I enjoyed drawing analytically, as drawing self portraits is something I quite enjoy doing in my pass time and in sketchbooks, and so is using black and white materials. However drawing the space around me, from life, was a challenge, especially with using a limited colour palette, it was difficult to find the right tones to show how close or how far something is, and using the correct materials to show certain textures. I know now that charcoal is not something I should use to make a soft outline. In terms of perspective this was also quite difficult, drawing from life is something I enjoy doing but I’m not used to drawing the space around the subject, so this was challenging.
An artist I looked at was Len Tabner, a landscape artist who draws/paints only from life. Although not drawing landscapes like Tabner instead used his technique where we put a light wash first on the paper, let dry, then go over with a dry material, like pastels. I found this technique to be very useful and effective, as after learning this I used this technique on my larger paintings and small illustrations.
Turner Prize 2019 Shortlist Artists – set by Helen
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an artist who focuses on sound and the ‘politics of listening’ inspired by the voice of human rights and law. He creates audiovisual installations, lecture performances, audio archives, photography and text, which shows the in depth research he’s done into affective, spatial experiences. His sound installation ‘Saydnaya (The Missing 19dp)’ is about silence, inspired by legal trials. The silence he created addresses violence and evidence. The installation is in a pitch black room playing survivor testimonies are interspersed with re-enacted whispers. As well as this installation, his other installation Earwitness Inventory, 95 objects designed to create the sound effects of contested sonic evidence in multiple legal trials.
Helen Cammock works across film, photography, print, text and performance. She explores the complexities of social histories and her focus is on the marginalised voice within history, question of who speaks on behalf of whom and on what terms, as well as how her own voice reflects in different ways on the stories explored in her work. she works very non-linear in a way her work makes leaps between different places, times and contexts, forcing viewers to acknowledge complex global relations and the connection between a person and society.
Oscar Murillo practice incorporates live events, drawing, sculptural installation, video, painting, bookmaking and collaborative projects with different communities.Murillo particularly explores materials, process and labour; as well as issues of migration, community, exchange and trade in today’s globalised world. These concerns are deeply embedded in Murillo’s personal history and creative process. Murillo installed industrial ovens to produce sculptures made of corn mixed with clay, resembling rocks or bread, in a work addressing consumption, labour and basic human sustenance. The sculptures were piled up in heaps or bulged out of intestine-like forms, along with stuffed cloth torsos, printed with workers’ slogans and international trade routes.
Tai Shani’s practice encompasses performance, film, photography and sculptural installations, taking inspiration from disparate histories, narratives and characters mined from forgotten sources, Shani creates dark, fantastical worlds. Shani’s on-going project Dark Continent, developed by the artist over a four-year period is made up of multiple characters which explore mythical and real women in an expanded adaptation of Christine de Pizan’s 1405 pioneering proto-feminist book, The Book of the City of Ladies. Shani uses the structure of an allegorical city of women to explore ‘feminine’ subjectivity and experience, through a gothic/science-fiction lens.
The brief for this project was based on words, numbers and colours that describe me. The word that I felt was right for me was ‘aloof’, which reminds me of the colours blue and black.
I was very happy making this piece as over the summer as I felt restricted and bored working only in my sketchbook in pencil so I was happy to work large scale with lots of materials and colour after longing to do so for a few months. With no particular background to work from I tried to make as much depth as possible by making layers of wash over emulsion paint, then working on top with patterns and mark making. Working from a mirror onto a big piece was a challenge but a challenge I enjoyed.
Similarly to the large scale self portrait, I started off with a thin layer of emulsion then went over with a wash of light pink, what I learned from making my analytical drawing. This brief was a little bit difficult for me because I felt I didn’t have a lot of information to base my work from childhood to now. So instead I stuck with ‘from birth to childhood’ and I was happy with the decision. I enjoyed working on this piece as I was able to combine all of my drawing skills into one. I also enjoy incorporating text, personal text, into my work, and will continue to do so.
