Some Lino Cuts For The Book I’m Working On...

Landscape art, Jeanne Claude and Christo.

Wrapped Trees, 1988

‘Wrapped trees’ by Jeanne Claude and Christo, is a unique piece of land art. The two artists worked together and were an art duo which focused on large scale artwork throughout their careers. Claude was from Morocco and Christo from Bulgaria, they were both born on the exact same day in the same year on the 13th of June 1935 and got married in 1960. Their artwork focused on wrapping up huge man made structures or huge natural structures. One of their most famous works was wrapping up the Reichstag in Berlin in 1995 which took 90 climbers and 180 installation workers to complete. This was done with polypropylene fabric and rope. Another piece that they are particularly well known for is wrapping up the West Coast of Australia in 1968. The fabric covered one million square feet, its size shows the sheer scale in the work of Claude and Christo. 

The piece of land art ‘wrapped trees’ was created in 1988 and took 9 days to complete. 178 trees in a park in Riehen in Switzerland were covered by transparent fabric, and this artwork was left up for 3 weeks. The original plan was to wrap 330 trees in the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, however their plan was denied. The trees were wrapped with 592,015 square feet polyester fabric which is the same fabric used in Japan to protect trees from frost, snow and general winter weather. The fabric was all tied on just by using rope. The finished piece is very effective and the trees look ghost- like, mysterious and out of the ordinary. The fabric changed shape slightly and blew in the wind, at different times of the day, different colours light and different intensities of light would shine through the polyester fabric. This created a diaphanous effect which allowed all of the individual branches to be seen. The piece of land art was up in November, so the start of winter once all the leaves had fallen off of the trees. This allowed the branches and main structure of the tree to be seen clearly. The fabric also shrouded the trees in a way that gave the impression of the shape that all of the leaves would take if they were there. This use of negative space almost highlighted the absence of the leaves which gave a ghost-like quality to the work.

Christo once said “Jeanne-Claude and I borrow space and create a gentle disturbance in it for just a few days. When they appear for a few days, they carry this tremendous freedom of irresponsibility.” This quote reveals a lot about the intention behind the work of the artist duo. After all of their work, Claude and Christo made sure that the ropes and fabric that they used were never thrown away but recycled. It is possible that their work overall reflects the alteration of the natural world for our human needs; it could be a message about climate change and the environment. On the other hand, the work ‘wrapped trees’ could be about the fact that nothing lasts forever and everything is fleeting. The artists have to take their work down eventually, if they don’t then they would be intercepting with nature. In the quote, Christo talks about the ‘freedom of irresponsibly’. The artists had the freedom to put their work over the trees but then it is their responsibility to take it back down. This may reflect the importance for everything in nature to return to its natural state.

References

https://christojeanneclaude.net/mobile/projects?p=wrapped-reichstag

https://coveringchristo.wordpress.com/rationale/

http://www.artnet.com/artists/christo-and-jeanne-claude/

https://christojeanneclaude.net/mobile/projects?p=wrapped-trees

https://coveringchristo.wordpress.com/rationale/

ETCHING :) . Trying out etching was great and I learnt a lot. It was a long process and I think that the prints could have perhaps turned out better, I was happy with some but I think that the acid ate into some of them a bit too much. However, overall it was a great experience and really enriching to learn about a new process!

My main piece for the project ‘A distance forms around our bodies. Inspired by Hasegawa Tohaku’s misty forests and Charity Henderson’s blurred faces. It is oil on canvas and I stitched a veil on top of the painting to give a sense if mystery and distance inspired by Monet’s painting of his dead wife Camile and the veiled busts of the 19th century.

          Ethics and art - How considerate does an artist have to be?

Contemporary art seeks to challenge traditional boundaries, almost seeing how far it can go before it crosses the line. It can at times be confusing, confrontational and controversial and can shock or thrill the audience depending on the subject matter. Contemporary art can be anything from an installation to a painting, a performance to a sculptural piece, it can even be a random object that is claimed to be art. As there is no uniformity or formula, the artist can use any medium and can exhibit anything he/she wishes to.

