First Term Of Foundation Diploma - Personal Evaluations

Throughout the first term of my foundation diploma, it has expanded who I am as an artist vastly. This is partially due to the short three-week projects and how it pushes creativity to its limit. This quick overturn of projects allows me to create work quicker but still maintain the concept within my work. By experimenting within different specialisms and areas which I would not normally use further allowed me to create work out of my comfort zone, expanding my horizons for future products finding ways to create work and visually communicate these concepts, maintaining emotion.

Within the first project the specialism was ‘Visual Communication’. The tasked brief was to create a zine within the title ‘Out of the Ordinary’. Here shows my personal evaluation of this project:

“Throughout this project our aim was to create a zine visually communicating a ‘mundane’ idea and be resourceful with boundaries to bring light to the theme. Within my project I started off looking at ‘closing the curtains’ then within my research I found it would be interesting to look beyond the curtains and what happens once we close the curtains, who we become and what we do once within the privacy behind curtains. Further within this project we were required to create a collage page within our zine and an A2 piece of work to then shrink down to fit within our zine. However, I chose to collaborate these two ideas into one piece communicating overthinking using fabrics to further add to this idea of curtains and how overthinking happens behind them for many people who suffer with anxiety/stress. Overall, the focus and task was to look beyond the mundane within our zine – helping develop ideas onto how to look beyond the mundane from research and experimenting with successful techniques to present subthemes within my zine. As stated, my zine investigated ‘Behind the Curtains’ with ideas such as: Overthinking, mourning, sex and consent and exhibitionism. Within research of an Instagram poll these were the most popular responses behind what occurs behind closed curtains along with online research supporting these ideas. Exploring these ideas by using fabrics linking ideas back to curtains and some fabrics within my A2 collage piece having curtain fabric throughout. By exploring the deeper meaning of closing the curtains and going behind to what people do and who people become I find I have met the criteria of exploring and changing the mundane into communicating emotions and experiences within my work. However, the only exploration of topic which does not communicate what goes on behind the curtains but out in the open is exhibitionism. I felt this would be interesting as it completely contrasts what goes on behind the curtains. Exploring this idea of exhibitionism using faux leather and fabrics to gain the texture of skin and create discomfort for the viewers. Withs ex and consent being the last pages of the zine to show the complete contrast of sex and exhibitionism. As exhibitionism is a vile offense that is committed where as sex and consent is human and ‘normal’ but still goes on behind closed curtains as exploring sexual activity in public is illegal and ‘taboo’. By putting these two at opposite ends of the zine I felt it would help the viewers separate the work and ideas that I am trying to communicate. Further into response to the brief I explored the ideas of overthinking and mourning by using imagery from photoshoots which I created. Exploring the emotions through facial expressions within the photoshoot and how these facial expressions can communicate further the sadness which is kept in our own privacy. I wanted each of these pieces to explore a sense of vulnerability as sadness is often seen as vulnerable by others in public and doing so through negative space and neutral/monochrome colour palettes. By looking deeper into emotions and experiences ‘behind the curtains’ and communicating these ideas in a vulnerable but expressive way I find my zine to be highly successful with fulfilling the brief and presenting my ideas towards the viewer. However, my initial ideas were to use illustrative drawings and a use of block colouring within my project inspired by Adams Carvalho. But as