Exhibition: Current Terrains, Maria Trillidou

Today I visited the exhibition by Cypriot artist Maria Trillidou at the Fytorio (Visual Artists Association) in Nicosia. The exhibition was curated by Dr Hesperia Iliadou – Suppiej (professor of the history of Art & Architecture).

The artist, in Current Terrains, she explores the subject of transition and impermanence of material forms, in space and time and the transmutation of one element into another. (https://mariatrillidouart.com/, http://mariatrillidou.tumblr.com/archive)

Her main material in her work is water and the flow of it determines the development of the painting.

Additionally she explains that using a limited palette of colours makes the work less chatty.

(http://www.philenews.com/politismos/anthropoi/article/397340/maria-trillidoy-i-techni-leitoyrgi-anatreptika?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork)

After reading her own and the curators words about the work, I would say that I perceive the work to be a depiction of her own philosophy of the world, the creation and the universe. Her act of creating the paintings is her own way of transforming forms like she makes a transformation of energy herself.

As a viewer,and before reading anything about the work, I was firstly exited by the combining of the materials and the textures created that were inviting for me to look closer and discover the rich textures. Watercolour, or acrylic worked as watercolour and pencil wear distinct among other media that you had to look closer to discover and some of them were not explicit.

I apprehended that the work deals with elements of  nature and our world surroundings.

Having seen an earlier work of the artist in 2015 in a group exhibition, I see the trace that combines the earlier work named Communion (http://thecollectiongallery.eu/exhibitions/unbound/,http://www.cyprusevents.net/events/maria-trillidou-communion-2014/) with Current Terrains. I think that the transition that the artist explores in Current Terrains is also a transition in her art. I think that through her work she explores her own philosophy of life in an ongoing artistic process. I would say that her paper becomes her field of reflection and discovery.

 

 

Reflection for Assignment 2

In this assignment I had the opportunity to widen my options about what drawing is. I was able to think of using a variety of material as drawing media and also I explored alternative ways of applying the materials on different drawing surfaces. Each project gave me the opportunity to try something new as a subject matter as well as a method. The result was to expand my reference library of materials, media, mark making and techniques. In further projects I would be able to refer to these  as source and use them in more complete works or even series of work.

I think I was able to demonstrate competent technical and visual skills. I tried out several materials and techniques, I observed and interpreted reference material adequately and my compositions were sufficient. However  I need to improve especially in the drawing of faces, and this I will have the opportunity to do through my parallel project.

Regarding the quality of outcome, I think that I need to approximate my concept and ideas to the actual work that I end up with. I think I have a gap between what I have in mind that I want to portray and to the methods I use to communicate these ideas. For example in the Narrative project I think my drawings are quite naive in relation to my concept that are more developed.

In terms of creativity there is only one thing I could say. Creativity is endless and you can always develop it further. I am pleased with my demonstration of creativity at the stage that I am, but I keep my mind open to anything new, even for things that would even come to contrast to what I am used to. In this assignment I think that I explored ideas in creative and new ways. However there is much more work I should to to make those experiments successful outcomes at a sufficient or high level that I pursue.

Finally speaking about context, I believe that I need to work extensively in order to gain experience on how to relate my work to the work of other artists and be able to use the knowledge that I would gain from researching other artists into my own practice. I think I have started to do this, but I a m having difficulty in articulating this in a critical way especially while talking about my work. I need to work more on finding a way of synthesizing what I learn with what I practice. Further I should  start transmitting the knowledge of researching other artists into drawings inspired by specific artists and artworks. I believe this method would help me integrate this knowledge into my own work.

 

Part 2 Contextual focus Point: Cornelia Parker

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

http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/cornelia-parker-2/

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/artist/cornelia-parker-ra#gallery

http://www.frithstreetgallery.com/artists/works/cornelia_parker/poison_and_antidote_drawing1

Cornelia Parker creates artworks varying between large scale installations, objects and drawings. Materials play a mostly significant role to the subject and the substance of the artwork. Ι think the material constitutes the inspiration for the artwork as well as the subject and the actual material for constructing the artwork. It appears to me as if there is a complicated vagueness in the interrelation of all these elements that constitute the artwork. I think that using the actual materials in order to depict something related to that material gives to the artwork energy as the essence of the material is present.

In her piece Poison and Antidote Drawing (2010), I think Parker is trying to ascribe the opposition of good and bad. I my opinion she uses black and white as they are established opposites commonly received as such.

I think using bits of the subject to make the artwork makes the work more real. She doesn’t try to mimic the qualities of the subject by using materials that would represent the subject. The material is the subject and the subject is the material.

Standing in front of artworks that are constructed from original objects of great cultural significance I believe would make me feel more connected to the artwork. I think there is a more sincere attachment with the work and eliminates distances.

Also I think Parker, choosing to make this artwork as Rorschach blots, let space  for the unpredictable and allowed the material to act freely without over-manipulate it.

 

ASSIGNMENT 2

The assignment instructions is to make a drawing of a subject using the subject itself or tools constructed from the subject, dipped in ink or paint. the project is supposed to give the opportunity to work directly with the nature and the physical properties of the subject.

For this assignment I return to a subject that I have worked in my OCA: Watercolour Practice course (https://marina491189.wordpress.com/assignment-3/  and https://marina491189.wordpress.com/assignment-5/). That is the olive tree trunk and the way I translate it’s properties stimulated by my own associations with the subject.