Controversy in the art world has always existed. Even in Caravaggio’s religious works in the 15th century which depicted religious figures in a very realistic manner. One of his most controversial paintings at the time was ‘The Death Of The Virgin’ which depicted The Virgin Mary on her death bed. The controversy was not of the subject matter but more about the way that this biblical scene was painted. The Virgin Mary can be seen with her hand over her slightly bloated stomach and bared ankles which the audience found very upsetting. For these reasons it was rejected by the Chapel of Santa Maria della Scala for which it was commissioned by in Rome. It was also said that the woman that modelled The Virgin Mary for this painting was a common prostitute working in Rome. This brought further distaste to the artwork. Nowadays, it is a revered masterpiece however when painted, it was disputed over. A controversial modern day representation of The Virgin Mary is ‘The Holy Virgin Mary’ by Chris Ofili’. This painting depicts The Virgin Mary surrounded by the backsides of Women from adult magazines, balancing the canvas on two pieces of elephant dung. Ofili stated that it is a ‘hip-hop version (of the figure)’. The painting stands out with its vibrant use of colour, the yellow and purple starkly contrast with each other making the painting quite jarring and bright. Many would not find the artwork offensive at all however at the same this portrayal offended many religious people. It is difficult to please every individual audience member although I think that there is an unspoken responsibility to have mutual respect for the audience and be considerate of groups of the audience that may see your work.

When it comes to exhibiting artwork, ethics are important to consider. This form of ‘moral accountability’ encourages the respect of the audience. However, everyone will have a different opinion and take on the artwork and our life experiences will cause us to interpret art in various ways. At the end of the day, it is up to the artist to decide what to include in their work but some may argue that this doesn’t mean that the artist shouldn’t be held accountable for any content they exhibit. On the other hand, some artworks are intended to be controversial and aim to shock. The series of work 'Plum Grove' by Peter Howson (1994) does just that. This series of paintings, influenced by the break-up of Yugoslavia and the creation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, aims to portray these events in a graphic manner and the effect of the war on the civilians. Howson was the official War Artist for the British contingent of the UN Peace Keeping Force to Bosnia in 1993. As a result, his paintings included rape scenes, violence, and other graphic scenes which he witnessed himself or from eye-witness accounts. His paintings depict people in contorted positions with green and blue skin tones giving a sense of distress and pain. The paintings are quite expressive and have a sense of movement alongside a sense of exaggeration, exaggerating various features of the figures giving a further sense of suffering. The paintings undoubtedly leave the audience feeling uncomfortable. Although this series of work is in a way raising awareness of the events, some may say that censorship is necessary. Audience members who were not victims of the Yugoslavian conflicts or who have never experienced war of any kind can’t relate to the imagery as much as war survivors or people who have witnessed similar events. Although the subject matter is distressing and upsetting, the audience members are all effected in different ways based on their life experiences. The artist can choose whether or not to censor their work or to take ethics into consideration depending on the emotions they wish to stir up.

Appropriation, borrowing or recycling aspects of someone else’s work, plays a big role in contemporary artwork too. For example, in Banksy’s piece, ‘Show me the Monet’ (2005) a framed image of Monet’s painting is visible with orange shopping trolleys and traffic cones in his famous lily pond. I think that it shows the over-commercialisation of Monet’s work and art in general. Nowadays it is easy to see images of artwork online and it’s also common to buy merchandise with various pieces of art printed on. The imperative ‘Show me’ in the title of the piece further emphasises our consumerist society and ever growing demand for instant gratification. All of this has contributed to the devaluation of the artwork. Although the physical painting still costs a fortune, it is accessible on many platforms and is over-marketed so its purpose and meaning have been lost in the process.

