the world to keep up with what's going on - as well as to unearth buried talent.
Through the 80s and 90s curating evolved rapidly. In 90s Britain, there was a shift away from institutions - Damien Hirst and Carl Freedman famously took matters into their own hands with the Freeze and Modern Medicine exhibitions that set young British art rolling. Curators started putting shows on in domestic spaces, and combining art with non-art objects. In Berlin, Daniel Pflumm got the whole 90s Mitte art scene going by exhibiting works in his nightclub, Elektro.
In some ways curators became the counterpart to dealers: where the latter would shift artworks, the former would make works credible by putting them in exhibitions. If a work caught the eye of the right curator and got included in a big show it did wonders for its price and the standing of the artist. Inevitably the institutions have caught up, employing the new breed of contemporary curator to become museum directors and effect change from within. What's certain is that the days of paintings organised into neat chronological rows are well and truly over

My Work how am i going to display it?

I have finished my final piece and i was arranging it today and i think that this is the best way to show my work although there has been a problem as i cannot show my work the way i was going to using my UV light and the dark room. As there was a mix up in communication with the curatorial team. I think my work looks ok without it though although if i could i would prefer to have it in the dark space as first planned.

Leeds Art Gallery

LEEDS ART GALLERY

I went for a look around the Leeds Art Gallery and took a look at their current exhibition. I think that the pieces are really interesting especially as they were all made of scrap pieces from a junk yard.
I think that the curators have put this exhibition together really well as it flows really nicely and i think that the bright color scheme works well with the pieces as it makes the area seem more playful
rather than it being just a blank white space.


I have seen the engine which was displayed in another gallery space before and it was displayed differently. I think that the piece has totally changed now as it has been attached to a 1960's style chair. This to me now changed the piece to something less interesting. It gave it more shape to it but it distracts the viewer from the engine and focuses more on the chair that it is attached to.I don't really understand why the chair has been attached as i feel it doesn't add to the piece. I wasn't supposed to take photos but i took some sly ones :P

This piece at first i pretty much disguarded until i read the blerb which was written about the piece. Now i like how simple the piece is and yet so easy to disguard in a gallery space as it is just a box of light but the piece has alot more about it than that if you read the blurb above you will see what i mean. I think that this piece is cleverly done how people would not know at all that it had that many colours in the box they would just see what i did a box which changed colour slowly. So even myself a person who would take their time to apreshiate artwork wasent amazed at first. This makes me question myself and other viewers do we have to be impressed by giant sculptures of colourful bright things just like on TV? do we flick the channel if we arent immediately gripped by the amazing visuals? Do we disguard and walk past this work if it isnt gripping enough in the first place? and if we do are we missing out or is that the artists intenshon to get our lack of reaction?






This piece i didnt really understand but i liked the composition of the piece and how they used both visuals and sound both from seporate pieces of machinery.





I liked the use of historical art referencing in this work and how they have changed the scale of the work to create a very different looking piece. I thought the textures were interesting too as the paint was dripped onto the piece it created a melted look.








I think the use of materials in these pieces are very good as they are representations of something else made of of things you wouldn't expect. I think that the space monkey below is a fun looking piece made of materials from a skip therefore showing people you can make your cast a way's and left overs into something you would want and would even pay money for! It is quite interesting how you can make money from what people disguard.

Conceptual Art and Contemporary Audience

Kate Martens
December 2007
Conceptual Art and Contemporary Audience
The necessity and subordination of object and information
in the work of Kelly Sherman

A lot has changed in the art world over the last forty years. Perhaps most notable
is the shift in how work is looked at and experienced, and in who is expected to look at it
and experience it. The Conceptual art movement, which began in the 1960s, set out with
the aim to shake things up. And the proponents of the movement were successful.
American and British artists like Sol LeWitt, John Baldessari, and Joseph Kosuth
effectively trashed traditional aesthetic aims, cut down the critics, and created a discourse
driven by the removal of the object in art-making. The social and historical relevance of
the movement is undeniable. Yet there is an air of exclusivity in the work of the initiators
of Conceptual art. It was surely not art for the masses. It was cerebral, aloof, and
inaccessible. The audience was kept intentionally small. The publications were
distributed tepidly. Nonetheless, Conceptual art became a fixture in the art world, and it
affected other aspects of visual culture. Advertising, popular cinema, product
design—these things worked in concert with Conceptual art, as they borrowed from one
another, without ever fully acknowledging this system of interdependence. Still, the
public had little direct exposure to Conceptual art, although, as is the case in most all art
movements, they contributed to the necessity of its invention.
Needless to say, things have changed. Conceptual art is no longer exclusive or
shocking—it has been around since the 60s, after all. Forty years is a long time to
maintain the je ne sais quois it achieved so potently early on. Over the course of
Conceptual art’s history, its physical presentation has changed significantly. Artists who
were not involved with the early Conceptual artists, due to difference in time or location,
but who shared their value system of idea over object, found innovative, interactive ways
to engage the audience. Lygia Clark has challenged and captivated the viewer’s senses
with her “proposals,”1 for instance. Felix Gonzalez-Torres infused comedy and comfort

