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The Reflection and Evaluation text

To sum up my research experience throughout the year I would say that reading was a very big part of my research in the beginning of the year, and as much as possible reading a physical book as opposed to from a digital source as I much prefer analogue ways of learning and researching. The names of some of the books I read for research are Collected Works (French Surrealism) Volume 2 Artaud, Antonin and Corti, V., diary of Frida Kahlo an intimate self portrait, Ariel by Sylvia Plath, just kids by patti smith. These books and others were not only research but also inspiration. The book on artuard was great for research on the theatre of cruelty, which inspired a lot of the raw bloodiness in my paintings. And Sylvia Plath's Ariel inspired me to write poetry of my own to be included in the film I was making. Another thing that I researched which has been imperative to my research experience and ws experienced later in the year was french new wave cinema. I loved how it was new and strange at the time, it caused people to ask questions about directorial choices. Something I was inspired to do when making my film. I was definitely inspired by Sarah Kane's work on the whole, for one because I love her guttural, raw , expressive writing. And for two, the fact that she was mentally ill and suicidal but still wrote and expressed and achieved everything she did then maybe being mentally ill isn't such a bollard in the way of expression and creativity. This definitely inspired me to create without so much care and to be more raw when writing about my research and when inspiring paintings. As the year went on, February happened. The way that I approached research changed, I was definitely still researching and using the research to create my work but I was now using my own personal experiences as the research. Thinking back to how I was feeling and what I was thinking during certain points in the last few months and weeks has really helped me to create things that feel more authentic, because the research was a solid base to bounce off of.

research has been the base of everything from my blog to my pieces and everything else in between. Research has given me the ability over the weeks to find inspiration, add context, create an idea and so many other things. Starting with the research for everything I do has really helped me to stay focused. Researching before I wrote entries in my blog for example really helped me to hone in on exactly what I wanted to say in each entry. Another example is that researching art styles to be inspired by before starting a piece really helps the piece of art feel layered. 

In conclusion, research has been a foundation for my whole project. It has allowed me to create layers within my project and to be inspired for new ideas within my project. It has added a depth to all my work that would not be there if not for the research. It has been necessary to every part of my work and helped every piece of my work.

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april/may

in april/may i was still recovering as i was told it will take a year. i was also documenting my self and had been since march, documenting my recovery month by month eeek by week. this was a way of collecting material and also showing my self my stages of recovery, which can be a nice thing to see as sometimes it feels like your not getting better but this shows you how much you really have healed. i used photography and film as mediums of collecting aand doocumenting myself frrom march to june. i knew i wanted to use these documentations for something for the degree show but i wasnt sure exsactly what. i knew i wanted it to be a film. so i did research on art films for inspiration. 

creating the painting i used oil paint and acrylic, i had origionally intended to do the whole painting in oil paint but for cost reasons i used acrylic paint too.i used a diffrent , more opposit pallet than usual in my paintings. in most of my previous paintngs i used a bright light coloured pallet and i wanted to change from using these kinds of coloures to using darker colours and a more muted pallet. this was to challenge my self to not doing the same things over and over but to step outside of your box.i wanted this painting to have a diffrent more serious energy than the others i have painted in this course and i feel that the change of colour pallet helps this alot. 

i enjoy combining film and perfromance, i have always enjoyed perfromaing but instead of acting in the typical way of a script and such, i perfer to try and use documentation of real life events as the acting and this gives me an oppertunity to perform, in the film. the film is a mix of raw moments and documented perfromance, edited in such a way that it takes you on a journey. it alo includes poetry, i enjoy writing and perfroming poetry. i felt it would make a good sound track for the film as it it also a very raw expression of what happned in febuary.

the theme of my work and my art for the degree show deffinatly changed after feburary, it focused on one specific experience of mine, what had happened in febuary. this is for two reasons, one because it felt sstrange to not mention it on include it or focus on it. and two because it was a cathartic neccisary thing for me to do to process what had happenedd to me. this also felt like the best way to document the raw feelings. 

may

april

march

febuaruy

my finished peices for the degree show

Stills from my film “ICU Celestial” film,2021 and below is my painting “Crawling on all fours (bloody knees)”, oil and acrylic on canvas 30ft x 5 ft. They are my final peices, to be shown together. 

this is the link to the film - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZcB7bw1jpE 

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march

march was spent recoverig physicaly and mentally so that i could do the work needed to comlete my written and practical work to complete the course on time. however i did do some sketches of hat i wanted the themes of the film to be and how i wanted to finish my painting. i wasnt able physically or mentally able to do much more as i was recovering and spent alot of time asleep.below are the sketches i did manage to do , my hands were still not back to normal at this point and so the sketches are not ideal but they are deffiatly apart of the process of creating my peices. 

