Evaluation

At the start of my project, I was fascinated by the relationship between art and madness and pursued this line of thought by visiting the Beyond the Moulin Rouge exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery. This exhibition was vital to the development of my project as seeing Lautrec’s energetic paintings and his depiction of movement and the human form I became interested in the idea of distortion. Inspired by Lautrec’s fascination with the Moulin Rouge dancer, Jane Avril (her frenzied, jerky movements were a result of her treatment at the Salpetriere Hospital for the insane) I also became increasingly interested in exploring the contrast between appearances and unsettling reality. Visiting the exhibition and being inspired by Lautrec’s work and life, I realised the importance of making visual connections with artists and visually demonstrating how their work has influenced my project. This is why I took a series of photographs which channelled the aesthetic of the photographs of medical examinations I had seen in the exhibition and then worked into them with white acrylic paint and black ink in order to evoke the sketchy, energetic nature of Lautrec’s brush strokes. Noticing the visual similarities between Avril’s contorted poses and the work of Robert Longo I used tracing paper to emphasise the aspect of the painting that interested me, which was the figures contorted, tensed pose. Using tracing paper, black ink, pen and white paint I also experimented with using a new layering technique to visually respond to a photograph of women at the Salpetriere Hospital; I was initially attracted to the image because of the ghostly quality of the women’s faces and used this layering technique to exaggerate this aspect of the photograph. This experiment and others in response to the exhibition were of crucial importance as they generated ideas which subsequently dictated the direction of my project. Furthermore my research on Lautrec directly inspired my subsequent exploration of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele; the sketchy nature of both artist’ work evoked Lautrec’s energetic brushstrokes and Schiele’s unsettling, disturbing self-portraits particularly related to the theme of distortion. When researching these two artists I demonstrated the visual connections between Klimt and Schiele’s work with that of Lautrec’s in order to clarify my artistic journey. Furthermore as with my previous artist page, I used a camera as a means of documenting my responses to Klimt and Schiele’s works; as well as taking several self portraits in the style of Schiele’s, I also took photographs of my family which I then collaged together in response to Klimt’s paintings.

This double page was also critical to the direction of my project as following on from my research on Schiele I became increasingly interested in portraiture and attended the Taylor Wessing photographic exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in order to extend my exploration of this theme. Although the photography exhibition and with its eclectic range of portraits failed to ignite my interest as much as previous exhibitions had, it proved important as it showed I had looked at the work of photographers working in the 21^st century as opposed to European painters of turn of the century Europe.  Moreover, the exhibition was an important stepping stone for further colour experimentation as I took a series of portrait photos in response and then created a colour study from one of these images. In fact, this exhibition also fuelled my interest in portrait photography and I attended Don McCullin’s ‘Shaped by War’ exhibition at the Imperial War Museum to extend my exploration of high contrast portraiture. McCullin’s grainy black and white photographs inspired me to work into my last set of portrait photographs, which I photocopied and worked into with ink in order to evoke the dramatic quality of McCullin’s images. I also experimented with using white gouache paint on black paper and created an observational response to one of my photographs using this technique which was inspired by McCullin’s work. As a result of these experiments as well as several sketches I made of paintings that were particularly relevant to the theme of distortion and appearances contrasted with reality, I think that my artist research pages successfully present a clear visual journey and demonstrate my fascination with distortion, portraiture and the contrast between appearances and reality.

In the next stage of my project I began developing my exploration of distortion took several photos of bones as I thought they were visually evocative of Schiele’s skeletal, disturbing depictions of the human form. After creating an observational drawing from one of these photos, I photocopied an image of bones on a plate and used tracing paper and black ink to combine the two images to create a completely new composition. As I had worked in paint up until this point, I also began experimenting with line drawing and still using the image of the bone, I created a two minute line drawing in biro. To extend my experimentation further I then used a photocopy of the image to create a continuous line drawing on the sewing machine; this exercise encouraged me to continue experimenting with working in different media as the image on the sewing machine was successfully channelled my interest in line and form. As a result I also created a continuous line drawing using thin wire; this experiment was also successful and was equally visually evocative of Schiele’s sketches. Inspired to continue using different media, I looked at Picasso’s light drawings and replicated his use of light to create continuous line drawings. In order to ensure that my project remained consistent and showed a clear development of ideas, I used the light drawing technique to distort and obscure my face, thereby creating self-portraits which reflected my interest in portraiture and also my experimentation with line drawing.

