Tim's FAD

  Her Signature perhaps? Yesterday met with a friend to take a look around the much publicised Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child at the Southbank Centre. I've seen and been shown the work of the hugely feted artist a few times principally I think at Tate Modern. The exhibition was quite well attended when we arrived and I generally enjoy exhibitions at the Hayward , this particular exhibition was focused on Louise's Textile work and I would think that putting the exhibition together would be a challenge in terms of such a lot of work from a career that lasted over 70 years. Not the pink and soft of so much of the work It was interesting to think about how Louise developed a clearly identifiable style and revisited topics that were central to her but I found the work at her personal edges more interesting - both of us felt (?) that the frequent use of 'Untitled' could be frustrating and even a bit of a cop-out. I liked the model and maquette type portrayals as well as th...

Debord Book- must finish  Had the chance of a Tutorial with City Lit  Art & Design's Moving Image specialist Dr Pete Gomes today. One of the things that I was aware of and will now act is to make the online posts more reflective - with the benefit of time I will revisit and hopefully be able to extrapolate more in the way of lessons and attitudes to my own efforts. (will append my posts in another colour to make this review clear-ish.) It was a wide ranging conversation that covered quite a lot of areas  one name that I thought was familiar was Guy Debord who I had come across when I read Malcolm McLaren's biography - have started reading about the French Situationist but   not yet  completed . Here's a bit of the conversation (on Zoom Chat) with some notes from me - it was useful for me to try and convey my thoughts and direction and Pete did well to get a sense of my interests... Socially Engaged Practice 11:15:00 From Pete Gomes to Everyone: spectrum...

  Some questions to ask ourselves On Friday Libby shared her experiences of using Instagram to support her practice and we got the chance to work as a group producing a 'dummy' instagram offering. Looking at other people with a 'professional' artist approach was interesting and Libby told us about how she shared 'behind the scenes' pictures and had enjoyed the interactions with her followers - she also uses it to help with getting the word out about her teaching.  Libbie did point out that for many of us we are still feeling our way in deciding a style and market to a challenge to decide how to use social media. I have used twitter for about 8 years on a regular basis and tweet a photo every day -so extra commitment is something I need to judge. Also I felt from what I saw that the Instagram world was rather anodyne and lacking in emotion, issues about time use and copyright were considered.  Working in groups (as always) was a good experience and I joined with ...

Calling out to me  On Thursday Ute spent some time moving us all along with our current work - finishing clay and cement work and focusing on our thoughts for public art projects. I managed to go through the process of filling my plaster mould with cement and next time I will break the plaster away - I plan to paint the resulting relief. All of the group spoke about our thoughts on a project - I am working towards am 'Alice in Wonderland' sort of set of shelters to eat under - one is a mushroom and another a very big table - |I hope this could engage with children and adults. a group under a mushroom   Under a big table Some constructive thoughts - hope to start thinking about models and scale Construction thoughts - could I use materials that are around and free- like a pallet It was useful to receive feedback from Ute and the group - the idea of focussing on materials that are Eco friendly is something that is under consideration and certainly any Public exhibitions that are...

Rod spent some time talking about applications to further study and the sort of work that would present well to those selecting students - insights were provided with previous students portfolios and sketch books - we also spoke about the next presentation that we'll make (via portfolio type sheets). Following on from last week's virus-y theme Rod asked us to use images of ourselves being confronted by such things. I managed to find a couple of images of myself on the web and printed these - one face and one not complete but fuller length. I looked at the work from last week (the considered representations of viral battles) and set about putting these to work - the head shot came out as mainly ' Language is a virus ' (a fine Laurie Anderson song). Language being a virus, hand drawn text and collaged text My figure was presented as something of a 'retro' computer game where various missiles were bouncing around. Help- missiles everywhere It's always interesti...

 On Monday (7th February) I got the chance to visit the current exhibition that looks at Durer and his Journey's in Europe. Albrecht Durer was A Hungarian/German artist in the renaissance  (1471 -1528) who is known chiefly for his engraving, he was also a painter. The exhibition sought to show how during his travels and through his work he had influenced other artists. Merchandise   Much of the Durer work   was monochrome and   fairly small - Durer was a follower of Luther particularly at the start of his  career. One of the things that I shall recall from the exhibition is how he portrayed animals he had not yet seen (like the lion) - one of the stories he frequently referred to in his engravings  was St Jerome and the Lion (Jerome having removed a thorn from the lion's paw) so there are frequent occurrences of the image of a lion. one of many drawings    As well as seeing the exhibition we went on to hear a talk with a perha...

  Jericho by Keifer (outside RA London) On Friday we also got the benefit of hearing from Heidi about how we could approach the presentation of our ideas and process for our two specialisms  looking at past students work and engaging with our Sketch book ideas. I found the chance to talk with another student about the ideas we had really useful and Michelle's suggestions have provided a fresh angle for me. During the morning we were also able to use some analytic skills to get more from works in the public sphere - First was Manet's Olympia. As a group of three we made notes of what we considered some points for discussion with other groups:- (I have put some of the points that we got feedback on in Blue) The Model's Gaze/Pose - the model was naked but looked at the viewer directly. -  This relates to Berger's views on the 'Gaze' and is part of why this painting from the 19th Century is considered part of early modernism. Race - There is a black maid who is in ...

 On Thursday Ute  helped us progress with our exercise in creating a cast for 'Ciment Fondu' -  I had decided to work on an idea I have to consider the 7 Deadly Sins, the Sin I had decided to tackle first was Gluttony.  I am a big fan of  'The English Breakfast' and wondered how I might me able to represent as a relief - perhaps on a plate. Here you can see the clay representation and the cast that followed.    Sausages, Egg and Steak Adding the plaster - it got warm as it set The cast warmed as it set The wall of clay surrounding the cast is removed The clay is removed and the negative space remains to accept the Ciment Fondu  As well as the practical work Ute spoke to us about using technical drawings and learning how to scale up with grids.  I felt that the path I was going down here was working in the direction I wanted to go and the problem solving of making something that relates to my vison will progress further with the application of...

Rod showed some work of Italian Futurist F T Marinetti where Marinetti had sought to communicate his experience during the fist world war - sound had been a big part of what was going on for him - I see that they're described as 'Visual Poems'  The picture shown is A Tumultuous Assembly. Numerical Sensibility by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1919). We then created our own impressions of London and the sounds  - here's mine where I tried to show various scenarios including a cultural visit -office life as well as  transport and some chaos. The Collage is made from magazines and newspaper - as usual the group created quite different views from the brief. London -Visual Poem after Marinetti (2022)   after this we worked on a Visual/textual approach to recording the journey from home to City Lit. Not finished but shows destination & home We also worked in a single colour on the creation of a grids showing 16 'Antibody versus Virus' depictions. When I was doing th...

 During the week I found out some more about  Renaissance  artist Raphael in general and the famous Cartoons on show at the V&A. For some time I've delighted in seeing the copy of 'School of Athens' that's in the cast room by  Anton Raphael Mengs  One of the things I had not realised is that Raphael died before he reached his full potential at the age of just 37. Like many artists of his time (and place) he relied on the patronage of the Catholic Church.  When Raphael was selected to add Tapestry to the Sistine Chapel it was laready 'busy' with design elements including a decorated ceiling. The realisation of the Cartoons was a major project involving more than 200 pieces  of  work of a size each of them being  around an A3 sheet. The weaving was done by skilled workers and there are several versions in existence - as Prince Albert was fond of Raphael's work  work the V&A was thought of as a suitable place to show the works...