Art in Society
Exhibition Proposal
For my Art in Society exhibition I am looking to do an installation piece focused on strangers as well as my local environment, in an abstract view. This installation will include pieces for most of the senses such as; a wall mural and sculpture (sight), grass like environment flooring (touch) and sound recordings (hearing).
(IMAGE 1)
I would like this Installation to be installed in a white studio space with bright lighting. For this I have contacted three different studios.
1. Spectrum Gallery, Seaham: A fellow student has been contacted from Spectrum to host a joint exhibition in one of their exhibit spaces, and I have handed over my details for this opportunity and am waiting to here further information.
2. Vinyl, Stockton: An art and music company based in Stockton have contacted my personal art Instagram account asking if I would be interested in placing some of my work in their building for an art and music event they are hosting. I am awaiting on further information about this event.
3. Fredrick Street Gallery, Sunderland: This is a new local gallery which will relate very well with the installation I am planning to make. I have contacted them through social media and I am also waiting for a reply.
If I do not here feedback from these galleries I could present my installation piece in one of the University exhibition spaces such as, room 007 or the Shaun Project Space.
As a back up I thought I could create a video of my shape drawings which include; sound, text and my drawings, then this could be played on the TV in the Priestman Cafe. The Cafe would be a great place to play my work as a video, as it is in a local environment where lost of people would see it and this would link to my work theme.
(IMAGE 2)
Site Documentation
While gathering photographs of the three different exhibition sites I have come to see that not every site is suitable for my my plans. However, if I were to get permission to host a live outcome in these exhibits I will solve these problems with a range of outcome.
In spectrum there is a range of different large spaces which i could place a large wall drawing and the other elements of my installation. However, this exhibition will be with five other students so we will have to work together in order to know which space we will work in, which could effect the size of the wall piece to fill the space.
Fredrick Street Gallery has limitations to their large wall spaces, due to shelving units and radiators. So if i were to place my work into this space and could not get the access to a large wall space I could plan to create some prints and frame them to hand on the exhibit walls.
As for Vinyl they do not have large wall spaces to pin up my large wall pieces. They have some desks, easels and a ceiling hanging area. So if I were to exhibit work at Vinyl I could hang up a canvas piece I have been working on. Besides that, I could create some framed prints or even some small canvas pieces which could be placed on the long benches .
Despite getting in contact with galleries, I do have the use of one of the rooms inside the university as a backup. This will allow me to place either a wall installation or a video/projection piece.
Visualisation Plans
Below are some sketches I have drew up for different exhibition sites. Each exhibit will include the same design outcome but due to the different exhibit spaces the final out come would be slightly different.
The final live outcome will include some of the following pieces; projection, paining wall canvas piece, painting wall paper piece, vinyl wall piece, video, sound clippings, prints and clay sculptures.
Most of these drawings of my installation and exhibition ideas will include the human senses such as; sight, sound and touch. allowing the audience to interact with the piece of work.
As soon as I have confirmation of what exhibition space I can use and the dates available, I can work on the final ideas as well as sizes and the poster to advertise the event.
Poster
With not knowing the exact days and times of my live outcome are going to be, I have created a couple of draft copies of my poster. I have used one of my prints I created for the background and have adjusted the colours using Photoshop, then I added a font which was similar to my patterns and tried placing the text in two different ways.
I will adjust the information closer to the event ready to hand out and post in different areas.
Due to the Spectrum exhibition being a group project these draft posters could be used to put in places personal to me and as leaflets to advertise the event. Where as in public areas like the university, Spectrum and social media, we could create a group poster showing all of our work to help advertise. This group poster could be made and developed closer to the event, when we have arranged a time and date as well as knowing who is taking part in the exhibit.
Own Work Reflection
Taken from my exhibition proposal and my project ideas, I have played around with a few different outcomes.
Looking at my original symbol piece I did during my methodology module, I liked the overall idea behind it but wondered what it would have looked like playing around with one or two colours, text and if I included other geometric shapes taken from the local environment.
So my first outcome was to over lay two different but contrasting colours, which was a great outcome and I was pleased with the effect it gave off. However, I did paint over this with a quote I had taken from my street observations. Painting this in a black bold font made the whole piece pull together nicely and worked well as a final piece.
For the second idea I thought I would try with taking environmental shapes, such as road signs. This outcome also gave a great effect but I wasn't sure if it was the exact outcome which appealed to me most.
During my CRIT I experimented with adding the grass element to my work in multiple ways as you can see in the photos below, as well as including some hand sculpted pots that I had made for a sound piece. Due to the pots not turning out the way I had expected them to, I did gather feedback on what I could do to improve them. This was; I could make them a stackable/movable piece or even plant pots (not to waste them).
Besides that, I also got told that people preferred the white background of the paper over the creamy canvas, and that I should try working with PVC and tarpaulin.
So moving on from this CRIT I will try painting on different materials as well as playing around with the outcome of my pots.