into his thematically somber candy piles. Conceptual art has become an accepted part of
the contemporary artistic conversation because it has reached out and touched the viewer
in some capacity. No longer is the message restricted to the flat white plane. No longer
does it feel antiseptic or detached. No longer does the cerebral meaning outweigh the
personal one. Since its remote beginning, ConceptuaLayoutl art, due to its appearance and
implications, has become relatable for the contemporary audience.


I think that this piece from the text is quite interesting as it tells you how art has evolved in the conceptual art world. Before the artists had a much more quiet approach to their art as if it was quite personal and only for the people they chose to show it to. Nowadays i feel that art is for everyone and you can have it anywhere and for as long as you like. The curatorial methods were quite different to how we are wanting ours to be as we are trying to get out there to the masses and to try advertise ourselves as much as we can. I feel that most of our pupils in our class are conceptual artists as are most artists nowadays as you dont really get many artists who just paint for the hell of painting.

'People in the north of England are not sophisticated enough to appreciate major works of art, it has been claimed.'

'People in the north of England are not sophisticated enough to appreciate major works of art, it has been claimed.'

'London-based art critic Brian Sewell says a new exhibition by post-war artists, due to open on Tyneside, should be on display in the capital.
"By the very nature of the audience in London it is exposed to very much more art and culture and is therefore more sophisticated. There is no doubt about it."
But Paul Collard, chairman of Northern Arts and a member of the Arts Council, said northern audiences were just as sophisticated as those in London.
"Investment in cultural facilities in the regions has stimulated an extraordinary renaissance in regional capitals like Newcastle," he said.
Are art audiences more sophisticated in London? Should the exhibition have opened in London instead?'

I think that these London Art critics are really getting too big for their boots.I think this guy needs to stop being so up himself. I miss out on a lot of great exhibitions because I'm not prepared to put up with the horrors of London to visit crowded galleries also being a student trips to London can be expensive. The more art shown outside the capital the better. as it is easier access. Although i think that it is quite good for the odd trip to visit a world of art but i feel that there needs to be more Art galleries in the north.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2658785.stm

Sophie calle the letter

Ive chosen to show this on my blog because it relates to my own practice as ive used a similar style of work as i used internet conversations which ive had with past lovers in my work. I think that sophie calle has handled this really well and i think it is a unique way of dealing with the issue. And i like how she has been classy enough not to use the lovers name but to use a code name. I blacked out names on the letters i used in my final piece but i have kept in everything for those which are in my sketchbook.

Art Babble

Looking through some blogs i came across this one post by Faizah about a website called Art Babble. So i checked it out and Im quite impressed. I think that this is definately going to be the artworlds youtube. As its pretty much the same thing but art based. It ranges from quite well established artists to ones of whoom are just starting out. The films can be commented on, forwarded and have people post video responses to just like on youtube these video's take you behind the scenes of major art galleries and include interviews with famous artists. They also include Video Quotes posted on the side of the website to show the most popular visited video's.

I think this is a great way for young artists like ourselves to get our work out there in the world to give ourselves a head start.

ArtBabble: the YouTube of the artsFrom Richard Serra to origami, there's a new place to watch arts films on the web. Ruth Jamieson delves into ArtBabble's fascinating online collectionRuth Jamiesonguardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 April 2009 13.05 BST

