Completing the First Year

I wanted to review this particular module and how I feel that this first year has passed and I hope that I have done enough to pass this year.

Form, Frame and Fracture has to be one of the most enjoyable experiences that I have had throughout this module. I was able to really explore and push forward on this task, I wish that I had more time and opportunity to explore deeper into this project using clay, developing the shapes.

With the Mapping the Territory I really struggled with the visual aspect with the task, I felt what I kept creating was a very poor quality however I did feel that eventually I did succeed at this task and I really learnt alot, especially since looking back on the work I pushed through this I learnt that I can achieve when pushed to the limit artistically.

The Death of Painting has been an enjoyable essay, as the MA has progressed my confidence has risen with my writing I know that I will always be a poor writer this is an area in which I do struggle however I enjoy researching and exploring. 

This year has been the most difficult for me because I not only started this MA, I started a new job which has been very hard for me to settle in. In fact I don't like where I work, and I did not cope and I have depression which was very hard to come to terms with.
So I am now on medication and will be for at least year and I had to step back for a while from the MA.

Yet I have achieved with this MA, I have come so far in a very short while with my painting and if I do not pass, I will hold my head up because I have achieved by just getting this far.

There are so many changes going to happen in the Department in which I work that will not be for the better, therefore I am going into a wedding photographer business, starting off as an assistant and also part of the package will be offering commissions of portraits of the happy couple. So hopefully life will change and evolve and allow me in time to develop hopefully with the MA and become the artist that I am meant to become.        

The Death of Painting

The Death of Painting - Notes

"From today, painting is dead!" claimed Paul Delaroche (1797 - 1859).

I found this a really interesting topic to write about as an artist, painting is one of the main mediums in which I create work, and I find that as a form of expression each brush stroke is an unknown possibility that holds a power for me over photography.

I do acknowledge how photography shifted artists into a new direction towards expression. For the painter the canvas acts as a blueprint for the imagination.

Photography is a widely used tool and so accessible to everybody and a tool to record memories and experiences, that in a way photography has struggled to be recognised as an art form. 

I use photography as an aide within my work practise as I am someone who needs a visual reference for ideas that I want to develop. I use Photoshop to manipulate and edit images - and develop ideas within my sketchbook and paintings.

At times I am employed to paint portraits and in one piece I had to use a group of individual photographs and place within one piece for a painting. Photoshop was a huge assett for me and allowed me to manipulate these images into one main piece that I then could paint a group portrait. Due to two girls being in the process of adoption and two of the people are deceased the image held some unusual dynamics and the final painting created a false projection of unity, which would not have been achieved by photography alone. 

For this essay I looked at the work of Kevin Carter (1960 - 1994) and the photograph of the Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture image won the Pultizer Prize for Feature Photography in 1994. Carter was a war photographer who through the use of the camera captured moments of history.

Whereas the painting 'Guernica' created in 1937 by Pablo Picasso was his reaction to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country by German and Itatian war planes during the Spanish Civil War.

When I look at this highly charged piece I see terror, violence and pain, also a sense of raw passion as Picasso was compelled to create this piece in 1937 Picasso released a statement stating

"The Spanish struggle is the fight of reaction against the people, against freedom. My whole life as an artist has been nothing more than a continous struggle against reaction and the death of art."

This is such a powerful statement.

These two individual pieces reflect the differences between the painterly reaction and what a photographer captures, what unites these images is the horror of the two situations.

Gerhard Richter (b.1932) is an artist who embraces photography as an image of reality, his work is about the application of paint and he is fascinated with the object and representation of the object.

Photography is widely used and accessible however there has been dramatic changes due to computer technology such as Photoshop - the photographer can put their personalit and creativity within a photograph. 

Aknacer is one photographer who explores human emotions and pushes photography beyond the realms of reality. He explored the long distance relationship he had with Rosie Hardy whilst he lives in America and Rosie in England, she has now moved to the United States.

Painting has never died, we as artists changed direction using the imagination to explore new avenues. A painter has to look outwards but also internally as well. The physical process of painting is so important.

Painting and photography will continue to develop and look at new ways of creativity in a different and yet connected area of visual imagery, what unites these two art forms is the attempt to connect aspects of our lives and the enviroment in which we exist in.