Summative Post 2

Thought experiment

With the problems I was initially reflecting on the state of my practice, my thought experiment can be seen as a reactionary piece in response to the work I had previously been producing.

I wanted to create something much more direct in its communication of content and in a way that better merges analogue and digital image making techniques. The latter point is something that I have been trying to achieve since first year and that at the moment I feel it still needs a lot of work to be effectively achieved.

The main concept of the image was the fear that over thinking things is often my biggest weakness, both within my practice and life in general. Therefore I used the simple metaphor a broken light bulb/head to simply and effectively communicate this.

I was really happy with my combinations of analogue textures, mainly graphite, print and paint that I’ve applied digitally to create a considered final image that still has the warmth and immediacy of the analogue processes I’ve explored despite being digital.

COP3

My work in Cop 3 took these musings even further and I feel has been a key turning point in the development of my practice. This is due to how, much like my thought experiment, it was produced mainly as a reaction to my own dissatisfaction with the current state of my practice and a desire to work in a more experimental manner that was more informed by my subject matter than simply trying to fit my previous aesthetic around a concept.

Editions

I felt like the Editions brief would be a good opportunity to further push and explore the developments I changes to my practice that I had undergone in Cop 3. I wanted to keep the concept quite loose so that I could better focus on process and developing a unique and personal visual language rather than getting too bogged down in content.

Therefore I chose explore recurring motifs and imagery of early cultures, religion and mythology, taking particular interest in those images and motifs that reappear across different time periods and cultures.

Given that much of Cop 3 work was collage based, I wanted to use this brief to explore how I merge my own drawings with found imagery and scanned textures to create unified final pieces in which it is hard to tell what is drawn and what is collaged.

I also used it as an opportunity to further explore print given that my images would ultimately be forming part of my solo exhibition, Iconoclasm, in Liverpool. Therefore I really questioned what imagery is best enhanced by the process of screen printing and how this would translate into an exhibition. Therefore much of the imagery was very bold and carefully composed using negative space and the subtle edition of colour to optimise how it would be viewed; large scale within a gallery setting.

Final Thoughts

Overall I was really happy with these images, particularly how they came together to form a cohesive and powerful exhibition. Here I think my careful consideration of the context has really helped optimise my process and ultimately the effectiveness of my final images.

However, given how open ended and conceptually loose this project was, I feel like going into the rest of the year I will need to focus on briefs that have more of an emphasis on the communication of specific content.