Where the BBC's iPlayer made watching TV on your computer as natural as writing an email, ArtBabble.org is set to do the same for viewing arts films. Now, instead of catching up on EastEnders, you can broaden your mind with arts films from a handful of key galleries. The films, all of which can be commented on, shared and interacted with, take you behind the scenes of major art galleries, offer interviews with world-famous artists and transport you to lecture halls all over the globe.
The concept itself was conceived at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). Co-creator Rob Stein, describes it as, "a website dedicated to telling stories about art." His cohort Daniel Incandela adds, "we wanted to create a community focused site that delivered exceptionally high quality video, an interactive viewing experience and a great diversity of content from multiple sources." Both agree that the aim is to create, the online destination for video art content. The success of their blustering mission statement remains to be seen, but what the pair have made is a fairly impressive arts video portal, matchmaking arts lovers with high quality arts videos produced in galleries all over the US.
After a year or so of testing, IMA has opened Artbabble's doors this month to recruit more arts institutions to supply content to the site. Alongside IMA's in-house material, ArtBabble now includes videos from the Museums of Modern Art in New York and San Francisco, Art21, the New York Public Library and Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Highlights include Brice Martin on his painting Cold Mountain (SFMOMA Artcast); the installation of Richard Serra's Torqued Ellipse IV and Intersection II to the Rockerfeller Sculpture Garden; the Design by the Book series where various artists draw inspiration from the New York Public Library; a conversation with the rather wonderful Jenny Holzer; (Art21) and Magnificent 11, a documentary celebrating some of Los Angeles's greatest permanent collection artworks (LACMA).
UK readers will note that as interesting as it all sounds, the Tate has been offering a vaguely similar – if more limited – service for a few years. On their site, you can go on a studio tour with Jeff Koons, browse through the gallery's recordings of talks with artists, and watch some of the performances hosted in Tate Modern. Logic would dictate that if ArtBabble really is committed to becoming the go-to site for arts enthusiasts, it won't be long before it bundles these – and more from multimedia arts institutions worldwide – in one place.
But what makes the site exciting isn't just its breadth of content; it's the depth. Throughout the films on ArtBabble, "notes" appear on the right hand of the scene, attached to relevant points in the film. If another artist is referred to, a "note" links to their Wikipedia entry, if a news event crops up, there's a link to the newspaper report. So, in a half-hour talk about the Hello Kitty brand you're offered a link to the online home of Hello Kitty, Japanese tourism information and an introduction to Anime. In a film about the Louvre's restoration of Greek and Roman sculptures, you'll be given an introduction to mosaic, a primer on Greek mythology and suggestions for further viewing. You can even attach your own notes to a relevant frame of the film, rather than in a comments section below.
ArtBabble has, essentially, been described as YouTube for the arts, but with a name like "Artbabble" you might wonder if it's in danger of being a little up its own tube. But, the site is saved by its execution: notably, a very sweetly-designed intuitive interface, simple pen-on-paper look and tasteful pastel pallet. Importantly, it is as truly accessible to someone who might sneer at the Turner prize, as it is to a critic who sits on the judging panel. And yes, while arts video content already exists on the web, it is still scattered. You can hunt it down in the dusty "online wings" of some galleries, or make a stab at finding it on YouTube and Blip.tv, but it is, in the main, sidelined. Hopefully, with ArtBabble, online arts videos have graduated to a place of their own where they can be nurtured, loved and easily discovered.

Light Art Video's

I decided to do a little light art of my own so i thaught i'd post the photo's up and also some interesting light video's i found.

Here are some photo's i made using glowsticks and a slow shutter speed on my digital camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXg_c_6tXbM

I found this artist called lichtfaktor who does light art films i really like his work as its very interesting and i like the way he composes his films and how well the light drawings are done. They must take forever to do but they look amazing! I would like to do a film like this if i had more time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlWnpz0Di90

UV Art

Ive found it quite difficult to find artwork which is UV but here are a few photo's which i found on the internet i couldnt find all the artists names but i have put the names of those of whoom i found.

http://www.zolaenterprises.com/day-glow.htm

Hilary Leigh is an artist who paints people. I think her style of work is unique and i think her photographs are very impressive. I prefer her UV work to her other body paintings as i think they look more interesting. Some of her photo's look asif they could be film stills. Which i like as it keeps the viewer guessing.

I found these images on http://anygivenname.org/2007/09/18/london-vol-4-jess-bonham/ they are a series of photographs by Jess Bonham. I think these photo's are really well composed. I think that the colours go really well and they do look quite High Fashion.

Here are some more photo's this time done by fantasy photo's a photographic company which specialises in UV photography and UV products. I think these photo's are interesting as they are using the human form with the UV lights. I think that its quite interesting using the organic things (humans) and the man made chemical products. I think that this is more evident in these photos as the women are partially nude.

Shrine Art

When i first started doing my paintings i felt that they reflected the work of Mark Wallinger with his recreation of the protest pieces. Although i think that it is more of a picket line than a shrine which is more of what i wanted to create. A shrine to my old self the depressive one which is now going gradually as i get myself back to how i was before all the upset happened.


