Monsters?.

The group’s first collaborative task was to create an ‘exquisite corpse’.  Whilst other group members found the outcome to be aesthetically pleasing, I didn’t greatly appreciate the visual quality of the drawing. However, I did find the idea of combining different animals to make odd, unexpected creatures and so I used the idea behind the ‘exquisite corpse’ task and created my own creatures  initially through collage and then through drawings.

  Using the visual outcomes of the collages and hand drawing them to bring them back to my main area of interest: line drawing. Collage could be a good starting point for making work in future modules, as collages create images I would never expect myself to make through hand drawing. The collages are much more exploratory, and don’t have a sense of worry behind them, which some of my hand drawings may.

Collaboration..umm?

Not convinced by the title 'Monsters', but i cant say they has been much discussion in our group. I needed some influential inspiration, so i googled children's books with monsters in, and saw Sara Fanelli had made a book on 'Mythological Monsters'. 

Now ordered off Amazon, i am hoping to get some sort of inspiration..

John Stezaker at the Whitechapel gallery, London.

John Stezaker Mask XXXVI, 2007.

John Stezaker: Old film portraits, vintage postcards, cut and paste together.

British artist John Stezaker is fascinated by the illusion of images. Born in Worcester, and attended the Slade School of Art in London in the 1960s. Stezaker was a senior tutor in critical and historical studies at the Royal College of Art in London up until 2006.

Stezaker’s winning formula for the creation of his artwork is primarily collaging together two found, ‘vintage’ images, to create one new image with a new meaning.

Hoarding vintage film stills and studio publicity portraits from the seventies, he combines them with postcards to produce absurd compositions. By very skilfully and subtly adjusting and slicing separate images together, Stezaker creates unique new works with what appears to be minimal effort, yet the outcomes are commendably sophisticated.

  Stezaker’s famous Mask series fuses the profiles of glamorous movie stars with caves, or waterfalls, making images of beauty. Postcards of natural happenings, such as waterfalls, obscure the luxuriously lit faces of men and women, to allow unexpected windows on to the abstract landscapes of their minds. Postcards masking faces or hovering above them like ideas. His juxtapositions are not seamless, so that the eye is confronted by obvious disjoints that the mind has to resolve.

  This major exhibition of John Stezaker gives a chance to see works from the 1970’s to present. The word ‘surrealism’ comes to mind when looking at the exhibition, due to the juxtapositions of his collages. An interesting display of works, and a very well organized visual exhibition. The positioning of works in series force the observer to create a narrative across the series of pieces. The small pieces forces the viewer to walk up close, and engage with them up close, rather than looking at the work from a distance. By changing the distance in which these pieces are viewed, slows down the pace at which you walk through the exhibition. The white walls and the pieces spaced out. The atmosphere in the room was very quiet, and had a feeling of calm. The atmosphere made you reflective on the work you were viewing.

 

Brian Clarke- Works on paper, Saatchi Gallery, London.

Two Spitfires I. 2010

Table of Paint tubes, and caramel. 2010

This is a exhibition of Brian Clarke's unseen works on paper from 1969 to present day. The spitfire works were made especially for this show, and have a really interesting line quality about them. The fact only half a spitfire has been coloured in, is intriguing, fragments of line. 

"Brian Clarke is an artist of considerable achievement and his drawings are the point of departure for all his work; they give a fascinating insight into his artistic practice. Simon de Pury, Chairman of Phillips de Pury & Company. 

A week in London..

Interesting and insightful week, thrown in with the novelty of the underground tubes.