visuallanguagepeyton

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Project Statement

Throughout this project, I focused on the Index brief. I used the theme of “The Things We Leave Behind”, focusing on creases in bedsheets and how they represent us having been there. I touched on my loss of my mum, but I also feel I was successful in making my work relatable for everyone who has lost, as it was not overly personal. I feel that I managed to communicate this theme well, through my work, and was able to create pieces of work that had a feel of presence in them, but were also slightly abstracted.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Final Submission Folio

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Artist Research

Robert Rauschenberg was an American painter and graphic artist, born in Texas in 1925. Rauschenberg created art as he believed that artwork communicated one’s true feelings and thoughts, and put a lot of his own emotions into his pieces. He was known for using unconventional materials to paint on.

“Bed”, 1955.

In this piece, Rauschenberg painted on his own bed using oil paint, he did this to challenge artist “norms” and test his imagination when it came to how he could create art. The bed, with its untidy and unmade sheets and pillows, creates an environment of intimacy and presence. The bed looks slept in, untidy, and you can tell that it once belonged to someone. While Rauschenberg’s intention was merely to challenge traditional practices, I have found ‘Bed’ to be incredibly influential for this project specifically, and have also found new meaning in it that suits me personally. When I look at this piece, I can feel a presence of someone or something once being there, in the bed, and this has inspired a lot of my own work, including my final sculpture and my photography.

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Final Drawing

My final drawing was very successful. I really liked the way that this turned out. I added the slogan “your bed, your head, your body, your mark” to emphasise the meaning behind the piece, and took inspiration from my final sculpture to make this drawing. I liked the clear use of line but also the addition of shadow on the pillow.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Final Sculpture

My final sculpture was very successful. I emphasised creases on bedsheets using ink and placed them in a way that looked like a bed that had been recently slept in. I feel that this shows the way marks that we leave behind well, and how creases in bedsheets represent a presence being there at some point, even if they aren’t anymore. I was very happy with the result of this piece.

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Final Sculpture - Making

I first made a pillow, with a mark of a head on it and the creases that would be left by someone lying there. I really liked how this worked, and decided that for the next pillow, I would leave it blank, to show the presence of only one person, my mum. I will use the same technique as I did making the marks on the pillow to make marks on the sheets.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Developmental Sculpture

I creased the fabric and then used ink to paint on top of the creases and emphasise them. I really enjoyed how this turned out. I decided that, for my final piece, I wanted to make a more full sculpture, and make a full bed out of the bedsheets and ink.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Initial Sculpture

For my initial sculpture work, I wanted to make physical creases in bedsheets. I used cut up bedsheets and pinned them to the wall in ways that would crease them. I really liked how this turned out, but wanted to emphasise the creases. I decided that for my developments, I would use the same idea as I used in my projection work and emphasise the creases using ink.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Developmental Drawing

For my developmental drawings, I decided to make it more obvious that my drawings were of creases in bedsheets, and so I drew a pillow, and two full views of beds with one side of the duvet undone and slept in. I liked how these turned out and decided I wanted to make my final drawing of a bed.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Final Photography

I really liked my final piece. I liked that the creases looked very raised and obvious, and I feel that the warmth of my final really shows a presence. I feel this was very successful in showing my theme.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Developmental Photography

I zoomed in even more on the creases and focused more on them. I then edited the photos to be warmer as I liked the warmth in my first developments and hadn’t really used that in my next developments.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Developmental Photography

Further developing my photography, I wanted to focus more on the creases in the bedsheets rather than the whole bed.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Developmental Photography

For my developmental photography, I used my mum’s side of her bed and also made the lighting warmer. I felt that the warmer lighting made the photographs feel more like there had been a presence there and the fact that the bed was my mum’s made it more personal, while not being directly linked just to me.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Initial Research Drawings

For my first drawings, I decided to do line drawings of creases in bedsheets. I really liked how this looked but found that it didn’t look like bedsheets and wanted it to be more obvious that it was creased bedsheets rather than just lines.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Initial Research Photography

For my initial photography, after the first photographs I took, I decided that I liked the idea of creases in bedsheets. I decided to take pictures of my bed after my boyfriend and I had slept in it. I liked how these turned out but wanted them to be slightly more abstract, as I didn’t feel that they were quite developed enough.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Artist Research

Artist Research VL

For the Visual Language project, I have decided to work with the index brief. Working with this brief, I am focusing on the theme of things that we leave behind as people. I am looking at the creases that we leave in bedsheets and how they represent us being there and leaving a trace of us behind. My work is focusing on loss and grief, but also in a healing sense, looking at loss through the lens of a part of the person we are grieving still being around.

Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin is an English artist, born in 1963 in Croydon, who's work focuses on her own experiences with trauma, loss, mental health issues, etc. Some work of hers that really resonates with me includes her work in her exhibition 'A Fortnight of Tears', which details her experience with grief and the loss of her mother. The exhibition focused on grief and all of the feelings that come with it, and the work felt very relatable and personal to me, even although it was not my own. Emin's perception of grief through her work is something that I am very influenced by and want to practice in my own work as I really appreciate the way that she can make her work feel personal to the viewer without taking away from how personal it is to herself. The work that I have been looking at most in preparation for this project is Tracey Emin's 'My Bed', which depicts the artist's bed after suffering a depressive episode.

While not directly linked to my work, this piece has been very influential to me whilst researching and gathering information for this project as I feel that, while looking at the work, it is very easy to see and feel the presence of a human being, even without anyone being there. I want this to be felt in my work, the idea that someone has been there, even if they aren't anymore, and that they have left something behind.

[visuallanguagepeyton]

Artist Statement

In this project, I will focus on the Index brief. Through my research, I have decided to take ‘Index’ literally, and look into the things that we leave behind, but in an emotive sense. I will use sculpture, using bedsheets to make 3D pieces, while still taking the drawing/line aspect of the project into account, photography to capture literal things we leave behind, and drawing, focusing on representing creases through line. I will take inspiration from artists like Tracey Emin and Robert Rauschenberg.