Texture Inspiration and Experiments

Finding the details within materials is what inspires me, and exploiting the surface.

Paint Cracks/ Details Research: 

Texture Inspiration/ research online (following on from Burri's Cretto).

Creating texture on fabrics to create these wonderful paint cracks. This image is fashion Alexander Wang for Balenciaga, acrylic paint on jersey. 

Beth Nicolas, Catch My Breath, marbling with gold detail. 

Cracks in the paint by Enframed. These cracks reveal a hidden detail within the image. 

My Own Experimentation in Illustrator: 

Original

I created this using an image from last term of cracked paint splatter on stainless steel, (see first image) and enhanced in Adobe illustrator using the graphic trace tool, to make it solid and graphical, an effect that I remembered from a few years ago while creating a catalog for exhibition, which can turn images into illustrations. 

Another image:

Reflection:

• There is something about this decay that contrasts with the immaculate surfaces of the sculpture I'm working with, and it goes back to what was said in Gerard's previous exhibition session about comparing juxtaposing materials to make them stand out.

Further designs: 

Exhibition Session with Gerard

Basic Values of Gerard's work/ presentation of his work:

• Textiles - drawn to through family history
• finds it difficult to make art for the sake of making art
• context, research, response 
• handelstreetprojects.com
• values in relation to how the practice operates..and interrogating in order to arrive at an outcome
• window works installed into the walls 
• Using empty shops in central London - jewellery shop window works, filled with consumer products. 

My methodologies within my practice:

• Good to have a deadline as it helps keep discipline.
• Work well under pressure. 
• Well & badly made works - my work relies on some skill to be created, a polished look or seductive finish  - if this is juxtaposed with something that is badly made, then it is affirmed by something that is well made. (My last final piece had elements of being well made from the polished detailed surface, juxtaposed by the inside of the piece that represented the labour / roughly made element of the piece). 
• Work is led my process and materials. 
• Aesthetic - surface perfection.. value... 
• Dual critique / political approach - a critique of commercial artwork as well as a desire to be to the perfect standard. 
• Reflective journal to help writing an artist statement. Reflective journal helps to interrogate what I want to say. 
• My practice works by: critique of commercial art, and desire to create a perfect surface... material exploration... aesthetics... designing in my sketchbook, then trying it out, then realising my designs don't work and re-designing... 
• The details within the materials - when i'm happy, it's an innate response to when I know the work is finished. 

Ideas for exhibition :

• Surfaces, focus on the surfaces and then think of a form of display. 
• Work is driven from value and aesthetics.
• Maybe the work will be in a dark room, think about staging. 

Discourse Text: Stuart Morgan's 'An Art Against Itself: Robert Smithson's Drawings

Key Points & Reflections:

• 
• Seeing void as actuality, p.1.
• "Space which may or may not be constructed as 'real', is inscribed with lines which function as edges. For the artist these lines are acts of work, meant to control and destroy space originally regarded as empty". p.1. This quote reminds me of my own work and the space I construct through reflection. 
• This void of the blank page is seen as space. 
• 
• Smithson's quote: "an art against itself... an art which always returns to essential contradictions." Could this be self sabotage?
• Eva Hesse and Smithson 'fought to regain possibilities for self-expression in sculpture'.
• "He began as a minimalist, making gallery pieces out of folded steel." - echo's my own work. 
• 
• p.37 Artworks made to last... spiral jetty made to change ... eroded..

Reflective Log: The Surface

Last term I created this stainless steel piece by using a hammer, and then experimented with photographs to capture or expose the surface details:

• The photographs of this piece work well to enhance the textured surface details. The surface could be mistaken for another world, as the details do invite closer looking. There are areas that pick up light and it's this detail with the light that enhances the surface, and so perhaps lighting and even installation will become more important to my work. 
• Overall, what is consistent with my practice now, is my engagement for the objects surface, or the surface of an artwork in general. This has overtaken my other engagements and I now want to focus on the material, and the surface, in particular for its attention to detail, and hidden details in the material. 

Studio: Working With Wire and Stainless Steel

After my wire wrapping designs and ideas I decided to have a go: First I experimented placing the wire and wrapping it around a spare piece of stainless steel, across the lines where the light hits it. 

Next I chose a better (more cube shaped) piece of stainless steel and filed the edges and curved the sharp corners. 