my work developed, I found that the illustrative style of work did not work successfully within communicating my ideas but in fact a more fabric and ‘messy/expressive’ style works more successfully within my work. His work however inspired my use of mono-printing to start off my material experiments which I eventually used within one of my pages in my zine. However, experimenting with colour blocking through the mono-printing process taught me that Adams’ style did not work for me but use of mono-printing can be used within my work but within a different style of work – working upon fabrics and focusing on colour line work. Within my project I explored a range of materials such as: fabrics/fabric scraps, bubble wrap, embroidery threads, string, paper scraps, mono-printing, screen printing using a homemade screen, buttons, gelatine screen printing and faux leather material. Which I felt was enough exploration in material as all these processes were used within my zine other than the paper screen-printing process but in fact fabric screen-printing. Within my artists Stephanie Fujii and Laura Edgar used the most similar materials and inspired my processes heavily throughout my work along with Cristiana Couceiro inspired my front and back cover of my zine. However, Adams Carvalho inspired my use of mono-printing and my ‘sex and consent’ pieces whereas the other processes throughout my work I felt Adams’ work didn’t hold much significance for my work due to the illustrative style and colour blocking. However, the look of his work inspired me to experiment with screen-printing leading me to do fabric printing and making my own screen. Unfortunately, no art movements inspired me significantly throughout the development and research of my project however the processes of each of these artists inspired my material usage along with my research and my own creative ideas supporting further my meaning and how to use these processes within my work with my own meaning. The main areas of success for these material processes I find was my exhibitionist pieces. These pieces used scrap fabric, buttons, embroidery threads and on the ‘boob’ piece it used fabric screen printing to allow textures on the fabric like skin. Whereas on the male stomach piece it used faux leather to present more of a discomfort and ‘skin’ appearance towards the viewer. I find these two pieces successful due to the discomfort that is created but also the non-realistic appearance of the pieces still communicating this idea of discomfort due to the exposure of skin. My actual use of material and communication of expressing male and female bodies within my use of fabric and stitching was highly successful along with linking to my idea of using fabrics because of my project linking to curtains/what goes on behind them. This use of materials to create discomfort and texture is inspired by Laura Edgar due to her using fabrics to create emotion within her work towards viewers along with her use of embroidery threads to enhance these ideas. However, if I had to make alterations within my project, I would have liked to have explored with more ideas and ways to communicate my ideas differently. Due to this being a quick three-week project it is all fast pace and refinement I found was quite hard to work upon – but this could be a matter of my time management and how I could adapt time management for later projects to be able to support these ideas of more work and different communicative ideas within materials/processes. Along with this I would have liked to have pushed my work further with ‘sex and consent’ as I found these were the least successful trials within the actual imagery behind the mesh curtains that I had created with embroidery, as I found these mesh curtains successful in communicating that extra curtain between ‘yes and no’ when giving consent before sex. Maybe manipulating my screen-prints or using a bigger gelatine screen to put my printed images upon as for these sex pieces I intended on using my ‘gelli’ screens however I found the imagery of the legs only worked well with the one and the nonprinting worked with the other. Maybe developing on the materials of my monoprints – on latex to give this idea of skin, could have communicated my ideas better.