Here are a few pieces of 'Shrine Art i've found.

Kathy Cano-Murillo.

Tracey Emin The interview.

I think this piece really speaks well to Tracey's character. She is quite Narcissistic and this shows through her interview technique. I like how she has used the two separate films and put them together to create a schizophrenic film. This reflects the type of thoughts that i have myself in the writing i have done. 'Poor Tracey, poor poor Tracey' she says to herself, there is a slight mocking of her own self pity.

Emin Quotes 'I dont think im being pathetic i think I'm honest, you tell me any person in this whole fucking world that hasent laid there in a moment of absalute dispare and lonelyness and has laid there and drempt of their funeral and all the peoples faces looking down.'

This shows quite a defensive yet honest answer to her own attack. I have also have had this moment so i can relate to what she is saying. And i also think that many other people have also had this happen to them.

'10 years ago if you had a problem you were an outsider but now if you don't have a problem your an outsider.'This Quote by Tracey Emin from the film Inspirations from the Art World DVD.

I think that this quote is so true nowadays because people are a lot more interested in other peoples lives as people would much rather watch reality TV shows than a classic film. And the glossy celeb magazines sell a lot more than broadsheet newspapers.

Emin Quotes 'People look at my work and relate to it because they want to relate to something about life, people watch real time TV because they want to relate the the intimacy of other peoples lives'

'I've told Art to keep away. We're going to have a trial separation...'

'This week Art has really left me. Even when I tried to hold its foot as it made its escape through the front door, and I screamed: "Art, don't leave me, I love you, I love you!" Art seemed to be going somewhere else, a place it could reside in a lot more comfort than inside my mind.'

'I even realised yesterday, whilst lying in bed all day long, why I drink a lot sometimes and dance like a lunatic, like I did on Monday night at Rebecca's party. One is to be celebratory, and the other is to really step outside of my own mind, the absolute desire to be free. As an artist, when you don't feel free, free with your ideas and your creativity, you feel suffocated. And the worst thing about this suffocation is that as you slowly start to become faint, nothing really matters, just your own breath. Everything you have made, invented, mastered, taught, learnt really does become so unimportant. And that is a very horrible feeling.'

These quotes are from an article of Tracey Emin's coloumn which she writes for the independent newspaper are the ones which stuck out the most for me. I feel that her writing is very similar as to how i am writing in my councellor letters. It shows how she is reflecting and criticising herself constantly saying how she feels then saying how she should really feel and what she should really be doing. She isnt holding back in how she feels and yet she is also limiting herslef by telling herself what she 'should' be doing. In a previous video piece she did she had a conversation with herself. Therefore potraying a councellor style of being a critic of herself. I think that this is a similar approach of how i want my work to be percieved. I want it to be seen that yes ive been through alot at the time but i am getting over it and i am trying to push myself back into my love of art once again. As it is still there its just left me at the moment.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/tracey-emin/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvaz3e9OXGE

This is a video of tracey emin explaining how she also has a struggle with art and how she sortof falls out of love with it then re-kindles that love once again all of a sudden. I feel like this is quite a good explanation of how i am gradually getting myself more involved with art again.

If im honest Art and me have very much a love hate relationship. If my life is going to shit then so is my art. I used to be able to lock myself away for hours on end and just create loads of work. But as ive gotten older and found that art has to be alot more about materiality and meaning which is a good thing as i feel that i am much more a conseptual artist than a 'plop artist' or someone who just paints pretty pictures. I feel as though whenever something bad happenes in my life it affects me so much i go into my shell and i dont want to even make art about it as its too painful. Ive never been so emotionally messed up in my life before all this stuff happened. But i am gradually getting over it and im gradually getting more and more back involved with art. I love art. But i hate how i cant be around art when im crushed. I feel as though something is stopping me and if i try to make it i always criticise myself and convince myself that its shit work and that i should throw it away. But thankfully i havent thrown it away this time. I feel as though i have had a HUGE block in my work, time which ill never get back unfortunately but i will work out a way of making myself get through this as i want to be a strong person again and not to have let these things damage my life.

