So it's been a long time in the making but it will finally arrive tomorrow the official deadline for handing in of this Blog. I can't say that the experience of writing this blog has always been pleasant especially when I was going through periods of time with a lack of inspiration and little to write about. Having said that, I am so happy that I stuck with it because I feel in this blog I have an outcome I can be proud of. Its like a chronological experience of my past year of being an artist and when I read parts back, my mind is flooded with memories. And although this will be the last post that I have made for this handin it will not be my last post ever. Because, I plan on continuing my blog into my 3rd year and beyond university into the real world as this element to my practice really helps my reflections of my work but also helps me see how I'm working in different periods. For now anyway I am glad to have finished.
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So I just completed my end of year studio assessment. An experience that scrutinises your every thought, every process and every key outcome of your year. This assessment carries a heavier percentage waiting towards the studio module than the January Assessment, bringing with it the added nerves and anxiety you could expect from an assessment that has the potential to decide your overal year grade.
This all said I came away with a Mid to High 2:1 an achievement that I know I should be proud of, unfortunately I'm not. I This semester has been my most eventful of my university career so far. It has seen my practice develop in leaps and bound over just a few months. I am now working more productively than I ever have before and there are several reasons for this.
The year began coming off the back of the January assessments. I was happy with receiving a 2:1 but I was also disappointed, I still felt I could achieve more. I continued to work with a concept and theme that had proved fruitful over the last year. Through using experiences from my own childhood, I could question and make statements regarding the society that I live in. My interest and research lead me to base the first pieces I created this semester around drug addiction and drug abuse. As a adolescent I had been involved in recreational drug use, using it as and escape from life’s
Over the past week its been quite hectic trying to get some work done. It was my birthday on the 4th and that caused no end of problems with work flow, especially considering how close we are to the deadline. Anyway because I just wanted to work on my drawing and not worry about my blog I have decided to upload the four latest pieces in the Many faces of masculinity series all at once. The self portrait representations of myself are not accurate they are made up using photographic adaption software, exaggeration of existing lines and photographs of family, friends and others for reference. All of which are mix together with my imagination.
This post is to simply say thank you to Michelle and the group for a great year. And good luck third years I hope you all obtain the grades you desire.
Ive never organised a trip away with friends to specifically view art galleries before. Especially considering this was not organised at all by the university, and all the research came from us, I felt a real sense of achievement having done it like I had started to really find my feet in the art world. Also this was a major step on from my previous semesters showing that I'm improving my contextual awareness an area I have been laking in on previous assessment. (For more information on the artwork in the trip please visit the Exhibitions page)
Presentation for the symposium and it documented the entire process of Inner Absence from its birth as working title to taking the exhibition down.
Although I appeared to have no nerves and by all accounts I gave a very good speech I was absolutely petrified I put in some jokes on the slides to try and take the edge off the talk but I also tried to make the speech using no notes as the piece of paper could have been distracting and due to my dyslexia it would have probably be harder to read it anyway. In the end our group got excellent feedback from the guest speaker Lesley Guy and the buffet had no left overs. Job well done I think.
A great day out its so nice to relax now the exhibition worries are over. It's refreshing space and time to pause and think about what has been achieved so far. That is while viewing some amazing works in some of the most prestigious galleries in the country like, Marlene Dumas in the Tate Modern. (To see more in depth detail about the trip please go my exhibitions page.)
Almost every day I will see myself in a mirror. And every time I do this, I see the person I have grown up with. Having said this I never noticed drastic changes in my appearance, the only times I see these changes are when I see myself in photographs from times gone by. Leading me on to my self portrait; exposing myself to be captured for one moment in time. Opening myself up to criticism and objectification with no extroverted, overbearing, opinionated voice to hide behind.
I tried to look into influences from my life that may have unconsciously formed the sort of man I am and others around me are. While I was looking it was amazing to see how these social constructs appear to start from as soon as you are born. And I was most shocked by the lyricist some Disney songs describing what it takes to be a man almost providing children with an inferiority complex as the characters they describe are almost impossible to match up to. They also very much teach a young boy like religion of his dominance over women, and enforce a subservient woman to be the object of a man.
Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man and Michelangelo's David Both historic, meteoric figures of the art world from the Italian Renaissance have separately been fascinated by male perfection. They both tackled it in there own individual ways da Vinci to draw, Michelangelo to sculpt. But, both depict a man they believe to be in his prime. I only ask how does an average man measure up to these giants of perfection. An yes these men were representing perfection hundreds of years ago. So how is the contemporary male different does he still need everything that the men of the past needed.
Beloved it or not but I have actually never been to the Library. And today Alex asked me to go to the library with him so we could discuss our Art Context Essay concepts and run through ideas and artists with each other. I agreed it would also be an experience working with someone as usually I do everything on my own. In the end we had a great time I ended up coming away with about 15 books. The library is massive and I didn't feel particularly comfortable working there. At home there's a kettle, a toilet, Silence, Music, a computer... I'm used to and the library just wasn't a comfortable environment to work in for me. Having said that the books and resources I came away with will be really useful and the research I did with alex just reaffirmed the train of thought I was going down, I think the session really helped him though because when we went in he wasn't sure what he was going to write about but by the time we left he had a much clearer idea. My time was spent looking into fascinations of the body based on sex using the artist I had looked a previously and the I wrote a brief essay plan to try and structure myself.
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Richard CassidyEmerging artist from Derby, England. Currently a student at Sheffield Hallam University. Archives
May 2015
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