i also researched themes and inspiration for my peices by watching documentrys and videos on art and artist. som are linked below, french cinima to inspire me for my film and a documentry on francis bacon to inspire the oil painting part of my painting. as i have mentioned i was still very porley and recovering and so no where near as much work was done as i would have wanted was able to be done because i was so unable. but i hope this show of what i did and could do helps illistrate my process even though it was diffrent an strange due to febuary. hoever i belive and have experienced that as a n artist/creative you have to be able to be changeable. so i have seen this as an excersie in being changeable and flexable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R7R0JHvvgo - documentry on french new wave cinema

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duifkYe9kXA - documentry on francis bacon

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febuary

febuary was strange. i woke up in the middle of it after two weeks, unconcious under sevrel layers of sedation in the intensive care unit. i spend the rest of the month untill the 23rd in the hospital before comming home. i very nearly died i was told very solomly by a surgon with a hint of fear in his voice and eyes. i told him as that may be this was not the hardest thing i have ever done, being homeless at 16 was definatly harder than being looked after 24 hours a day by kind sweet nurses and doctors. he nodded and understood. but that look of fear in his eyes stayed with me. i nearly died. very nearly. if someone who helps people who nearly die for a living tells you with fear in his eyes you very nearly died then i am incined to think that i was more seconds away from death then days. that woke me up. being told that freeded me. i have a certian fearlessness i didnt have before. and aside from the life ruining aspects of what happend, being reborn without fear and more seperate from my self and ego is something i cant complain about. i dont fear death anymore. truely. and that makes me free. i used to say i didnt fear death before this happened. but it was easy enough for me to say that without haveing ever nearly died. but i can say with certiantly tht i do not fear death. it has changed my experience of creating as an artist. before i was wispering and now i am shouting. i didnt have to perspective or lack of fear before to create the art i knew i wanted to make. the art that scares me. that is painfully dissgustingly honest. this is the art i make now. that is what january brought to me. as well as chaning my experience of a physical form, a body and exsistance in this reality forever. 

in the hospital i made only two eices of art and wrote only one thing. my hands were not working properly after being asleep and not moving for so long , which is why the writing is scrawlled and the drawring scratchy. 

they are included below

in the hospital i also reasearched into only one artist as i was very tired from the open surgery that that was all i was capbable of at the time. i read and mainly looked at the photos as i found reading hard at the time, the book was poileroid  about the artist robert maple throp. i was drawn to his art after readding just kids, by patti smith. his phychadelic drawrngs and object sculptures resonated with me, the sculptures being a beautiful collision of found art and photography and pornography turned into art.

his later photographs are what i found exteremly inspireing for my own practice because of simmilarities such as e are both queer people, we both document our lifes and our loved ones and peple around us and we both used sexually explicite material in our art, as art and not just porn. 

when thinking of how to make what i had done for thi blog pre febuary and marry it with wht i had written post febuary felt false with out an explination or at least an inclusion of what happened, because it influnced my life in a massive way and so impacts my art in a massive way and so it felt wrong to not include. as i am writing this a voice in my mind says its too grafic, its too honest its just too much. and some people may think that true but i dont. i belive in brutal honestly in my art. i think it is the only way.

and so i hope that you find this to be true also.

i was very inspred by lucian fraudes sketches.

the book on maplethorpe.

patti smiths book just kids

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january

This week I spent time in the studio as usual and tried to get the absolute most done possible because i have received a letter saying the university will be closing meaning I will have no access to the studio and so compelling my painting will be quite hard so i am trying to make the best of the situation by getting as much done as possible whilst i still have a studio. This week I have been focusing on planning/ collecting research and starting to plan the other aspects of my installation besides the painting. I have been playing the general themes of my film and collecting the writings that I want to collage to create the film/ sound track of the film. I bought some clay for my sculpture and am going to research air drying clay as i have only experienced with normal clay and fifrying but i think it will be a fun opportunity to expand my experience with different kinds of clay. I am also starting to create a performance / ideas around what my performance will be, artuards play spurt of blood is inspiring me a lot around my performance. The book i have been reading this week is tracey emin's book strangeland, i know a lot of people either love or hate tracy but her work the bed was the first piece of artwork i ever saw past older paintings at my local gallery when i was younger, and when i saw it it showed me what art could be , i didnt realise i could be like that and so her and her work is very sentimental to em and i also connect to her alot and her honesty within her work is something i think is important and that i try to put into my work, i try to make honest artwork, especially when making work about topics that are more stressful, i think she showed me it's important to be honest especially then.i have been thinking a lot this weka bout my image and the self , my self, i have been considering experimenting with drag , as a non-binary person, to express this research and that is something i may pursue in the future. i was inspired by louise borgouse’s art about her relationship with her father. 

