divergentpracticeghitacraig

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

Final Work in Situ +

Evaluation

This strictly two-dimensional exploration of domestic objects and acts, and their sentimental meaning naturally grew into an in-depth print-making and photographic project exploring the formal aspects of these items. Although I took great pleasure in the print-making process churning out abstract print after print, I sensed a few opportunities where taking it into the third dimension would have been fruitful and that has generated some ideas for Creative Inquiry. As well as the print-making process being satisfying, I believe the outcomes to have been successful too. The slightly abstract, industrial, symmetrical black collographic prints were meditative to produce and striking to behold. However, I would have liked to have done an exploration into colour as well in addition to three-dimensional objects but felt that would have deviated too much from the original brief.  

   I failed to read and reference the texts I intended to in my proposal, about which I am regretful. Though I do believe I was able to maintain a focused and sensitive material investigation into everyday objects as I set out to. I based most of my artist research on artists I saw in the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna, Italy making sure to be mindful of this project whilst on holiday and seize the opportunity. Throughout this project I experienced practical difficulties with cyanotype and Polaroid processes which I could not help but be disheartened by as these were integral to my developmental work, hence the emphasis on prints and Polaroid emulsion lifts and lack of abstract photos with expired film and cyanotypes. However, when it came to presenting my emulsion lifts on fabric, I am particularly pleased with my construction of bespoke individual light-boxes and feel that is perhaps the most professional component of my final work.  

If I were to be honest, though I am proud of my series of prints and light-box frames, I do not believe I pushed myself in this project as much as I wanted to or at least took risks in the wrong areas and wasted money in the process. That’s the one thing I would do differently and will do differently in Creative Inquiry.  

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

Developmental Work in Studio

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

Making a light-box

I am fortunate enough to work in a picture framers giving me access to materials and advice on how to construct my miniature light boxes for exhibiting my Polaroid emulsion lifts.

I had a basic enough understanding on how canvas' are stretched and framed that I could in theory just scale it right down and do that with my emulsion lifts. I need to stretch it around a wood skeleton which would also provide some distance between the fabric and the LED light strip. A deeper box frame was essential to accommodate all the internal parts, alas it still wasn't deep enough to hide the battery pack inside so that will protrude out from the back. Finally, I backed it with a piece of white board to reflect and diffuse the light and make it as bright as possible. I am very pleased with how they turned out.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

A futile gesture...

My attempt at making a larger scale at home cyanotype failed (again), I believe it has something to do with the pH of my water supply.

I didn't like the composition all that much anyway; I prefer the singular or paired objects the best. But I would like to have had it be a successful development to vito than a failed one.

If there's ever a next time, I'll be more selective about my substrate, access a UV exposure unit and and cut around the acetate objects so as to not have too much acetate blocked the light to develop.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

A detail I really like are the tears; the indications of a violent interference that cannot be hidden when trying to reconstruct the design. Evidence of a manual handling of the objects in its past-life; a memory of its function and expiration, represented in its renewed form with new function.

They possess a personified haggardness, and a delicate dignity. They've withstood hardship and are still standing. I feel this relates to the initial inspiration of domesticity in a bittersweet way. I started out with this concept in a naive and underdeveloped way; not sure of how the work would unfold. I eventually found out how my objects spoke to me and what meaning they had. They convey the monotony and mundaneness of the labour of keeping a house, as well as a strength and pride. I feel it's an easy thing to overlook and under-appreciate, I've often been guilty of it myself. But it's these ordinary everyday tasks and acts and rituals which give us a basic joy and sense of purpose worthy of respect. No matter how tiresome.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

Object Development

Reassembling the objects I printed with inside out. After declaring this would be a strictly 2D project, this simply seemed like a naturally evolved next step especially as a segue into Creative Enquiry. The edges now possess angles as well as parallels, and occupy space in a far more encompassing way. As vessels, containers of space. The bare lines where the printing ink couldn't reach highlight the edges and meetings, as well as the texture of the surface possessing a staticky, photographic, noisy quality.

Because they were originally boxes and packaging it's interesting to perceive them inverted and how they present as the equal opposite of their former selves, now black; almost occupying space negatively. Mirrored but estranged, like the prints that were made with them.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

Just a few more...

I couldn't help myself; I had to do a few prints with more boxes I found that possessed curves, tears, perforated edges, cut-outs, folds and odd forms when unfolded.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

Final Idea: Point of Separation

I keep finding myself returning to this collographic print of some cardboard. I'm attracted to its geometry, the little negative windows, the horizontal symmetry, textures from the different surfaces of the card. This is the object that I want to take to the final, with a more refined print on large-size, higher quality paper. I don't want to increase the positive value of the image; I want there to be an abundance of white negative space around the print to keep it minimal and stark.

