Exploring landscapes

For homework this week, everyone in my art class was told to start observing the environments around them in preparation for taking a series of interesting landscape photographs. Although most people in London live in urban environments, I really love natural landscape photogrpahy and am in love with the landscape photography featured in Toast's clothing catalogues. I often browse through the Toast travels blog which is linked here http://www.toasttravels.co.uk/2011/10/03/life-lived-alone/ and a couple of weeks ago, I saw these photos on a post about some middle age guys experiences of living in a remote Welsh cottage. Apart from thier picturesque quality and the way they have of wanting you to become a farmer and deserting urban living, I also thought these photos were beautiful examples of landscape photography, capturing natural shapes and lines.

In response to these photos, I tried taking some landscape photos of my own in my garden. However, becaise I live in inner city London and don't exactly have as big a garden as the man from the blog, my ability to take landscape photographs was limited. I've posted a successful one of my garden on a Sunday afternoon below:

Because I realised my abilities to a take an interesting landscape photo were limited in Lodnon, I went to the most landscapey place I could think of which was Richmond Park, and took several different shots of landscapes. I've posted the best ones below:

The Figure in Space

This lesson we were looking at the sculptural projects of artist Antony Gormley in order to explore the idea of the figure in space. This concept has greatly shaped Gormley's body of artwork over the past decade, yet he has played with the concept of the 3D figure in a wide variety of ways, varying medium and landscape in order to change the affect of the artwork each time.

I was particularly drawn to Gormely's 2007 project 'Event Horizon', which involved several dozen copper figures placed on rooftops in London. Although I did not attend the accompanying exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, I clearly remember the event as I passed several of the figures on my way into the West End by bus on several occasions. To me, Gormley's figures seemed to be elevated above the status of an inanimate statue; while they were rigidly fixed in place and their bodies created a solid silhouette against the backdrop of traffic and urban life, from afar they appeared as ordinary pedestrians, perhaps pausing to contemplate the landscape. This process of observation was also mirrored by bystanders, who were stopped in their tracks on noticing a figure on the horizon. Gormley's representation of figures in an urban space was successful due to the ease with which the figures were integrated and became part of the space. Yet at the same time, their curved humanly shape stood in stark contrast with their urban, artificial surroundings.

Photograph from 'Event Horizon', 2007

Photograph from 'Event Horizon', 2007. And that's my bus in the right hand corner!

As a class, we also looked at Gormley's work 'Another Place'. This installation, created in 1997, features a hundred solid cast iron body frames placed along the coast line near Liverpool. While this installation once again depicts Gormley's fascination with the human figure and its relationship to the landscape, the low lying, flat environment of the beach provides a totally different experience of the human form and its silhouette to the figures in 'Event Horizon'.

As Gormely said 'the idea was to test time and tide, stillness and movement, and somehow engage with the daily life of the beach'.  In this sense, Gormley endeavoured to again animate the human form and show it as changing and evolving in response to its surrounding environment. However, for this installation, the tide and the light on the coast is also intended as a central part of the experience of the figures in the landscape. In fact, more than the figures placed in an urban environment, the cast iron figures in the sea have visibly changed over time; they have been eroded by sea water and a thick layer of cockles has transmuted and changed the shape of their bodies.

Photograph of 'Another Place' when the tide is in

Photograph of the same installation when the tide is out 

In response to Antony Gormley's 'Another Place', I endeavoured to recreated the lonely, isolated affect of solitary figures in a wide open space. While Gormely ignited my interest in the silhouette of the human figure, I was also keen to explore how I could convey a human form through using different materials. The vast majority of his works which focus specifically on the human figure in space are sculptural works, and like the projects above, Gormely frequently uses solid materials such as steel or copper in order to create a definitively human shape. However, to cut costs and to shift the focus of my project, I used a couple of tea towels strung up on a washing line and worked them into human forms using elastic bands. I've posted the results below:

Initially, I did not think this experiment was particularly successful - the tea towels  failed to evoke the human figure in any tangible form and just look like pieces of fabric tied together with elastic bands! But then I began taking photos of the tea towels from different angles and this dramatically improved the visual similarity between Gormley's work. 