I think that when it comes to handling delicate subject matters, it is important to somewhat take the audience into consideration. Some artwork is made for the audience to question and to be shocked by and will affect everyone in a different way but I think that there can be some occasions where a piece of controversial artwork can become disrespectful. Overall, I think that it is the role of the artist to push the boundaries of modern-day society and to adapt when necessary; a sense of mutual respect for all opinions and all views is important. Despite the fact that nowadays, art is created to challenge the audience and express emotion, I think that it’s the role of every artist to know what is appropriate and what isn’t depending on the subject matter they wish to portray.

 References

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/howson-plum-grove-t06961

https://artswithanna.com/2018/09/28/ethics-and-arts/

https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/39894/1/that-time-this-chris-ofili-the-holy-virgin-mary-hip-hop-pissed-off-the-art-world

My work for the Addams family brief. I did some character designs, a pencil portrait of the whole family and then a poster design too :).

My poster of Wednesday Addams is inspired by the painting by George De la Tour ‘Magdalen with smoking flame’. I was inspired by the under lighting in this painting and the darkness with the only source of light visible is the candle. I took some of my own photos of my sister (bottom right of mount board) holding a candle to light up her face in different ways. This gave an eerie and gothic effect. Inspired by George De la Tour and my experimental photos, I created my own poster design for the Addams family show, of Wednesday holding a candle, under-lighting her face. (Oil on Paper). I also created an underlighting effect on the writing too.

My small illustrative piece was inspired by a quote from Morticia from the 1964 Addams family series. She says ‘Life is not all lovely thorns and singing vultures you know’. In my illustration Wednesday is cutting rose heads off of their stems which is something that Morticia does as part of her gardening routine in the Addams family movie.

I enjoyed experimenting with different character designs and creating a board based on the famous and gothic Addams family.

My sculpture workshop. We are studying character design and designing our own characters. Here are my characters in process. I have finished sculpting them in clay and in the next session I coated them both in latex to create a mold. My next step is to cover them both in modroc and fill them with plaster, which I am looking forward to.

Resist dyeing. I decided to try resist dyeing again but this time with some different ingredients. These included, glutinous rice flour, rice bran, salt, water, glycerine and calcium hydroxide. First I mixed together the rice flour and bran and water together to make a dough and I then steamed the dough in dumpling sized balls for about an hour. While these were steaming, I put two table spoons of calcium hydroxide into one cup of water. I had to be careful with this as calcium hydroxide can be very dangerous if it come in contact with skin. I wore goggle, gloves and a mask. Once the balls had steamed I mixed them with glycerine, salt and the water from the calcium hydroxide. The chemical had settled at the bottom leaving me with just the infused water, I mixed it in. This created a smooth paste with which I printed my designs . This paste was a lot stickier than the last one I made so I was hopeful it was going to stay on during the dyeing process. Once it had all dried, I dyed the fabric. After leaving the printed fabric in the dye for an hour, I took it out to find that all of the resist paste had unfortunately dissolved. Even though it didn’t work, I learnt a lot from this process, it was interesting to experiment with all of the new ingredients.

Acrylic etchings from my drawing

This is a mask made from cardboard which I have just finished as part of my art foundation course. It’s a poppy seed head. I made it rattle inside using dried peas and rice.

My painting for the current project ‘Then and Now’. Oil on canvas (85cm x 140cm)

I have been exploring Slovak folklore and folk art and the political topic of Brexit which is a very current affair. Throughout the project I have been merging these two different ideas together as I am aim to tell the ‘folk story’ of how Brexit touches people’s lives in different ways. The girl (Britain) is wearing a blouse with an eastern European embroidery design to convey the message of, diversity, tolerance and multiculturalism, all apparent in one country, but she is brushing the EU stars out of her hair reflecting, the weakening of some of these important principles.

My technique was inspired by Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro and a painting by the Slovakian artist Julius Bukovinsky.