The Last 2 Days Of The Textiles Work Shop. We Printed With Real Plants Using Disperse Dyes To Achieve

Lino cut which I am currently working on. Inspired by folk patterns around the world to make one design

Social comment and Anish Kappor.

Anish Kapoor , ‘A Brexit, A Broxit, We All Fall Down.’, Photoshop, 2019

This photoshop piece by Anish Kapoor is as curious as it is controversial. It depicts a huge open wound running through the middle of the UK splitting it in two. The bright scarlet of the fresh blood of the wound and the green of the countryside starkly contrast each other. The huge black space in the centre, looks like an emptiness that may expand. The piece is striking full of juxtaposition and I think that it also mirrors xenophobic attitudes. It is without a doubt controversial which echoes much of Anish Kapoor’s  work. He studied at Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design and was born in Mumbai in India.

The piece was specially commissioned by the guardian newspaper. Anish Kapoor has called the piece “A Brexit, A Broxit, We All Fall Down.” The Irish Times stated that it looks like a  ‘photoshop project by a sullen teenager phoning it in’, people on social media have also commented that the artwork looks like a vulva. However there is more to the work than meets the eye despite the fact it may look simple. Kapoor is known for his anti-Brexit views which are mirrored in this piece and has let the piece speak for itself by not revealing any information about its possible meaning.

The deep hole seems to have no end, alluding to the political situation with Brexit which has been going on for 4 years straight with almost no solutions. The wait for some sort of deal has felt endless which I think is possibly what Kapoor wishes to convey in the work. The wound is also running through the centre of the UK, which is maybe representing the Brexit vote with almost half of voters wanting to remain and half voting to leave, I think it means that this artwork is  showing political divisions. Kapoor is known for his use of the ‘blackest black’, one of his most famous pieces “Descent into Limbo (1992)”, a 2.5 metre hole was dug and coated with a deep black for an exhibition in Portugal and a man actually fell into it. This idea of an uncertain void is prevalent in his photoshop artwork. A profound blackness which looks terrifying and precarious. Anish Kapoor has often commented on Brexit and has said “We’ve allowed ourselves as a nation to enter a space of unknowing” referencing the great unknown which is the political situation.

In my opinion, this artwork by Kapoor challenges society in a unique way. The wound could represent the impact that Brexit has had on the lives of British citizens abroad and EU citizens in Britain, complicating their livelihoods unnecessarily. British citizens living in the EU are now feeling alienated from their home country. Travel restrictions may be put in place and it is becoming more apparent that certain freedoms may be taken away from each individual. This has deeply wounded relationships between Great Britain and the EU and these wounds can not be healed easily or will bleed forever.

References:

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/visual-art/anish-kapoor-s-brexit-art-it-looks-like-a-transition-year-photoshop-project-1.3848177

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/apr/03/anish-kapoor-brexit-artwork-britain-edge-abyss

https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/41032/1/man-fallen-into-anish-kapoor-artwork-hospitalised-descent-into-limbo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brexit-prejudice-scientists-link-foreigners-immigrants-racism-xenophobia-leave-eu-a8078586.html

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.

Casting and making a mould from a real pig’s heart. I am planning to suspend it at my end of year show and have threads come out from it. This was a really interesting experience, I am happy with how the plaster cast turned out. I had to make multiple versions as the artery on the first cast broke. It was quite delicate.

I painted the cast with a PVA glue and water mix and then painted on top :)

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/

I am currently working on making a Modrotlac print, which is a traditional Slovakian way of resist dyeing with indigo. I have been trying to recreate this way of printing for a garment that I intend to make as part of my ‘Then and Now’ project. However, this process has been a lot of trial and error so far and it hasn’t gone as planned. I made a paste out of rice flour, plain flour, water and glycerine to act as the resist for the dye. I printed by patterns from stencils that I cut our from acetate and watercolour paper (acetate worked better). Then once the patterns had dried, I dipped the fabric into some navy blue dye. However, the flour mixture came right off. I have already tried to recreate the Modrotlac prints by using hot wax but this didn’t work either. I am going to try a new recipe for the paste which I am hoping will work, if not, then I will have to try hot wax again but in a different way.

Some snippets from my animation about Brexit which I have linked to Slovakian folklore for my current project ‘Then and Now’

My final sculptures. Two characters inspired by Baba Jaga and Nastenka from the Russian (1964) film Morozko. They show the juxtaposition between old and young and naïve and wise. They are also inspired by the woodcuts of Kathe Kollwitz with their harsh lines and feeling of movement and expression. I covered a pair in ZIP to create a metalic effect, a pair in copper and left it to oxidise and I painted a pair with acrylic paint and finished them off with gold leaf.

Some of my photos which I took for the photography workshop looking at ‘A distance forms around our bodies’

Joiners for my photography workshop based off of the theme ‘distance forms around our bodies’, inspired by David Hockney’s joiners and the photography of Jingna Zhang. These were done through photoshop, I merged various photos together. I really enjoyed this workshop, I hadn’t done much on photoshop before so this was really new and interesting.