Portico Library & Gallery and Manchester City Art Gallery
As a group we went into Manchester to go see a couple of exhibitions at a couple of different locations, we went first to the Portico Library & Gallery. When we entered the building I was quite surprised that despite an exhibition being advertised on their website it wasn't there or if it was then it wasn't what I expected at all. The exhibition had been set up in a very small space and wasn't like any of the other exhibitions I have been to in the past. It was less of an art exhibition and more of a highlight of information found within books in the library. Even more disappointing was that due to library being a private subscription library we couldn't look in any of the books to research the exhibition any further. The day had gotten off to a bit of a bad start and was quite disheartening that the Portico had provided basically nothing for us in terms of influences that we could use in our own work. After this we moved onto Manchester City Art Gallery, this exhibition was much better than the Portico, the first point being that artwork was being exhibited. However due to the majority of the gallery still exhibiting the same pieces that I have seen time and time again I found it to be very boring and didn't really feel drawn in to any pieces of work or inspired. Even the Grayson Perry exhibition which was amazing to see and I really enjoyed looking at his tapestries and reading the story being told throughout them but still nothing really jumped out at me. It was only when I went upstairs to the 'All That Is Solid Melts Into Air' exhibition that I came across a piece of work that I loved, 'The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah'. This is arguably one of my favourite pieces of work that I have come across in an exhibition that I haven't intentionally gone out looking for. The piece itself was very fiery and when I was stood in front of it psychologically I could feel the heat coming from the piece, it was so intense to look into and I found myself stood in front of it looking into for a long time.Exhibition visit 20/01/14
Yorkshire Sculpture Park
The visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park was an amazing experience and I'm so glad that our group had the opportunity to go and see this wonderful exhibition. There was an indoor exhibition on that we went to see featuring work done by Amar Kanwar, his exhibition was very moving as it was centered around industries taking over the land and his work showed these events and the people protesting against it who's thoughts were clearly disregarded as they were disappearing and being killed. On a handout I got from this exhibition I found a quote that really made me think, '...if a crime continues to occur regardless of the enormous evidence available then is the crime invisible or the evidence invisible or are both visible but not seen.' In the exhibition I saw a log book that had dates in it and a paragraph or two detailing what had happened that day, this quote made me think of that log book as the last date was June 2013, so all this has been happening in my lifetime yet the first I ever heard of it was when I visited the exhibition. This showed me how powerful art can be in that it raises questions in those who see it and can show them issues that are happening that they may not have seen anywhere else. Seeing sculptures outdoor in wide open spaces is incredibly different to visiting an indoor exhibition. The best part of this visit was that we could go up close to the majority of the sculptures, some had rope around them, but the ones that we could go right up to were the best to see. Walking around the sculptures and being able to see them from all angles and touch the sculptures and get a real feel for the materials. A piece called 'Campfire' that I saw really grabbed my attention, looking at it from a distance it looks like wood but it is in fact cast iron, and even when looking at these pieces up close you can see all the detail of the wood captured in the casting. A decorative sculpture of a Buddha is another one of my favourites that I saw on this visit, unfortunately this was one of the sculptures that had rope around so I couldn't go right up to it and have a look but even at the distance I saw it from I could still see the detailing in the sculpture. The colours used within it were the biggest draw on this piece as first I saw it in the distance and found myself being drawn in to have a closer look at it
Studio visit 27/01/14
Prospect Studios
Before we went to the studios I was very skeptical on whether or not I was gonna enjoy the day. I was excited to see the studios as it was going to be my first time going to an actual studio where professional artists would be working but I knew that we was going to do a printing studio with one of the artists and I have never been a fan of printing. However this workshop changed my outlook on printing and I actually really enjoyed myself, we were working with Alan Birch who is a fine artist based at Prospect Studios who specialises in printmaking. During this workshop I etched into perspex using my sketchbook from the mark making project. In this workshop I produced some of my favourite prints that I have ever produced before and one of them has informed my concept and idea for my current project for my printing and painting outcome. We also had the opportunity to look around Alan's studio at the work that he had done, most notably was his prints of saints where he had taken the iconic image of a saint but given it a twist such as 'The Saint of Health & Safety'. One of his works really stood out to me which was a print of a broken dalek at the foot of a tall building, this work only stuck out to me as I am a doctor who fan and I couldn't help chuckling when I read 'The Dalek fell from a very tall building.' At the end of the day we went back down to Jill Randall's studio space to take pictures of some of the work she had done, we had previously already been down and had a talk with her. Jill specialises in Sculpture and talking to her and asking questions about her work and the techniques and processes that she goes through was really helpful as I am currently working on a found objects assemblage piece for my sculpture outcome. Not only this but Jill has also been commissioned to do site specific artwork and hearing her talk about some of the issues that she had to deal with has been really helpful for us in regards to the site specific artwork that we are designing for the Leigh to Ellenbrook guided bus way. One thing Jill mentioned that I am surprised never crossed my mind was the transportation of the finished artwork from the place it was made to where it was sited. We also took pictures of Liam Spencer's painting studio which was really clean and tidy something I didn't expect to see, I assumed that there would be paint splatters along the floor brushes everywhere, but no everything was really organised, completed works were displayed neatly on the walls and an unfinished canvas sat on an easel. Unfortunately Liam wasn't at the studio when we were so we didn't have the opportunity to speak to him about his work and his processes, however we could get a feel for the way he paints just by looking at the unfinished canvas. Whereas normally when painting a canvas an artist would paint and build up the entire canvas as a whole, Liam had his canvas sectioned into squares and he would paint and complete it a square at a time, I would have really liked to hear from him why he does this. Alan told us of an open studio event that they would be having in the future something I would really like to go to.
