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Week 10 class activity ADAD1002

NOISES

After lengthy observation of surrounding noises within our environments we have come across the reoccurring sounds of shoes on pavements. People walking around and the sounds they create is something we rarely take notice of and observe however it surrounds us daily. This is depicted in our short compilation of people walking on cement.

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ADAD1002 Assessment 2 - Final work 

Concept Statement - 

My work Puzzle of Being, explores the way in which our body parts throughout history have determined and created the social construct of the gender binary of man and woman. My work aims to interrogate these ideas and representations by proposing it is something we can construct, change or re-define through our own exploration of self 

My exploration of this concept developed strongly through my research during assessment one. It was through these explorations of artists, artworks and conceptual practice that i was able to build the foundations for my practice led research throughout assessment two. When approaching experiments in assessment two I chose to build off previous work I had conducted to discover how I could extend my knowledge and ideas. 

Jansson Stegner, a New York city based painter, paints portraits of both male and female subjects. However, Stegner in his works exaggerates and minimizes others, similar to the style of comic books. Stegners work depicts the two genders in ways that contradict popular representations of the gender binary. Females in his works are often depicted as muscly and strong whereas the men shown to be skinny and small. For one of my experiments I distorted the Google image search of perfect man and perfect woman by pasting images that do not align with the idealistic ideas society has constructed of the male and female gender, such as women with hairy armpits or men wearing makeup. 

From here I carried on with this idea of un-idealistic representations during the exploration of the concept of value. I used clay to make two statuesque figures one male and one female but conveyed body shapes that aren’t highly valued within society. However, like Alex Seton’s work, Washout 2008, I attempted to create an illusion with the material. I used white and grey paint to resemble marble. My intention here was to, through cultural codes and values attached to marble sculptures of the human figure, trick the audience into viewing the figure as ideal and of high value. 

Whilst I conducted other experiments it was the combination of these two experiments and my conceptual foundations I built in my initial research that led to the creation of my final work. My work, Puzzle of Being, consists of eight puzzle pieces with body parts attached to them. Upon reflecting from what i’d learnt so far I found myself responding to my ideas about gender and the binary as puzzling. This gave me, and from my previous experiment the idea to work with clay. I measured each piece out to be the same size so that they would visually hold equal value and significance. The inspiration to then attach a body part to each piece was inspired by Picasso’s cubist portraits. I found that by dissecting each paining you could slowly pull apart the artwork to understand essentially the ‘puzzle pieces’ that made up the figure. In my work I chose to represent a range of body parts but most significantly the reproductive organs that are used to signify the male and female genders. Furthermore, the conceptual decision to paint my pieces in bright fun colours was based off a similar motive for why I chose to in assessment one. Throughout my practice led research it was important for me to keep that element of playfulness and freedom that i expressed evidently in my poster. Puzzles are often seen in the environments of children and can be solved individually. Here in my work the collaboration of the bright colours and the puzzle pieces was to reinforce and promote the feeling of playfulness amongst the audience, but also a personal activity for the individual to discover and experiment with how they would fit together for them. 

I am very pleased with the outcome of the work and the quality I was able to produce. The process was extremely valuable to me and my conceptual growth as I learnt a lot about how the binary is interrogated in works of various established artists. To conclude, I believe contemporary art and design will continue to interrogate and investigate the socially constructed binary of man and woman and will accommodate and promote a safe environment for which people can explore their own personal journey of who they are, a journey of which my work is intended to assist in. 

Bibliography - 

https://www.pablopicasso.org, 2009, ‘Pablo Picasso’s Cubism Period’, Accessed 1 September 2018, <http://www.pablopicasso.org/cubism.jsp>.

Seton, A 2018, ‘Home’, Alex Seton, Accessed 13 September 2018, <http://www.alexseton.com>.

Stegner, J 2018, ‘Paintings’, Accessed 2 September 2018, <http://janssonstegner.com>.

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completed painting all my pieces :)

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Painting my pieces. 

After some consideration I decided the body parts will match the colour of the puzzle piece. I have also decided the colours will be bright and playful. I made this decision based on the reasons i chose to use bright colourful paper in my poster assessment. 

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I paired the puzzle pieces with the body parts that best fitted the shape of the piece.

Side note, the fact that the puzzle can go together to create this formation has no conceptual value.

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In my previous experiment i worked with clay to create two male and female bodies. I quickly realised this strayed away from the direction I originally explored in my poster and wanted to go back to that initial concept. 

One element that was quite evident in my exploration was this idea that we can create and figure out who we are rather than the two culturally developed gender binary of male and female. I wanted to continue communicating this idea in my body of work as it is a topic which i believe is becoming more and more evident throughout society. 

I came up with the idea to create puzzle pieces which would have different body parts attached. 

this is the beginning of my process

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Experiment 

During week 8 we explored the concept of value during class. I was most inspired by Alex Seton’s work, Washout 2008, where he created a material illusion using marble made to resemble plastic in the form of a cheap watering can. 

Following the research we did in class I went home and applied this concept of value to an experiment that regarded my topic. The idea was to create two bodies male and female but in physical forms that are less valued by society or have been previously. My intention was to create a muscly woman and a skinny man, two forms from which i found through previous experiments and research are not ‘idealised’ by society. I then painted my clay sculptures with white and grey paint to resemble or give the illusion of a marble sculpture. 