However, by working at a fast pace throughout the project I found my brainstorm ideas came out a lot faster and were made physically easier and quicker due to limited experimenting time. My creative process has been improved by my brainstorm of materials and trying all of what I can – whereas before I was very limited with my materials. Becoming more comfortable with collage within my work I also found helpful throughout my work as before I found collage unappealing but once I started creating collage pieces, I changed my opinions completely and found this technique to work well throughout my rugged idea of overthinking. However, I would have liked to of explored sex and consent further within my work as stated before. But overall, the presentation, order and content of my zine is highly successful. I feel it follows the brief as well as exploring my ideas within that and successfully looking into what goes on ‘Behind the Curtains’.”

I found the creation of my zine to be a highly successful project as it explored topics that are often seen as ‘taboo’ using people who I surround myself with as research – developing a deeper understanding to everyone lives and how we all have a hidden life and experiences but when surrounded by others our experiences are kept behind those curtains as almost a secret, even though these topics are all incredibly common.

Further looking into how humans function my next project explores the decomposition of a human and the layers of our bodies that we cannot see. This was within the specialism of ‘Surface and Form’ and our brief was exploring ‘Layers’. Here is my personal evaluation of this project:

“Within my exploration of Layers, I chose to investigate decomposition of the skin and body. Using materials to present to viewers how I interpret layers, how layers can be presented and what they mean to me. By researching into body farms, looking at the decomposition of fruit to understand how it works and the hidden layers it reveals. Along with how I can communicate these ideas of decomposition of the skin and the colours it reveals during the process – by using information from our embroidery workshop within the project I knew this is how I wanted to communicate my work using embroidery, along with using inspiration from Andrea Farina and Erin Endicott. These two artists used embroidery to present different aspects of the body whereas Erin Endicott focused more on dissecting the body and Andrea Farina focused much more on the form of the body. Finding elements through my research within my photoshoot, sketches of bones along with my artists I found that I was going to create a ‘stretched skin’ using embroidery and fabric. Within inspiration of Endicott, I tea-stained fabric and painted on veins to bleed into the fabric to show the bloated skin after death to then embroidery hand bones with a fine back thread to show the contrast of layers within the body and stages of decomposition – Using reference from my drawings created in primary research for the bone imagery. I found this trial to be successful within communicating my idea of skin and embroidery which then took me onto my trail collaborating red veins created from string within my screen print workshop with another tea-stained fabric appliquéd onto it. With the tea-stained fabric exposing the red veins behind with hole cut outs in the fabric to present the layers benign our skin. Along with a skull embroidered onto it with a fine black thread to further show who we are beneath our skin which is then later exposed throughout decomposition. Along with the imagery of a skull being commonly associated with death it helps further push the imagery of death, along with the colour symbolism of red within the piece. By creating these pieces, it then pushed me towards using latex to create a ‘sheet of skin’ to embroider into. However, the latex was much stretcher than I expected which brought me back to the drawing board. While creating the latex work I accidentally left my pot of latex open which caused it to create a thin cup form. This then further inspired me to create a latex cup myself using a base structure of tinfoil and tissue paper with a latex layer on top. By creating a cup, it shows the outside with a skin and bone layer but when you look inside it shows flesh. By creating these ‘Fleshy cups’ in a 3D form it allows viewers to feel discomfort further by how similar it appears to skin textures – the unsettling textures and forms it creates within the cup makes it appear boney – creating further discomfort which then compliment the bones on my large embroidered stretched skin piece presented behind the flesh cups. Personally, I find that my work fills the brief as I explore the layers of our skin within how I view layers. Rather than showing layers in the sense of materials on top of materials, I wanted to look under our skin as we ourselves are walking layers. This sparked an interest for me so I decided to run with it.

Within my project my ideas have changed throughout my trialling process. As I began with the workshops and how these can be used to communicate my ideas of decomposition, I found my ideas transformed. Originally, I wanted to mono print on some fabrics to present gritty, black and white drawn imagery of bones and other bodily structures. However, while doing the workshop I changed my mind completely and did not enjoy the work I was creating. But then we moved into the sewing workshop which I then enjoyed most within showing my desired imagery of how I imagined the bone structures to be shown – holding shape but still appearing brittle due to the fine lines of the thread. Initially I tried embroidery by hand for my first smaller trials to experiment with the differences of hand embroidery and machine embroidery. Within my smaller trials I found that the hand embroidery worked well and the use of the fine thread was successful. However, due to time restrictions of the project communicating hand embroidery on the large scale which I decided to use would not have been possible within the time restrictions. However, I still found my piece to be successful even though I had to made adaptations for the large-scale piece showing bloated skin and bone structures. My embroidery piece showing the skin compliments the skin created by tea staining the fabric – creating layers of colour upon the fabric along with taking away aspects of the skin by cutting out holes in the fabric to take away aspects of the skin. By taking away aspects it shows the deterioration of the skin which I have desired to present within my work.

Within my project I find my final piece to be successful along with the progression of my work due to my research helping me with my material usage along with how decomposition can be presented in my own way. I would have liked to of used my hand embroidery within my large-scale embroidery piece but due to time restrictions I could not – along with not being able to work into latex. If I had more time, I would have found a way to communicate this. But overall, the work I have created project my idea of layers within communicating decomposition further and successfully.”

I found this project to be highly successful within my final product created along with the development of sketchbook and mood board. However, there were certain interruptions within the process such as UCAS week along with half term which elongated the project to six weeks. I found this effected my creative process as it effected the flow of my work and how I work – even though I felt this affected me my outcome was still highly successful. I had never used latex before or using machine embroidery within my work which pushed this project outside of which media I would typically use.

