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Photos of final exhibition (taken using camera)

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End of FMP Sketchbook with additional pictures of my final exhibition

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End of FMP Journal

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FMP Journal

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End of FMP Sketchbook 2

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End of Paris Journal

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Paris Journal

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Paris Journal

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Paris Journal

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Foundation Diploma in Art and Design                         Saffron Lily Rose Unwin

Evaluation for Final Major Project

Title of project: Mental Illness Through Art

Pathway: Illustration

 ·      To be able to submit a personal statement of intent

·      To understand the importance of contextual references

·      To know how to solve problems by applying knowledge and experience

·      To be able to present a Final Major Project

When starting my final major project, I really wanted to focus on ancient art including Egyptian and Greek. Throughout my time working on this I realised I just simply could not gather much inspiration for what I was doing, I was just copying pictures. And so I began doing research before coming upon an article about a coursework project a student had done surrounding the circle of life. This gave me the idea to focus on something more brutal and impactful and so I decided to change my project to Art and Illness. I personally suffer from mental health problems myself so I felt I could relate to some of the work I would produce, making it in my opinion more meaningful.

I was unable to book the studio during the first week of FMP so I decided to use past life drawing pictures to experiment with. I wanted to create demons which would be far from the normal photos. I looked up some artists along the way including Jenny Saville, Olivia Crumm and Edward Honaker, all of which have a unique connection to art and to mental health either through photography or painting.

I did my photo-shoot inspired partly by Olivia Crumm due to the inclusion of cling film on my models. I felt that it was a really successful shoot and I was able to gather a variety of photos that can carry different meanings towards mental health, some being quite obvious and others being rather hidden such as photos of Emily which have her looking away or with hands over her face compared to Millie screaming which is more in your face. I also made sure to do edits, to which I found the black and white versions looked the most effective.

I straight away jumped in and began working from my photo-shoot images, firstly using fabric to experiment with. For two of my pieces I placed bars over the top to represent a kind of metaphoric prison that people often feel trapped in when they suffer from any form of mental illness. My two large fabric pieces were my favourites, the red hand amongst the black helped to create the feeling of separation and differentiation, whilst the blue links to depression and sadness and with it sprouting from her head with the black this shows pain and anger, especially with her gripping her head/hair.

Over the last week before our Easter break, I started using cardboard. I painted using acrylic and a picture of Tiegan with cling film on her head and face. I attached cling film to the painting to help make the link between the 2D form of suffocation and the physical form of it which I thought the cling film could represent and I felt this turned out rather well. After feeling I had exhausted my use of cardboard, I looked into abstract expressionism, due to the link it has to mental health I feel that in many cases people can view things a lot differently to others, also linking to the Rorschach test. This test is used to discover about personalities and even emotional functioning. I used a variety of medias to create these pieces including watercolor, acrylic paint, tissue paper, ink and charcoal. I liked how these came out but I felt they strayed too far from my initial meaning of suffocation and so I wanted to back track a bit and visiting the Hepworth Gallery and Yorkshire sculpture park helped me to generate new ideas for my work. I found Kimsooja’s exhibition rather intriguing at the YSP due to her use of color and Magdalene Odundo’s pieces were fascinating at the Hepworth due to the link her work has with the body.

After this visit I felt inspired to continue with my work, starting with two canvas boards that I painted on using acrylic. I did one with Emily’s hands covering her face in black and white and added a Rorschach style symbol on her head. I then did one of Emily using masking tape to block out areas before adding black and creating a piece similar to one of my fabric pieces.

When taking down one of my small fabric pieces, I noticed it had transferred the charcoal onto the wall creating an incredibly ghostly appearance, this suited my project extremely well with the feeling of isolation and no one hearing you scream as it slowly fades away.

I then tried re-creating the transfer using fabric and a different picture onto cartridge, however, I felt that I may include the piece on the wall in my exhibition so I decided to leave that for now.

