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“Untitled” by Brady Cooke.

122 x 61 cm acrylic and oil stick on canvas.

I painted this over a very long period of time. I began working on it early in the semester got about over half way through and stop working on it because I didn’t like the direction i had taken it in. I found it was flat, lacked a sense of depth and an overall meaning. While some times it is great for me to paint for the sake of painting, because i tend to envision the work fully completed before I begin to paint. This was something i tried to avoid in this work, i began by painting the arm and really liking its features so then i began on the face, however this is where I faced the most challenges. Due to it been the largest element of the work i struggled to detail it to the same level as the flower and arm. I also struggled to link all three visual elements together before i added the blue element to the face, which was one of the very last things i did. I really like this addition to the work because it ties together all the elements through the same colour scheme. Both the flower, arm and face, feature the blue and blues while only the face and flower have red elements. The text element “And suddenly I thought I was you” ties into this colour scheme. As the face has taken a small aspect of the blue arms persona and started to try to transition their red facial features into those similar to blues. It can be taken a personality, style, or even facial features and trying to imitate them. Despite the work bright colours i feel the work has a dark undertone, I like this contradiction in the work.

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Artist research - Chris Burden

I found Chris burden to be inspiring this semester the way that he pushed the boundaries of art and what art can be.

Particularly his work “Doomed”

Which was a time performance that lasted 45 hours and only stopped due to a gallery staff member saying that it was going on for too long. Burden said he would have kept lying under this plate of glass till he died for art but always would have stopped when an audience member interacted with him.

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Came across Lucy Mcrae’s work while reading an article and found her work to be inspiring due to me having no idea how she creates most of them due to her knowledge in science.

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Artist Research - Josef Hofer

just a painter i cam across during the semester in a book i was reading and quite liked his paintings.

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“Vitruvian Man” By Brady Cooke

A digital artwork that references the original artwork and it original title “Le proporzioni del corpo umano secondo Vitruvio”.

I painting this because during the semester in two artworks i used my own standing each and arm span to determine the artworks dimensions.

Not my best ever work but my second ever digital work. Still a lot to learn and get used to by was quite an enjoyable process something that i wish to learn more and grow as an artist in.

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“Vitruvian Man” by Leonardo da Vinci

I only released in hindsight that the technique of using my reach for dimensions of artworks was the same as this.

I use that technique most notably into Movement 1-30. 

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Artist Research - Tony Schwensen

Tony Schwensen is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on performance and video. Schwensen’s performances present an ongoing, and oftentimes satirical, investigation of Australian society from a range of social, political and cultural contexts.

I find Schwensen approach to art to be inspiration while our works might not be visually similar I think the works themselves are. The way in which he does humours art with a serious outlook. Schwensen’s practice is notable for its continual questioning of the role of the contemporary artist. For centuries the artist’s function, although changing, remained fairly unchallenged. During the modern era, however, artists began to break the creative shackles of conservative state support and aristocratic commission.

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Painting working in progress

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Artist Research - Sam Taylor Crying Men.

This work is no different from my own “Blood, Sweat & TEARS” in the sense all of the men are performing for a role, while they are real tears and possibly came from real emotional triggers it is still a performance for art.

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Artist Research -

Gilbert & George are known for their distinctive and highly formal appearance and manner in performance art.

The suits they wear are a uniform for them. They rarely appear in public without wearing them.

It is also unusual for one of the pair to be seen without the other. The pair regard themselves as "living sculptures". They refuse to dissociate their art from their everyday lives, insisting that everything they do is art.

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"Movement 1-30" Film on canvas.

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Artist Research -

“Wall Composition in Reckitt’s Blue” (2017) saw artist Dale Harding perform an adaptation of a mouth-blown stencil process used traditionally in Carnarvon Gorge rock art of central Queensland, the country of his Bidjara, Ghungalu and Garingbal peoples. Harding replaced the traditional rock ochres for an ultramarine blue pigment made from the popular colonial frontier powdered laundry detergent called “Reckitt’s Blue”. Use of this bright blue pigment to stencil a found shovel handle in an iterative gestural process, shines light upon colonial histories of Indigenous domestic labour that had subordinated generations of Harding’s female ancestors due to racial legislation (QAGOMA, N.D). Further referencing these women in the top right-hand corner of the wall, through three spectral linework outlines representing the artist’s matrilineal line. Gouges into in the wall simulate natural landforms and the river systems that connected Aboriginal people throughout south-east and central Queensland. Harding’s performance casts a wide scope on art production in Australia through culturally activating a wall within the Queensland Art Gallery while attesting to the importance of an arbitrary object to his own recognition of Indigenous cultural protocols in public institutions (Lynch, 2019).