Within the final specialism of ‘Interdisciplinary Fine Art’ I explored a more personal topic of how body dysmorphia can be influenced by our families and the harsh words they bring upon us. My whole family are into fitness and are completely obsessed with their appearance which can sometimes lead to comments being made about each other's appearance leading to insecurity. As family comments upon your appearance often hurt and effect your esteem much more due to the love and connection within the relationship. I found this project difficult to create, not in the sense of the topic but the rising stress due to the coronavirus pandemic and the constant fear caused by it due to the rising numbers. Although I am happy with the pieces of work, I have created, I feel I could have created a more ambitious instillation piece but I feel the stress of the pandemic did affect me for this last project. As much as I would prefer this not happen it is completely understandable during the current climate of the world. However, my work still reflects emotion and reflects a sinister atmosphere of bodily hatred as desired. Here is my project evaluation for this project:

“Throughout this project we were testing our creative capabilities by choosing two words at random from a dictionary and taking that forward within the project. The words used within my project are ‘Indirect’ and ‘Refer’. Within this I chose to focus on how family's harsh comments can cause body issues/body dysmorphia, as loved one's words tend to hurt more due to the connection. Making indirect comments and mentioning you to other family members saying negative things about Appearance can lead to serious body issues as this will be ‘drilled’ into someone’s mind effecting mental health massively. By using my own family at gatherings, I will be distorting these images to warp figures to present the progression of bodily hatred due to body dysmorphia, by digitally manipulating these images from images taken of the positives on a light box. Moving forward within my project I enlarged these images, then manipulating them by blocking out the figure using white paint pens. However, the enlarged images are in negative because the developed images were positives. Completely distorting the image changing the perceptions upon the world we live in, giving an insight to another way to view the world. I have used these ways of distortion on the image to completely contrast how the world actually is, but to someone who suffers with body dysmorphia the world is completely different. It’s similar to constant anxiety and stress about personal appearance. By using white negative space to completely block out the figure it presents the emotions of harmful words from loved ones can make someone feel, wanting to hide in the background. The black and white negative further gives an insight to how someone else can see the world. However, while creating a contact sheet for my images it inspired me to then turn these distorted negatives so they can be projected around my house. To further present my idea of how family can affect how you perceive yourself and the harmful causes, showing these distorted images in what seems to be a normal family home. Looking under the walls of the home and the damage of the ones who live within the house further. Within my project I originally wanted to project the unedited images upon a painted canvas showing the emotions of body dysmorphia. A thick layered painting with green and yellows within presenting hidden eyes within the painting. The green paint used to present envy. However, once I had created this painting, I found it to be highly unsuccessful within the projection upon it as well. The two pieces did not collaborate well together unfortunately. Which is when I decided to create my negatives that have been distorted to project around mine and my nans house. Throughout my project Caleb Cole and Richard Billingham have been a large inspiration for my imagery using my old family pictures capturing the dynamics within a family gathering but through my manipulation of the figure inspired by Caleb Cole. However, within my project these two artists were my own main inspiration and I felt most connected to the way they worked within how to present an image to show emotions and dynamics between families – the hidden sorrows within. Within my project I didn’t want to place in any other artists due to the fact that the brief states I need four, personally I felt disconnected to any other artists work or could not find any relevant art movements for inspiration within my work. I believe that my two artists hold significant influence across my work due to the emotions being similar within my work in comparison to theirs. However, I do believe I have met the requirements of the brief as I have used my words Indirect and Refer to communicate my personal experience along with many others, proven by my Instagram poll, that families and the words they say about our body can affect how we view ourselves linking to body dysmorphia/general body hatred and other mental illnesses. Leading emotions of isolation due to how others talk about you, as loved one's words effect our mental health the most due to the closer connection and brutal honesty that seems to create. I have shown this through digital and physical manipulation of family imagery transforming the images completely into new negatives to be projected around the home. With material development and trialling in the process such as wood work, plaster work and acrylic paintings. However, these materials were not successful but it helped me refine my work and what I valued use to communicate my desired message through my imagery. Within our project our time within college able to use other resources got cut short due to remote learning within the last week. Our planning time got cut short by a week, cramming making and planning into one week. Overall, due to this I find my project to be successful and expanding my creative process and what materials to use making quick and decisive decisions.”

Overall, these three projects have expanded my creativity as an artist along with building up my confidence within being able to experiment and make mistakes because that is a part of the process. Finding ways of working which are successful and unsuccessful. I feel these three evaluations expand and present my ways of working along with showing my positive development as the projects went on. My first term within my diploma I have found successful within expanding who I am as an artist but also creating work presenting emotion, different compositions and atmosphere throughout.