Match Stick Men

This lesson we were looking at the figure and were looking at different ways of evoking the figure using simple and quick mark making techniques. Carrying on from finding stick men in amorphous shapes, the first exercise involved creating stick men out of matchsticks. We had ten minutes to create three different stick men in a number of different poses and by snapping the matchsticks, we were able to create identifiable figures. Then with a piece of newsprint, we took a large charcoal pencil and rubbed over the matchstick figures. The result was an A4 page of several different figures in a range of poses. While the exercise was simple and the process of creating the matchstick people and rubbing onto the newsprint did not require much thought, I found the concept behind the exercise interesting and was eager to continue playing with different ways of representing the figure in its essential, raw form.

Also eager to explore new mediums, I decided to try and create a stop motion animation with a matchstick figure. Although I don't have much experience with stop motion, I was still thinking about the matchstick figures I had created earlier in the day and how I could make them more life like. Thus, using a camera to take several dozen stills of a match stick person, I endeavoured to lend the figure another human dimension. I have posted my (not great but you get what I was trying to achieve) stop motion experiment below:

Start of Project - Amorphous Shapes

This lesson we began looking at amorphous shapes (shapes lacking definite form) and as an exercise, we created our own dot to dot image by splattering red ink on a white piece of paper. Dot to dot images are normally puzzles, with the dots numbered so you know where to trace your next line. But for this exercise, we had to search out dots which could connect to form a stick man figure. The result was figures that were out of proportion, but were also full of character and personality. 

The stick men figures I drew using dot to dot method

To extend the exercise, I also experimented with actual dot to dot puzzle books. Because I haven't owned a puzzle book for about 7 years and my sister is a little old for them (she's 15), I went to my local corner shop to ask if they stocked them. The guy serving me looked a little surprised and quickly left me searching for my puzzle book in the under 5's magazine aisle. But I soon found the PERFECT puzzle book with lots of great dot to dot puzzles!

After finding this gem of a puzzle book, I tried out a few of the puzzles and then began to play with the images and extend them and subvert the original image. For example, on puzzle number 38, when I joined the dots the image I created was of a figure in a long dress/robe with spiky hair. To make the image more exciting I gave the creature an ax in its right hand and drew a left arm holding a severed head. I was hoping to subvert the aim of the dot to dot book, which is to encourage children to discover fun images when connecting the dots. If a child happened to stumble upon this dot to dot image, they would probably be scarred and horrified. 

 

I was then drawn to the work of the Chapman brothers, whose recent exhibition at the V&A entitled 'My Giant Colouring Book' also endeavoured to subvert the innocence and  naivety of childhood by rendering simple colouring book and dot to dot images grotesque or strange.

Amorphous Shapes

I absolutely LOVE our new project in art. For the past two lessons, we have been looking at amorphous shapes (definition: adj. - without a clearly defined shape or form). To start with, we created out own amorphous patterns by splattering paint on a white piece of A3 paper and after the ink had dried, we began picking out blobs that we could link together to create stick figures. I really enjoyed this exercise so I continued experimenting with ink patterns at home and tried out different coloured inks on different paper to vary the patterns. I also experimented with watering the paper before I splattered the ink on, and thought the results were really pretty.

Green ink on water-colour paper after I've added water

Purple ink on hand made paper after I added water

I was really excited when I started to see recognisable shapes, especially with the ink experiments which I'd added water to. The green ink on water-colour paper which I'd added water to really reminded me of coral reef.  Although they were not intended to resemble any particular form, the ink drawings reminded me of Antony Gormely's drawings.



The two ink drawings above (Body XV and Body XII) are simple yet capture the essential shape and movement of the body. Gormley's technique of wetting the page before he adds ink also makes the forms organic in appearance. These drawings are completely relevant to my exploration of amorphous shapes as in isolation, the ink dots do not have a clear form, yet together they resemble a human like form.