Another idea I had was to create pieces that were pill-shaped with illustrations inside. Pills and medications are linked to mental health due to the way they either help people or make things worse. After having a large group crit featuring some of my work, it was suggested to me to make the pills actually pill-sized and small due to the more appropriate link they could have an upon me doing so I realize that this really reminded me of Marie Harnett’s work due to the small scale. I then placed the pills in an empty pill tray and put this in a frame ready for my exhibition, as I would feature this on one of my walls. I felt this was extremely effective in the frame and makes the viewer want to come closer to see the attention to detail in each one of the pills. On the pills themselves were the illustrations of Millie screaming, hands on a face and Emily looking down, also linking to my meanings of mental health and how differently it can effect people.

My two large scale final pieces took me two attempts to complete, the first time just failed completely as they came out looking very cartoony and nothing like the images whereas on my second attempt I felt they looked much more realistic. I later added prints of cling film and actual cling film to the bottom and top piece and the walls they are displayed on in order to convey the feeling of suffocation, using the cling film as a symbol.

Overall I’m very pleased with how my pieces all came out. They all express the meaning of feeling trapped and suffocated. I really love the use of cling film as it is a clear substance so you could almost say that it isn’t there, just like how mental illnesses are ‘just in your head’. I would say I’m connected to my work due to how I sometimes can feel the same way that my piece look, like being overwhelmed or using medication that doesn’t actually help. I painted my walls black and white as both colors can represent different meanings, black being like a dark nightmare and white being isolated and lonely. I feel I want to reach out to those who also suffer from a form of mental illness and say that I understand how they feel and they shouldn’t be afraid to talk about it.

Extended Bibliography:

(part of SOI)

https://rubysmedley.com/home.html

https://prezi.com/q59vz4anb6ii/psychosis-distortion-and-mental-health-in-art/

https://themighty.com/2017/09/mental-illness-creative-community-artwork-art/

https://www.nomadicpress.org/interviews/timothyhlee

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/umsl-show-reveals-talent-emotions-those-mental-illness-others-can-learn-and-enjoy

https://fullercraft.org/event/mindful-exploring-mental-health-art/

https://www.tjwalshtherapy.com/blog/using-artwork-to-understand-the-experience-of-mental-illness

(All after SOI)

https://jakescharbach.com

https://www.leonardodavinci.net

https://www.modernmythologycomicart.com

http://www.goodillustration.com

https://www.lesleybarnes.co.uk

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lysippus

https://theculturetrip.com

https://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/guillermo-del-toro-home-monsters

https://the-artifice.com/art-tim-burton/

https://www.mchampetier.com

https://www.saatchigallery.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantinos_Volanakis

http://michelfiffe.com

https://www.tomfrenchstudio.com

https://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/beautiful-portraits-by-davide-cambria-/

https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/January-2017/Mindful-Exploring-Mental-Health-Through-Art

http://www.artnews.com/2017/03/14/mindful-exploring-mental-health-through-art-at-virginia-museum-of-contemporary-art-virginia-beach/

https://www.studentartguide.com/featured/dark-matter-coursework-project

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/edward-honaker-photography-mental-illness_n_55f0759ce4b03784e2777fbb

http://www.michal-macku.eu

https://www.marenklempart.com 

https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/the-groundbreaking-self-portrait-that-launched-jenny-savilles-career

https://artreport.com/exploring-mental-health-through-art/

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/early-abstraction

https://ysp.org.uk 

https://www.biography.com/scholar/francis-bacon

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edvard-Munch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Plath

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-woodman-francesca.htm

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-bacon-francis.htm

https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/1532/francesca-woodman

 (Books or other)

Man Ray – The great photographs (book)

Taschen Pop art – Klaus Honnef (book)

Goya – The Disparates (book)

Gerhard Richter – Tate Gallery (book)

Shape of Light – Tate Gallery (book)

Alfred Hitchcock – The master of suspense (book)

Leonardo Da Vinci – South Bank Centre (book)

Manolo Valdes – Foundation Maeght (book)

Magdelene Odundo – Hepworth Gallery (gallery)

Kimsooja – Yorkshire Sculpture Park (gallery)

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Overall final exhibition pieces. (taken using IPhone)

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This is what my booth looked like before making minor changes and painting my floor black. (taken using IPhone)

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Initial test of printing with clingfilm

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FMP Sketchbook 2

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FMP Journal