Exhibition Visit 17/02/14
Walker Art Gallery & Liverpool Tate
Charlotte, Bex and I went to Liverpool to go to a couple of galleries and see some exhibitions and get some inspiration for our own works, we started off at the Walker which was currently holding an exhibition of David Hockney's work. Hockney was an artist that I had researched during the mark making project at the start of the year so when Lee told us about this exhibition I jumped at the chance to go see his work. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the Hockney exhibition and despite attempting slyly, failed. However the mental images of Hockney's work will never leave my memory. Seeing the pieces up close was great and reading the type within them which previously I couldn't due to only seeing them as images on a screen, but I really like how he uses type in his pieces to create a further dialogue with whoever is looking at his work. The rest of the gallery had a fantastic collection of works, one that I particularly liked was Helen Chadwick's 'Viral Landscapes 1-5' each was an image of a coastal landscape enhanced by her inclusion of images of cells within it. It wasn't the cells that drew me to this piece but the landscapes, I loved staring at the images of them.
Along with these works the Gallery was also exhibiting the winners of the John Moores prize from over the years and these pieces were astounding, Andy Warhol's 'Super Star Fucker' that reminded me a lot of my boards back in the studio at college.
'Aeolus' by Gillian Ayres was my favourite piece of work that I saw in the entire gallery, this abstract painting was amazing to look at especially up really close and examining all the thick textured brush strokes within this piece. I want to experiment with this style in my own work so seeing this piece up close and having an image of this piece is going to help me as a constant source of reference.Exhibition Visit 03/03/14
Liverpool Walker Art Gallery
Whilst the rest of the group had gone to Paris I went to a few different exhibitions over the days they were away to gather inspiration to use in my project. I started off by going back to the Walker in Liverpool, last time I went we looked around the Hockney exhibition and at the works that had won the John Moores prize but the Walker also had an extensive collection of iconic works spanning the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries along with Victorian, Medieval, and Renaissance art. Most of the works that were being displayed were a visual dialogue of Biblical texts and stories, one that caught my eye in particular was 'The Descent from the Cross'. This gave me the idea of using the crucifixion story myself in my work and I felt like it was an appropriate story to use as it is quite iconic in itself and well known. In my book using fine liner I quickly sketched out a drawing depicting this idea and made notes of my thoughts around it. For the visual side of this project I want to take traditional works and stories and recreate them in a different way that I find more interesting to look at. When sketching out this idea in my book I envisioned a style similar to that of Van Gogh's that he uses in his work.Exhibition Visit 04/03/14
Preston Harris Museum & Art Gallery
I was rather displeased by my visit to the Harris, in comparison to that of the Walker the collection was minuscule only spanning three relatively small rooms. There wasn't all that much to look at that fitted with my criteria that I was searching for at these gallery visits, and the majority of icon paintings were inspired by Greek mythology. Whilst this is all still relevant to my work and what I am doing and I was still slightly drawn to them, my personal knowledge when it comes to Greek mythology is lacking in comparison to what I know of Catholicism. Despite this though one particular work that was my favourite to see out of all 3 exhibitions was 'Psyche Entering Cupid's Garden'. I was drawn to air of curiosity that this piece seemed to emanate. The curiosity of 'Psyche' that led her to entering the garden which peaked my curiosity to know the full story and prompted me to research into this further.
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