A rather ammusing case of 'plop art'

Ive been meaning to write this for a while but i kept being distracted by other more important things with my practice but i noticed that recently The Council have decided to make my area where i live a bit more erm how should i put this?.. Arty? They have put these two rediculously random sculptures at eather end of my street. One being this strange dragon fly looking piece sculpted out of metal plonked outside a block of flats and the other a piece which is to represent a conker. These two pieces have no relivance to the area they are placed in and to be honest i dont think they even really thaught about where they were placed. As of yet they dont have any graffiti on them but i just know there will be soon. As the council estate opposite where i live there are people there who would do that sortof thing. Especially as they were litrally just plonked there. Obviously they were just trying to use art as an excuse to try make the area to look nicer and to be honest i think they dont really enhance the area in the slightest. Its not that bad but now they have these pointless wierd sculptures just plonked there.. it just reeks of money rather than art.

I shall upload pics of these 'pieces' very soon.

My work .. how to display it?

Ok so ive done a fair bit of pieces on bits of board using different coloured paints and alternative materials and ive had a crit which was very helpful. The feedback which i got was to possibly create more pieces and to think about how to present my piece. I thaught i had done it quite well but then the guest artist who came in to help with the crit re-arranged it and it did look alot better. It seemed like more of an organised chaos. Which is exactly how i wanted it to look. I have made a few more pieces and im going to be putting them all together and having a mess around to see how they look. Ive also finally gotten my UV light and have been having a mess about with that using uv inks and such.

So here are a few pics of my work arranged differently and some of the uv pics.

The one on the left is after she re-arranged it. I think it looks alot better as it looks alot more like a piece rather than three seporate pieces.

Here is a close up of the pint glasses. Ive soaked them in cider to make the photographs blurred and also for the smell but the problem is you cant really smell it. So i think i will be using the cider in the final piece on display possibly spilt on the floor obviously not alot due to health and safety reasons.

Just a thaught..

Pet shop boy's lyrics.

'Boy it's tough getting on in the world when the sun doesn't shine and a boy needs a girl it's about getting out of a rut, you need luck and your stuck and don't know how' ( i also added this on the end..to get out of this hole!)

I felt that these lyrics really did kindof explain alot of how i feel at the moment and i just felt that i had to use them in my work. I was thinking though, if the lyrics i have used on the pieces ive done ever were to be sold or displayed somewhere would i then have to give royalties to the pet shop boys as they are their lyrics? Or am i just being a bit odd in thinking that? because its not like i was using thier actiual song or trying to pass it off as my own. so would i then have to include it in the discription of what the piece was made from,

eg:

'Wood, Spray paint, Glow in the dark paint, Household gloss paint, Oil pastels, Pet shop boy's Love Est lyrics.'

Answer to a comment by Gary

Gary B- 'If art is about the human condition, your life experiences could of course be at the centre of what it is to be human. However this needs to be tempered with an awareness of others and how they might receive your work. (Audiences and how to communicate to them) So...where is your work going to be sited and what are the important issues?'

I do believe that alot of art is mainly to do with the human condition as humans are emotional, opnionated, and expressive. I have problems with expressing some of my emotions mainly because of issues i have had in my life. I think that my art work is helping me sortof let out some of these issues i am sortof letting the viewer in but only a certain ammount as obviously im not going to broadcast everything in my head to the world because i just dont particulaly want to. I think that when people see my work they will be probably wondering why is it that she is so upset? and i am going to be including things which are surrounding me at the moment things that make me positive aswell as trying to cover the negatives with colour and happy imagary. I am not wanting to offend people, i am wanting them to possibly have that connection with me as they may too have been through similar things. I am using some of the personal letters that i wrote to my councellor in my work so people can see a certain part of me and possibly an explanation of both the work and of my current state of mind. It is quite brave of me to do this as they are things that litrally only myself and my councellor have seen. I dont think that my work would possibly be able to offend people, unless it was the person who viewed it who was part of what inspired me to create it. but in that case i dont really care as they should know already.

Where can i site my work?

Ok this is a tad late but like i said i have been neglecting this a little.

Well my original plan was to have my work situated in a space such as an office or a waiting room for a GP's as my work was intended on brightening up someones day by them seeing this random really bright piece of whatever it was eather in a corner or mounted up on a wall depending on how it would look.

I went to my local GP's and i started thinking.. why is it that whenever your in a waiting room there is ALWAYS a fish tank? and some wierd plant in the corner which you cant really work out weather it is plastic or not. My GP's (Park edge practice, seacroft) is a new building so it is all referbed and like i said has the fish and the wierd plants but they also have strange photo's of around leeds but ones of the corn exchange from a long time ago.

This got me thinking.. WHY?!