First used a light wash then some charcoal to add shade and tone. Drawing in the life room was a challenge in terms of how to create space in the image
The image above is a mold a made out of clay to pour plaster into.I found this sculpture unit to be very difficult, especially when coming up with abstract forms. I tried to make the clay on the inside as smooth as possible as I wanted my plaster sculpture to look almost gentle. However the plaster sculpture didn’t turn out the way I wanted it, it had rugged edges and it broke into two, but by using a vile and a scalpel I was able to smooth out the edges.
Anthony Gormley – Royal Academy of art.
Anthony Gormley is a sculptor and has an exhibition showing at the Royal Academy of art showcasing sculptures made my organic, industrial and elemental materials. At the academy Gormley has taken over many room to showcase multiple installation, my favourite being “Cave”, as it covers the whole room using weathering steel. I like this one in particular because of the way light shines through onto flat, straight lined, surfaces and as an observer you can interact with the installation.
This is a unit I really enjoy, I enjoy every aspect of printmaking. Lino printing something I struggled with doing in the past, however this time I actually found myself liking the idea, and cutting some parts to make a different section a different colour.
Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith is an artist who inspires me. Whenever I get the chance, I always look through her book ‘Prints, Books and Things’ when I’m in the print room. Her illustrations always seem magical and feminine although them being dark with neutral tones; they can be beautiful.
Inspirations; Tracey Emin, David Hockney,
I actually quite like collaging and placing images on top of one another, even though I don’t do it very often, so altering old postcards was fun. we then used our postcard designs as transfers onto fabric, a process I’m familiar with, so when transferred onto fabric it can be modified using different materials and embroidery. I always like using text in my work so I preferred to sew words or song lyrics into my small pieces. I also used one of the mono prints I made as a transfer, as I felt it would look more interesting with stitch sewn into it.
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson’s current exhibition at the Tate has installations that make you become aware of your senses, people around you and the world beyond. Some artworks introduce natural phenomena such as rainbows to the gallery space. Others use reflections and shadows to play with the way we perceive and interact with the world. Within the exhibition is an area which explores Eliasson’s deep engagement with society and the environment.
I’m not really that good with computers and editing things, so I did what im good at and what was easiest for me; drawing. I made a short stop motion of me walking to get my bus to college in the morning, which was made on my phone, then transferred onto the Macs software. I shortened each clip I made and muted the background noise.
At first I found this unit to be very frustrating and difficult, I’m not too good with the camera and I didn’t feel inspired at all, especially because of how bad I am with computers, however I think the stop motion I made turned out better than I thought I did.
Ceramics and sculptor isn’t something I’m particularly good at, and I’ve noticed every time I try to make something sculpturally I always make them very small or too delicate. The brief for the ceramic workshop was to be inspired my abstract forms, which, again, isn’t something I’m very good at. I’ve always been interested in clay though, and I’m hoping to experiment with it further and get good at making it easier for me.
Like I said previously computers and computer software doesn’t go hand in hand with me, so photoshop was a TASK. However I’d say I can be creative on photoshop when I want to be, and took most of my inspiration from my sketchbooks. I wanted to do self portrait after looking at photographers who experimented with self portraits, I was also inspired by music and lyrics (like always) and at the time of making this piece I was listening to The Brian Johnstown Massacre and Cream, and all things psychedelic.
Photographers that inspired me ; Cindy Sherman, Richard Billington, Lee Friedlander.
Music that inspired/s me ; Cosmic Dancer by T.Rex , Psycho Killer by the talking heads , The Pusher by Stepphenwolf , I’m sick of you by The Stooges , Sunday Morning by Velvet Underground , Nevertheless by Brian Johnstown Massacre, This is the day by The The, Strawberry Letter 22 by Shuggie Otis …..I could go on but I’d be here forever.
I thought this brief was very nice to work with terms of scale and illustration wise, so I enjoyed it. I like to work in both small and large scale. I haven’t worked this small scale with using a lot of mixed media like paint, oil pastel, soft pastel, and pens, however I thought the finished result looks surprisingly tidy. I also quite liked working in boxes and in sequences, it was something I enjoyed doing while making my stop motion also.
Jessica Hill 