Own Work Reflection
Following my CRIT and moving towards my exhibition in May, I have been experimenting with a couple of ideas and have started to develop my exhibition pieces.
First I decided I wanted to try painting on vinyl and using a brightly coloured sheet, I painted on two layers of symbols. When painting onto the vinyl sheet, the paint did not stick to the material well due to its texture (nothing for paint to grip to). The final outcome did look effective in both portrait and landscape, and gave a nice effect due to the vibrant colour in the background. However, do to the paint not sticking well to the material, I do not think it will work well in the exhibition.
As for my pots, I had debated for a while what to do with them. With me not liking the outcome of them and they were not sturdy to stack one on top of the other, I have decided to turn them into plant pots. However, with them being hollow I would need to create a base as well as the length of time being left alone in the studio for the exhibition, the plants could die. So I decided to create some fake plants.
With these fake plants, I have decided to base them on some of the continuous symbol drawings, making them more graphic unlike real plants. Making these plants I started with a tinfoil and tape model as a base and covered them in mod-roc, this is so they have a solid exterior. Once they are dry I will paint them in green to look as if they are a succulent or cactus and place them inside the pots. I may even add grass to the insides to make them for realistic.
Moving on from my paintings I have decided to create a large canvas made from tarpaulin. This tarpaulin is white so catches the eye more when hung in a exhibition space as well as being more aesthetically pleasing. Also I have decided to go back to my original painting technique of overlaying the paint and symbols, creating layers and textures.
As well as these two pieces for my exhibition I am thinking of creating a few framed pieces including some collected quotes as well as a smaller canvas with one large symbol too.
Final Exhibition
Broad Spectrum was my final exhibition of the year, which took place at Seaham's Spectrum Gallery, along side four of my peers.
Over a few weeks we had come together to plan when we where opening the show and when we would arrange to set up. The plan was to set up between the 7th may - 10th may, then have the opening night 10th May 4pm-7pm. Then continue to have the show open for the following three days 12pm-3pm.
Positioning the work was our first task, so once everyone had brought their work to the gallery we arranged it accordingly, and so the work reflected one another. In the gallery space my work was presented it it work well to have my work in the middle. This was due to the pinks in Natalie's work gave a nice blend into my work, then the blues in my work then allowed for the viewers eye to move smoothly onto Beatrice's work.
Putting up the work was not as difficult as I had imagined. In the space there was only certain walls in which we could screw into, the rest had to be hung by chains. So two of my big canvases needed D-rings attaching to them on the back and we hung in the center of the walls by the chains. The other large canvas was hug by mirror plates which were then screwed into the wall.
As for my light weight frames and embroidery hoops I attached them to the wall using command strips, which means they can pull away form the wall easily. Then for my plants I positioned them onto plinths covered in the artificial grass to keep with my ongoing theme of environments.
To make sure that all my work was even and at eye level, I used a spirit level and tape measure. For all my frames I made sure that they were all at 140cm from the ground.
I am really pleased with how my personal work was set out. It had an even amount of space between each piece as well as it all being under lights so that the viewers could see them.
Overall I think the exhibition went really well and we had a great turn out on the opening night. Guests were really impressed by the work and I received a huge interest in my work-which surprised me. Due to a tutor unable to make the even we have held the exhibition open for extra days, allowing more of the public to view our work.
At first I had heard a lot of negative comments about the gallery and its owner, however, from my experience I would definitely work in this space again and thought it was a very professional display.
Mackies Corner
For Mackies Corner, our task was to create a t-shirt which was influenced by our work. This t-shirt could include any materials, can be transformed into any way as long as it could relate to the current work.
My first thing I did was try out a few different designs on illustrator to get some ideas generating, and to see what the final products would look like.
With my shirt designs at first I wanted to add my symbols to both the front and back of the shirt as seen in the digital designs. However, when booking into the print room to use the embroidery machine, the hoop for the shirt was too small to cover the back of the shirt. So in the end I decided I would go with a more simplistic design, and just embroider the from of the shirt with one of my symbols.
I decided that I wanted to experiment with a few ideas, so for two of my shirts I just embroidered the symbol onto the front of the chest. As for the other two I wanted to add a pattern. So for my white shirt I kept with the colour I was using in my canvases and tie-dyed a pattern onto the entire shirt in blue and orange. Whereas, with the black I knew I couldn't add colour over the top, so I sprayed the shirt with bleach. This created a cool eroded look to my shirts.
When using the embroidery machine, on my two plain shirts they worked okay, however the pattern was very thin. But as for, the two patterned shirts the embroidery machine stopped working, ending with me having to had sew on my symbols.
In the end they turned out great, and I preferred the hand stitched look over the machine, as it was thicker and stood out more against the coloured background.
These shirts went on display in Mackies Corner along side my fellow student's work, and I will be invigilating the show on Wednesday 15th May 2019, 11am-2pm.