It's that edge; that periphery or perimeter creating a distinct silhouette yet creating this ambiguity as to what the object is. Focusing on the peripheral value of these objects, I would like to explore this by taking the objects I printed with and reassembling them to see how they relate to their 2D counterpart for final exhibition. Because once it's reassembled that outer edge has changed but also remains the same; it now moves around the 3rd dimension and meets itself at certain points. It becomes less disjointed and separated. Through this, there's a dialogue between the objects in their assembled and disassembled states. That process of deconstructing and disassembling, creation, and reconstruction and the recording of that has been fascinating to me alongside my photographic studies and a most enjoyable practice. I definitely want to continue printing objects I pull out of the recycling, and probably do a coloured series in Creative Enquiry, maybe even make screenprint screens and layer up the colours and play more with the idea architectural resemblance.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

This series of prints records the degradation of a piece of cloth after the repeated cleaning process. After every time I printed with it, I rinsed and wrung it out before putting it in the washing machine. The piece of cloth representing a teatowel/cleaning rag, and the entire process a metaphor for the entropic and sisyphean nature of domestic labour; as soon as you've finished doing a big clean, more mess has been created that will need to be cleaned. The degradation of the rag conveys the toll of constant cleaning and how tiring the monotony of labour can be.

But it's interesting, the difference between each print is much more pronounced when they're side-by-side, however during the process I was paranoid each one just looked like the last.

Again, pleased with the conceptual and visual strength of these. I just wish I did them on much bigger paper than A2 to have more negative space around them and they would appear more archival, they appear very tight and boxed in.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

Digitally I arranged all these together, manipulating scale and flipping orientations to get them to roughly fit in a neat, rectangular layout, and to abstract them only slightly.

The idea is to make a literal blueprint of the contents of a recycling bin, taking inventory of consumption, the necessities and luxuries of domesticity, the recorded memories of meals shopped for, prepared and shared; the everyday sublime.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

This trial didn't go very well; the exposures on fabric barely worked - I think due to not pressing the acetate flat to the substrate thus letting light and ruining the exposure. Because the exposures were better on artboard but still mixed.

The acetate of one of my previous prints (bottom photo) came out surprisingly well. I really love the variation in texture as an inversion of the original; I thought the lack of black value would have made it turn out poorly but the total opposite happened.

This inspired me to prep a composition to create a larger cyanotype with a collection of items to further play with positive and negative space and develop this idea.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

Prepping acetates and cyanotypes on both calico fabric and artboard.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

Instead of printing singular objects, I wanted to start combining groups of objects to see how they interact together and see how proximity plays into the overall composition.

The second photograph was a print of the contents of my bag after a night-out laid out in a semi-organised format, reminiscent of a blue print or a piece inventory for a model-building set. Conceptually I find this very interesting, a recording of a memory through the rubbish generated turning them into significant objects.

The last photograph is of the newsprint used to protect the blankets for the roller-press, but there is something lovely about the outlines and mid-tones and irregular shapes paired with the squares.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

A little bit more from MAMbo...

The first artist had previously working as a furniture maker and upholsterer and applied those skills in creating large amazing three-dimensional pieces that played with shape and light and shadow. Almost acting as an optical illusion. I'm attracted to this for its lack of colour value, to put the focus on how light interacts with it. And the fact he used nails and acrylic on canvas that consequentially looks like white leather, he could have done something similar with ceramics or plaster but instead he wanted to utulise existing expertise to create tension and strain in this material to great effect.

The second featured artist created a series called Gesti Tipici (Typical Gestures) depicting peoples silhouettes void of any stylistic signifiers and simply relying to nuanced and individual gestures to giveaway whose silhouette it is. This is very similar to what I'm trying to achieve through my deconstructed prints, relying on only silhouettes to convey the items identity.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

EDGES & PERIPHERY

SILHOUETTES

NEGATIVE/POSITIVE SPACES

BALANCE

Once printing these on to acetate, I was able to play about with arranging compositions and layering and kind of enjoyed their fluid patterns and forms. But I think I'm reaching the point where my objects are unrecognisable and are taking on a new identity as something else.

[divergentpracticeghitacraig]

These were my original scans of objects after I edited them increasing contrast and brightness and converting them to black and white and inverting them.

Configuring them in a grid like this almost reminds me of a classic black-and-white-tiled kitchen floor. Also very graphic and Warhol-esque, and honestly too sterile. It's interesting how inverting the colours doesn't make a drastic difference to their form, perhaps because they're inanimate objects. That effect usually has more impact on images of people.

The purpose of this process was to increase the saturation of the darkest areas so that I could print the images onto acetate as negatives for cyanotypes on fabric and paper.