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Artist Research -

In 2002 Carlos Amorales displayed his installation “Flames Maquiladora” for the first time at the South London Gallery. The work asked visitors to cut out wrestling shoes from sheets of vinyl and functioned as if it was a maquiladora. Referencing the countless transnational companies’ assembly factories that begun to spring up in the 1990s along the Mexican-US border set out to exploit cheap local labour. Amorales did not only make his participants work as a satirical parody of these practices but also alluded to the fact they were working for the art world. The slogan ‘Work for me, work for fun’ was displayed on a poster that explained how to do the toiling for free and in the end, no wrestling shoes were produced but rather simply the spectacle of performing artistic labour. Thus, the audience’s participation became the sole workforce, allowing for the work to not only serve as a metaphor. It also successfully outsourced the free labour that made the art piece happen.

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“A Self Portrait (Within My Reach)” is an artifact of an artistic performance where Cooke repeatedly dipped his right thumb in red acrylic paint and pressed his fingerprint hundreds of times onto brown paper. Slowing down and highlighting the invisible traces of self we leave through a laborious performance. Where the definition, clarity, and colour gradation of each individual fingerprint allow for Cooke to portray himself in a manner that left himself feeling vulnerable due to fears of bio-metric security. Again, utilising the concept of standing reach to determine the height of the work further emphasising its self-portrait qualities.

Better edited photo attached.

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“Movements 1-30” is a performative painting on a canvas the dimensions of the artist standing reach and arm span. In the work Cooke places an emphasis on representing his body and its potential movements. As these thirty lines capture the artist’s performance and focus on their representational qualities rather than the ability to capture the perfect line. Utilising these brush strokes to trace limbs, explore his reach and the details of his curved form. Further detailing his own form in the work through using beige and red to represent flesh and blood while the horizon line is Cooke’s waist height.

Better photos are attached.

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Artist - Zhang Yu

From a distant Zhang Yu’s 2008 installation “Fingerprints” appears to be three draping pieces of paper devoid of any visual language. Upon closer inspection the surface’s texture becomes visible: which are covered with thousands of individual fingerprint impressions. Yu methodically dipped his right index finger in clear water and then tenderly pressed into the rice paper to create these impressions, as the spot he touched eventually dried it left behind a subtle sunken dot (Wall Street International Art, 2019). During this meditative process Yu entered a Zen-like state allowing for him to further explore his spiritual boundaries and personal relationship with Buddhist philosophy. Due to the paper’s malleable abilities, it successfully captures Yu’s imprint through structural change and serves as an artifact of the artists’ labour and artistic creation. Yu was attracted to water because of its appeal as a ‘zero medium’, displaying qualities of emerging and disappearing, present and absent, emerging and disappearing. Causing the remnants of his fingerprints to point to the existence of nothingness (The Allure of Matter, 2019).

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“Blood, Sweat & Tears” is the display of three art objects that are derived from three different artistic performances. Consisting of three glass jars labelled “essence of an artist” and each containing napkins, paper towel and tissues covered in the corresponding bodily excreta. The work analysis and critiques the concept and history of artistic labour through the lens of satire and highlights the absurd nature of the declaration. Through proclaiming that the “essence of an artist” is the blood, sweat and tears they put into their work plays off popularised artistic motifs. Such as the tortured artist and the belief that time spent equals a greater artwork. Directly challenging the glorification and mythologisation of the archetypal masculine artist’s labour and its impacts upon the artistic canon. Further emphasising that every artistic decision was not one of precision and brilliance derived from pure forms of labour. Instead, the three excreta demonstrate that natural reactions, impulse decisions, and the unconscious are worthy applications of the essence of an artist. As these relate to the way in which the bodily excreta where naturally produced and collected. Leaning into this aspect through prominent showings of the artists hand been seen by the handmade label featuring the artist’s own handwriting.