After playing with different ways of depicting form and using line to distort the face, I created a focused pencil drawing of a bone to show I was capable of using a more focused technique as well as a looser style. However as I was eager to continue playing with new materials, I used paper folding techniques to distort the pencil image and create an entirely new composition. I also flattened the model out and used the geometric folding pattern as a template for a small colour study in neutral tones. Finding this paper folding technique produced interesting results I continued exploring different ways of distorting images using geometric patterns; George Condo’s exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, which featured portraits in which the subjects face appears contorted and angular, further fuelled my interest in distortion and I was able to apply the paper folding techniques I had learnt in the previous exercise to my responses to Condo’s work. 

After exploring several different avenues within the themes of distortion and portraiture, I began developing ideas for a final piece. In order to progress my ideas further and make sure I produced a final piece that was both consistent with my project so far and that was interesting compositionally, I looked at the work of artist Sarah Van Beek. Her unique 3D collage technique inspired me to create my own collage of images; by setting up a web of thread across my staircase and then attaching images to the structure I was able to replicate Van Beek’s technique as the images appeared to be floating in mid air and thus created a foreground, middle ground and background. To extend my visual response to Van Beek’s work I also collaged together sections of the photographs I had taken of my installation; these two collage experiments were compositionally successful and enabled me to explore themes of portraiture and distortion alongside each other. Thus Van Beek’s work significantly contributed to the development of my final piece as it was from the 3D collage installation that I began developing my thumbnails. From the three collages I made in response to her work, I continued to use tracing paper, fine liner and paint to refine the images in order to stimulate ideas for a visually exciting and relevant final piece.  As I enjoyed the collage exercise so much, I also took another set of photographs in which I played around with the idea of collages, however instead of creating a paper collage, I stuck the end section of an image of a bone to my mum’s face. In these photos, I intended the bone to appear as though it was part of the face, however due to the quality of the paper, it is clear in the photos that the bone is a separate object to the face. Despite this, these experiments generated more ideas and I was inspired to use the concept of a bone emerging from beneath the skin as an image for my final piece. Developing on from this idea, I photocopied the observational drawing of the bone I created earlier in the project and stuck sections of this image onto black and white photocopies of some of my photographic portraits. The effect was visually interesting and achieved the effect I was hoping for – the skin appeared to be stripped away to expose the bone – and these experiments also combined techniques I had learnt previously in the project such as sewing into images in order to emphasise facial features. I also continued using the collage technique to arrive at an interesting composition and looked at some of Andy Warhol’s screen prints, which enabled me to incorporate continuous line drawing into my final piece. In fact, because I enjoyed the continuous line drawing exercises so much, I created a small scale etching of a bone to print on top of these collages; this etching was particularly evocative of the line drawing techniques (such as using thread and wire to depict the form of a bone) I explored earlier in my project.

As a result of my collage experiments, I arrived at a thumbnail image I was happy to develop into a final piece. The composition of this image combined all of the themes I had been looking at so far in my project; not only did my observational drawing of a bone feature as the central anchor of the image, the thumbnail also included four prominent faces around the edge of the bone. Therefore the image successfully united my interests in portraiture as well as themes of ugliness and distortion. After creating a colour thumbnail from the brief collage I had created, the image also evoked the artists I had looked at earlier in my project, especially Klimt and Schiele although the image also strongly resonated with Sarah Van Beek’s 3D collage work.