Hammering the aluminium wire to create a flat edge worked quite well, and the soft metal is becoming a nice juxtaposing material to work with compared to the stainless steel. 

Applying two pieces of wrapped aluminium to the steel, using metal glue. I then applied a third piece of aluminium wire as documented in the final images below: 

Reflections:

• The flat edged aluminium wire is placed above / coming off the stainless steel to give it a more 3D approach. The aluminium wire has been placed in areas that the steel bends to reflect the light.
• The wire also creates its own reflection in the steel which is another element that I want to bring into this term - what is reflected in the steel. 
• The three minimal wire lines work as they do not look overcrowded, and it doesn't ruin or take away from the surface of the stainless steel. 
• This worked really well and I feel like it is a more finished piece  to a more 'professional standard' to what I usually create, however it is a lot more 2D rather than 3D sculpture. This could always be added to though. 

Developments:

• I could continue with this approach and make a series of these wire and steel sculptures, but I feel like they could even have a frame around them. I will have to consider how this could be staged or hung next... 
• I really like the way the aluminium wire can be hammered flat and perhaps I could include this somehow into previous wire sculpture, or create new wire sculpture using this method. 

Feedback from Punctuated Cubed Exhibition

• I thought the Punctuated Cubed Exhibition worked well and the Vinyl names on the floor was an excellent curatorial decision, which looked professional. 
• Overall,  in terms of my own work, I got a sense of letting the materials decide what they do, and this new connection with the process and material, especially as aluminium wire is a new material for me and I need to explore this further. 

Artist Connection: Antony Gormley & Aluminium Wire Experiment

DRIFT, 2007 - 2012

The above images feature 'Drift' from 2007-2012.

• "I've never been interested in making statues. Rather than representing the body itself, I try to show the space where the body was. Neither architecture nor anatomy, the DRIFT works are more like the random matrices found in fractal geometry. These bundles of nothing are the most de-materialised works I have ever made. The bodies are free, lost in space, weightless, and with no internal determination - they are not 'acting.' They appear as emergent zones: you cannot be sure whether the bubble matrix is produced by the body zone or the zone by the matrix. The bubble matrix series is the closest I get to Brancusi's notion that you can turn an object into light. He did it by polishing sculptures, whereas I have tried to do it by abandoning weight and mass and dissolving surface."(Antonygormley.com)

• Drift is made using 3mm square stainless steel bars.
• The way the material fills the space, it makes the sold sculpture look like a liquid, its mesmerising in the way that it fills the space, rather than though its material.
• Gormley is interested in his work representing space the way that a lot of sculptors are concerned with as I have found during my previous research, but the way that Gormley does this is slightly different as many of his works, like these three I have chosen, capture the space by leaving the space revealed. They are not closed or solid sculptures, and I like the idea of working with the fluidity of the space in between. 

Console III 2016

• I found this artwork after my further design (see below) yet it seems quite similar.
• The thin bars work well to create an extension of the cube, and look like a geometric pattern at the same time.

CHORD, 2016

• "CHORD is a light weight reply to the fixity of a column, an obelisk, or even Brancusi's Endless Colum: all of these convey an impression of stability and make a solid bridge between above and below, whereas CHORD evokes a more dynamic relationship between matter and energy. "(Antonygormley.com)
• The way this has been joined using balls to connect the tubes looks interesting and could be something to incorporate with the joining of my own metals.
• I am still more compelled by the material than anything, and how it has adapted to the space around it.
• Gormley compares his work to Brancusi, suggesting that he is Brancusi's postmodern counterpart.

Reflections and own work:

• Last term I was inspired by Anthony Gormley so I created some designs using aluminium wire which reflected a geometric pattern. Below is the documentation of the first attempt at my aluminium wire experiment:

Reflections and future development:

• I don't think this style of work represents what I want to achieve. I could continue this sculpture  and make a larger structure, but the imperfections within the work is too much for me - the uneven wire and joining methods just look too tacky. 
• Gormley offers a new approach to look at expanding my own practice, to enable my sculpture to have a more sold form, and joining methods.
• If I can figure out how to weld metal, my work would be so much more succinct. I could try stainless steel or aluminium bars to weld instead of this thin metal wire, and experiment in the ways Antony Gormley does, particularly in his work 'Drift', as the capturing of space is turned into a sold sculpture, which at the same time looks like space itself.