Book and Degree Show Update

After my last two posts I thought I would continue the seasonal/ degree show theme. The first image I have posted is a set of valentines day cards I have made as some of the students on my course are selling valentines day cards to raise some money for our show (thanks guys!) and this is my contribution. If you're studying at Leeds Uni then do look out for these stalls because there will be some lovely cards and bits to buy and give to your loved ones (aww).

The other three photos are images of my work in progress. I'm mainly working on books that use concertina folding as a layout but then have extra pages unfolding from the main body.... kind of like a puzzle book. I'm experimenting with different ways of folding paper to make intricate little books that can be played with when handling. I have also been sending books off to be professionally printed and bound. They mainly contain images taken from animations of my hands playing with paper puzzles. I'm still using the mono-printing and animating technique that I developed last semester to create whole images that I can cut into to make a book. 

Happy Valentines Day (way in advance!) 

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Degree Show

I'm currently a student at the University of Leeds and it's my third year so our Degree Show is coming up. I'd love for people to come if they can! Here's a little preview of some of the artists (fellow students) making work for it http://www.youtube.com/user/SeeMoreOpera

It's in June 2011 (between the 2nd and the 27th to my knowledge) and it's in the Clothworkers South building in the main Leeds University Campus. More information about where the Uni and it's campus is can be found at http://www.leeds.ac.uk/info/20014/about/157/how_to_find_us

My work is so-so but the other guys on my course are really amazing artists who I think will go really far! Some of their work will be for sale so if your looking for new and interesting art come along. 

You can follow this event on Twitter just type ArtDesignSHOW into the search box. I'm also following it and theres a link to my Twitter on this page.

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything on here for a while but I promise I will update you soon (when I actually have some decent/ finished work to show!!)

Thanks Everyone! xxx

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Some nice Christmassy Photos

I know they aren't about my work but technically they are still art :P 

Happy Christmas! 

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It's been a while....

So it's coming up to the 'Open Studios' event at my University where we all have to show a.... well it's not hugely clear: some tutors say make a couple of resolved, developed pieces to show and others say just pin up some stuff your working on; it's a work- in- progress show! Anyway with this in mind I thought I would show what kind of thing I'm making for it and also where my work has been going recently.

In my last post I was interested in working with books as my medium, and while I have been working towards that I hasn't been as central as I thought in this semester, but this is for good reason. In the book I mentioned before I found a quote basically saying you shouldn't make a book then find stuff to fill it with, or make a few sheets of work then stitch them into a book. The concept, process and book form should all interweave and be justified and developed together. So with this in mind I stepped back from making books and started to look at drawing techniques, my ideas, content etc to make sure what I was making would actually suit the book form, and I wasn't just filling books. So here is what I have been making. They are prints I finger painted on an aluminium sheets then rolled through the press so the thicker bits of ink smeared across the page. I have added a picture of one of Gerhard Richter's paintings (from a 2009 Portraits exhibition in the Portrait Gallery, London) to show who was inspiration for this idea. The prints are of me using my hands to be playful and touching books like they are precious objects and there are all sorts of ideas of protection and preservation in with this.

All the while I was making these images I was recording them with iStopmotion- some animation software I strongly recommend to anyone making animations! For the Open Studio's I plan to project these animations onto a book I stitched to show how my drawing/ printing ideas are going to be linked into book making in the next semester! Feel free to comment saying what you think- criticism included, I can take it, we get it from the tutors all this time! :P

On one final note I found out I am a 'bibliophile' which is someone who has a love of books. Sounds a bit creepy to me.  

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Starting to Look at Book Art

The second direction my art has been taking is Book Art. I decided to start looking into this format of working because I always work in sequences and there is a certain story or 'life span' within my work that I feel suits the narrative, sequential feel of books. I also love books as objects in themselves, and am very interested in the idea of 'treating' old novels and text books!

Last year I had started moving into this art form, using books to neatly display my reducing images and also to explore narrative and movement in little flick books. I enjoyed the process of making the books and using different papers and cards to make the covers. However I do feel my knowledge of book making/ binding is very limited and unprofessional so I aim to improve on this.

I'm researching book art for my dissertation so I have been exploring not only influential book artists but also the fundamental meaning or definition of 'Book Art'. A very useful book so far has been 'Speaking of Book Art' by Cathy Courtney. In the foreword (by Eileen Hogan) it claimed that book art 'could be described as books in which the form was used by the artist both to represent the content and as a vehicle for ideas.' meaning the nature of books could become the concept I explore, at the same time I will use books to articulate my thoughts on my concept (the nature of books). Yeah... confusing! However I feel this would be a good place to start in my research.

As well as this I found the work of Ian Tyson who makes very linear artists books. They show geometric rectangles of colour next to poetry by Jerome Rothenberg that perfectly compliments the images. I like the idea of using 'swatches' of colour; almost like a deluxe colour card, but having some complex puzzle behind the work that gives it more depth than just colour testing. I've started to make books exploring the idea of colour patterns and swatches, however the colour is never random, being based on a numerical system of adding tints and black to adjust the colour. 

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Exploration of Reduction

I've got two  separate directions that my work has been taking recently, and even more are entering within those directions making my work very loose and difficult to follow at the moment. Therefore I will do two posts today to help clear things up (for everyone- including myself!).

The first is reduction. This came from my looking at the dismantling of rooms in my last project and led into a more process- based exploration of how to reduce the paints and materials and physical elements of my images rather than the actual content of the rooms. 

Moving into my third year I'm thinking I will carry this on, still exploring how different materials can be built up, layered then reduced, but also I might explore the reduction, and separation, of colours. Two of the pictures here show my initial experiments into adding water to freshly printed pictures, then pressing them down into my sketchbook so that the colours partly transfer across to the clean page, but also some linger on the original photo producing a partly reduced image. The concepts behind this process are yet to be discovered but I can imaging they will dictate the subject matter of my photos. 

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Settling In

I guess settling in isn't really the correct term for the current stage my work is at. I've developed and explored quite a few ideas mainly focussing on memories fading and building and how the process of printing and drawing can represent that. I came across a quote in a book called 'The Production of Space' by Henri Lefebvre and started to look at how time was marked in my old house by the possessions that filled it. This led to me exploring how we had stripped the house of it's identity and age by taking out all of our objects to be moved into the new house. With the new house I'm looking into aspects of displacement and being unfamilier with a space.

A consequence of looking at all this in my project has meant that I have found it quite hard to think about going home. Obviously I enjoy seeing my family, having a bigger house, having food made for me by my parents etc. However my instincts recently have been to stay where I feel settled. So I've been at uni for maybe 2.... possibly 3 months now and haven't actually spent more then 2 days in the new house. It's no wonder I don't see it as home yet!

It will be interesting to see how I feel about my project when I have lived at home for a month over Easter.

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