tracey emins book strangeland

non-binary drag queen bimini bon boulash

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december

This week I made more progress on my painting and spent time in the studio. I am experimenting using oil paints for blending and layering something I haven't done before which is fun. I am continuing to research so that I can begin to make my other pieces of work that will together create an installation with my painting. The books i have been looking at are frida kahlo's diary and kim gordens book girl in a band.i have been researching the theatre of the absurd and the theatre of cruelty. I have been watching Ryan Murphy's films as research for planning to make a film , I find his overwhelming aesthetic inspiring. The absurdity.  I am also thinking about frida's self portraits and how surrealistic they were and that I want to capture that in my painting, surreal self portraits in my own way. I have also been inspired by childhood and my own childhood and have made a series of drawings about it to inspire things I will paint, they are linked below.This week i spend time in the studio again furthering my painting bit by bit, as it is so big working on it every week is important if i want to get it finished in time for the degree show. This week i was reading through a book on vivian westwood, her punk fashion designs really inspire my art. Particularly the diy aspect. This week I researched performance art and looked at the artist Vanessa Beecroft. I have been researching neo expressionism this week and reading about basquiat.  I have also been planning my sculpture.i have started to also plan my performance, i will be using things / monologues that i have written. I have also been considering the context of mental illness in my painting and the artists i have been looking at previously. i was very inspired by the artist tetsumi kudos and his other wordly creations.

Vanessa Beecrofts work. above and below 

two pages from fridas diary, incrediable inspiring and beautifuly raw.

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november

This week I put up my canvas in the studio and created my own space in the studio. I have been looking at books on frida khalo specifically on her self portraiture, as a lot of what i make is self portraits. I have also been reading books on surrealism, I have researched artists like dorothea tanning and also have been watching marina ambramovic performances online such as the aaa-aaa performance. I have also been looking into other theatre practitioners and playwrights such as Samuel Beckett and artuard. I have been painting things on my canvas that are in theme with femininity, the body and its links to being non binary. Below are images of and reflecting these things of this week.  this week I spent time in the studio as usual, chipping away at my painting. I have really been trying to, over these past weeks , create a painting that is much more neo expressionist and less illustration style. Much more abstract style painting. This week I have been looking at blood and guts in highschool by Kathy Acker. I really enjoy how she has written a book in an atypical way, using drawing and a script format and other strange ways of constructing a book that I think are so interesting and very inspiring. I have been researching video artists such as charlotte prodger, her use of iphone diy looking footage inspires me as a lot of what i do is diy at heart and i am also inspired by her use of themes around gender identity, although it must be said i do not agree with her choice to lock up her work digitally for the highest bidder. I have been researching into photographers especially queer photography , such as nan goldin , i love her photographs, their documentary stye inspires me alot as my phtotgrphy style is very based in documentation. My life as a queer person much like goldin did in new yorkI have also been re reading sylvia plath poetry, especially ariel especially daddy and mad girls love song. I have also been creating drawings and writings based around previous sketchbook pages I made around childhood and also home life and the home and my personal experience with these things. They will inspire what is included in my painting, my painting is coming along nicely, there is still a lot of space to fill but the narrative across the canvas is really coming together now i have been working on it for a few weeks now. i researched into and was inspired by katy morans paintings. 

my favirout painting by frida khalo

the book on artaud i have researched in.

mad girls love song, a poem by plath.

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october

This week I planned the term ahead, the research I plan to do and the work I plan to create.

Plan for studio- i plan to paint a 30 ft x 5 ft canvas, it will be inspired by medieval tapestries. I want to make a few pieces of work and put them together as an installation, including video, sculpture , performance and fashion. These are some drawings and plans of what will be included in the tapestry. This week I have focused my research on creating a list of 10 artists I am inspired by and then to read things by and around them and their contexts, inspirations and work. The books that i have been reading this week are Ariel by sylvia plath, the complete dramatic work of sarah kae, this is a mind map that i created, and attached are also some more images of inspiration, a mood board style collection.  i used oil pastels to make a few plan sketches for new parts of the tapestry painting. I haven't used oil pastels on their own before and it was useful because I find it easier to find the colour combinations I want when using oil pastels vs felt tips.  I added the new pieces to the painting.  I am experimenting with two mediums today for my oil paint. The books that i looked at this week were the letters of van gogh and a book on bacon and his paintings. I am interested in violence and blood being portrayed through oil paint and bacon's approach inspires me . I also feel a kinship with Francis Bacon as a person. I have been researching into existential dread philosophy, i think that that links to death a lot and i find that a lot of my work is about emergencies or trauma are about death or topics that are linked to death and this year i have definitely be more actively considering it as a main theme rather than more of a symptom theme of the workThis week I have also been doing more drawring than usual and trying to fill sketch books and draw and make intuitively and freely in bulk, i find whatever comes out into the sketch books when i work like this very helpful for content and ideas and inspiration and recurring motifs.  The images are below. i also researched into nan goldin and her photographs of the queer experience.

the bayeux tapestry, an example of a tapestry and what i aim to create with my painting.