The overall aim of the experiment was to create two forms which oppose the current ‘idealised’ human figure and propose two others. I did this by creating the illusion that they are marble sculptures in order to tap into societies cultural codes and symbols, which recognise this art form as ideal and considered of high value to society.

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In week 6 we explored the concept of context and time and arts relationship to these factors. In relation to my assessment topic I made a collage/timeline to convey how the genders male and female have been portrayed from 1700-2000.

Each image has a 50 year gap in between and all the images are works of art.

The experiment conveys how the genders have been displayed and portrayed over 300 years, images which depict the ‘idealised’ male and female.

It is interesting to see the change in how male and female are represented in art, influenced heavily by the contextual art practices and techniques of their times.

People often use the term life imitates art. It is interesting to think how heavily influenced the constructed binary of male and female has been through art. What will paintings of male/female look like in 50 years, will art play a role in challenging the gender binary or will society dictate its portrayal. These are the questions which will continue shaping my practice in my future experiments.

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Week 5 activity

aesthetic jewellery

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experimenting with collaging men and women’s faces. exploring the fluidity of gender identities. 

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Picasso cubist portraits

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Posters created to represent the inequality prevalent in various art galleries.

useful to my topic as these posters use signs and symbols to represent the genders so that people can quickly identify the message behind it. 

Also interesting to see the massive gap in who is being represented in these respected places and the huge displacement of female representation. 

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https://www.mbart.com/artists/192-nathaniel-mary-quinn/works/

“Nathaniel Mary Quinn makes large-scale, mixed-media drawings and paintings of collaged and fragmented figures, through which he demonstrates that we are all the sum of our experiences. In his words, “I hope to convey a sense of how our experiences, both good and bad, operate to construct our identities. I also want to portray a mutual relationship between the acceptable and the unacceptable, the grotesque and what is aesthetically pleasing.” Formed from an amalgam of family photographs, images from articles and advertisements, and his own furious brushstrokes and charcoal marks, the men and women who populate his compositions appear as hybrids, at once monstrous and delicate. For Quinn, they are portraits of his fractured family, and images of our multi-faceted selves.” (https://www.artsy.net/artist/nathaniel-mary-quinn?page=1&sort=-partner_updated_at)

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https://www.christinaquarles.com/

Christina Quarles 

“My project is informed by my daily experience with ambiguity and seeks to dismantle assumptions of our fixed subjectivity through images that challenge the viewer to contend with the disorganized body in a state of excess.”

Quarles is a queer, cis-women who is black but due to her pale complexion is often mistaken for someone who is white explores the human body, identity, gender and race through her practice. Quarles’ contemporary paintings seek to explore the ‘vague’ and dismantle societies constructed binaries. 

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http://www.janssonstegner.com/Jansson Stegner

“I have always been interested in figurative art that is grounded in realism yet isn’t confined by its rules, and takes great expressive liberties with the human form.” 

Stegner as a teenager loved the over the top subjects and the style of medium in comic books. The simplification of elements and the exaggeration of others.

In Stegners work he likes to push the boundaries of the human form in an more expressive and interesting manner, than the representations he’d been so inspired by as a teenager. 

Stegner’s paintings are not typically portraits of actual individuals. He tends to start out with an idea of specific characteristics he wants the figure to have which he often can’t find in just one individual so he takes parts and elements from a range of sources to construct his vision. “In that way, I guess my paintings are the opposite of portraits. They are not a reflection of reality, but a suggestion of what reality could be.” (Stegner)

I like the way Stegner constructs and forms his own representations of various human forms. They challenge mainstream depictions of the female and male structure by portraying a greater sense of fluidity between the two. 

http://www.janssonstegner.com/

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ADAD1002 Semester 2 - Start!

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Concept statement and reflection

For assessment task 3 I carried out a range of experiments that explored failure to communicate. For my final work I wanted to challenge the concept of communication and exemplify how meaning can be misinterpreted and lost when the form only works for one individual and not the other. This notion is so evident in todays social environment, with the complexity of the online world, we’re constantly saturated with a range of forms of communication which can often be misconstrued and misunderstood. 

‘Tricks with my dog’ is an exploration of the communication between me and my dog. In the video I present my dog with basic commands typed out and I perform the physical command that usually partners the vocal aspect. I paired the clips with an upbeat happy jingle to exemplify the predetermined failure and ridiculousness of the concept. The video comes off quite silly but very blatantly portrays communication failures.

However, it was through my first three experiments from which I developed my final concept. For my first two experiments I sought to test the bond between sound and images and see whether they generated different effects. The failure of this relationship meant that what was intended to be communicated got lost in the distraction of the gap between image and audio. For my third experiment I looked at non-verbal communication forms. I created a collage of images that portrayed a range of emotions and then I edited out the eyes and mouths. The removal of these features meant the images could no longer communicate their original meaning. 

From here I created my final work which incorporated previous elements I had experimented with. The exploration led me to realise how fluid communication is and how often it can fail, which is what I chose to represent in my final work.