Why would people want to see leeds how it was if they are trying to hard to make it look new and modern? surely they would want to put some nice new photo's done by a top photographer of some of the newer buildings in town? or even some of the local area of which the doctors is near? such as Roundhay Park for example? why not have some nice photo's of that?

something cheery instead of something to be honest.. quite mundane and boring.

I think that the foam pieces that i have done would work quite well in there if i just removed those photo's and mounted them up on the wall some how, although people would probably be like what's going on and what on earth are they? People would be alot more intruiged and possibly even annoyed that they are there instead of those photo's.

So i think that in the case of the foam pieces i have made in the studio that is where they could go.

I think that my latest pieces which i have just uploaded are mostly intended for a gallery space although they could even be placed in the hospital but i think that some of them wouldnt really go there very well due to the fact of people not really understanding them. I just think that the positive imagary of the smiley faces and the 'I LOVE MYSELF' piece that ive done would possibly go near a phsycological ward as it would be quite ironic and also possibly even help convince people that yes they do love themselves and that they will be ok.

Work in progress

I have been neglecting my blog a bit lately so ive decided to upload some images of some recent work i have done for studio practice.
They are at the moment in my garage at home as it was a well ventalated area for me to work in.
I shall be bringing them up to uni soon so you will all be able to have a proper look at them soon.
Ive been using spray paints and glues and glitter and glow sticks also song lyrics from 'the pet shop boys' and 'soman' and 'And One' a german band. i also added my own little bits to it.

Ive been using really bright colours and glow in the dark paint to create fun and positive imagary along side the upset i am experiencing in my life at the moment. In my last project i felt that it was easy to try at stear away from my pain and upset but i think this work is more about embracing it and trying to let my hurt out. And in turn trying to make it look phisically quite positive. I have been influenced by mainly grafiti and the club scene of the bright colours and the work is pretty much quite quickly made. I think this works quite well visually as it even looks as if it was just something someone had to get out of their system in order to carry on with their life.

The work that im producing at the moment is work which is slightly less egnoring the fact that im going through quite an emotional period in my life. Im wanting to make people like it immediately by using attractive colours and textures and effects such as glow in the dark paint and glow sticks and i am going to be hopefully purchasing a UV light so i can display my work in a dark space with the light there so people can see the pieces in a different way, both with the glow in the dark paint and also with the coloured paint being more illuminated.

Im wanting to experiment with alternative materials and create things which are quite normal to look at seem quite surreal in their apperance by spraying them with bright colours and creating something comppletely new out of them by adding certain other materials. I shall get more photo's of the glow in the dark paintings up asap. but for now here are a few of the pieces ive been working on.

Ok so things have turned a bit poo again.

Yep once again life has decided to give me a giant kick in the nuts.. shame i dont have any or i would probably be bent over in pain. Where as i am actiually just in a giant sulk of which i need to get out of.

I decided to go art material shopping today and it cost me a friggin bomb! but it will all be worth it in the end. I am going to build myself a little tent in the studio so i can be in solitary confindment and so you can all leave me alone! lol also so i can gas myself with all the spray cans of paint and such.

I am going to be putting a crap load of music on my mp3 player so i can use the music as an emotion feed to how i want the work to come out. I have been looking at the artists shela sujested and they are pretty cool. I also did some crazy ass angry drawing/photo things lastnight which i shall be using as i am extremely annoyed. Which should help towards my emotional state when making my artwork.

I like blogging it kinda makes me feel ever so slightly better about things.. kinda like wining to people without any response really.. well unless someone comments on it but i doubht anyone will coz i dont think anyone could be arsed. lol

I basically think that i am going to base my work on trying to make myself happy again im probably going to fail on that front but hey, no harm in trying.

I feel bad because i dont want to bring my friends down and i hate it when people constantly wine about stuff but whatever ive had a shit time of it so why the hell not?!

And i am trying to get myself back on track.

So here's to my new chapter of life, trust no one never get disapointed.

Joshua Hoffine

Photographer Joshua Hoffine.

From the Artist:I love old Disney cartoons. I like the hyper-realism of animation, and the overblown production values of big Hollywood movies.Horror tells us that our belief in security is delusional, and that the monsters are all around us.

Me: I think these photo's are really well structured and set up especially with the special effex make-up and the lighting although they look as though they have been through some computer editing but without that they wouldnt look the same most likely. They could well be from film stills they are that full of fear and emotion. When looking at these even i found them disturbing even though i knew for a fact they are not real and set up. These images definately play on our insecurities and fears.