I chose this subject as I a ma familiar with it. I am familiar with the colour, and the texture of the olive tree as I see it and touch it often.The olive tree is in my visual field in a daily basis. It is a part of my physical and cultural environment.

Also is practically very easy to have access to the material.

I removed parts of it having to admit that I was feeling guilty of violating a living creature!

However, I collected the parts I needed and placed them in a composition based on the photograph that was my reference for the other work I have made concerned with this subject.

   

I chose a yellowish white paper and not cold white as I thought it would be a better basis to bind with the materials.

I noticed the interesting patterns created by the shadow of the objects on the paper. I reinforced this by using a lamp and then traced the shadows on the paper.

Work in Progress

Work in progress

I worked freely without much thinking that would constrain my actions. I used acrylic paint and tried to imprint on it the texture of the trunk parts. the texture wouldn’t easily and correct imprint on the paint so I thought to use clay as I did in project 2 when experimenting with mark making materials. this time I didn’t scratch on the clay, but I pressed the piece of the tree trunk on the clay and then removed it in order to create the actual texture.

Part 2:Project 2:Mark making materials

 

I continued with placing the bits of the trunk and leaves in a composition that I was aiming to be balanced and i gave it some downwards movement by placing the big parts in a descending curve. I smashed the parts of the trunk in directly on the drawing surface aiming to place them in a spreading way in order to convey some vigor.

I used watercolour in the hues that I associate with the tree colours to highlight the shadows and the patterns.

I used diluted white glue to seal the smashed parts on the paper and hot gun glue to stick the thicker parts.

I decide to leave it at this stage in order to retain a freshness on the piece and to avoid weighing the composition too much.

Assignment 2: Olive tree. Natural materials,pencil, watercolour,modelling clay, acrylic & glue on paper. (297mm x 420mm)

It was an interesting way of working escaping the limits of traditional drawing.

I am concerned about the preservation of this kind of  works as they are quite fragile.

Research Part 2: Project 2: Mark making materials

Studying mark making

Rembrandt

https://www.bridgemaneducation.com/en/search?filter_text=Rembrandt&page=14

The Thatched Cottages with figures at the window, Rembrandt, 17th century

In this drawing, the texturing, depth and volume is mostly created through the mark making of the line. A few long and sparse lines create the foreground in opposition to more detailed, descriptive, smaller and repeated lines of different directions and curvature in the back. This opposition creates depth and volume in the drawing and also the richness of the line quality makes the drawing interesting and attractive  for me to look at and observe.

Caravaggio

https://www.bridgemaneducation.com/en/search?filter_text=the+raising+of+lazarus%2C+caravaggio

The raising of Lazarus, Caravaggio, 16th century

The colour of the paper constitutes the main tone and surface. The materials are applied in relation to the underlying surface of the brown paper. The direction and the thickness of the line is used to attribute surface qualities. Also more smoothed areas attribute for tonal variations and create depth and volume. Certain whited areas either with line or patches of the material make the drawing vivid and give the sense of perspective. Also the spread of the white along the whole surface of the drawing create a unity to the image.

 

Turner

https://www.bridgemaneducation.com/en/search?filter_text=joseph+mallord+william+turner&page=7

Landscape (oil on canvas), Turner, Joseph Mallord William (1775-1851) / Musee Bonnat, Bayonne, France / Bridgeman Image

It is amazing to see that interesting and rich mark making on an oil painting. All this mark making is probably created by the brushstrokes, the selection of brushes, the thickness and the layering of the paint.

This method I can also observe and recognize in Rembrandt’s  Head of a Young Man or Self Portrait, 1629, but I think that Rembrandt might had used more scratching.

https://www.bridgemaneducation.com/en/search?filter_text=Rembrandt+head+of+a+young+man

 

Artists suggested by tutor to look at (after assignment 1 submission)

Sigmar Polke

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/polke-untitled-square-2-t11856

Kathe Kollwitz

http://www.moma.org/artists/3201

Looking at Kollwitz work I understand the reason that my tutor suggested looking at her work. I think she uses mark making in an expressive way, which is something I also tend to do in my drawings. Although she mostly makes lithographies or etchings, one can clearly compare the results of other drawing material, such as charcoal.

Mark making, tonal distribution and the use of space are carefully worked in order to express certain expressive qualities of her work.

The similarities I see with my way of using mark making is the switching between line and patches of the drawing medium. I make these switches in my drawings in order to describe tone without loosing freehand gestures that would translate into expression for me. I addition I can observe in her work the importance of what she decides to include, what to emphasize on and what to let faded in the drawing. for example in her work ”Woman with Dead Child” (1903), the two bodies seem to merge within each other. The dead child’s face is very softly drawn , perhaps meaning to show the extraneous condition of the body who dies. On the other hand , the mothers face and hand are consisted by strong , dynamic marks and lines, in my opinion aiming to convey the emotional state of the mother, the mourning and pain.

There is a lot I could gain from deeper study of Kollwitz work. One of my intentions is to express feelings and psychological or cognitive states in my drawings. I believe that Kollowitz intended to convey feelings through her work.Not only her personal sentiments , but also what she observed around her at the specific political era that she  lived and work, in a way of protest and to sensitize others for the horror of war and poorness and suffering of people. Her work could constitute a great source of expressive drawing, like a dictionary would be for words.

In general, I believe Kollwitz work is a great example of how the way the drawing media are used in a very sophisticated way in order to create the intended result.

 

Hannah Hoch

Book source: WOMEN ARTISTS, IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY, EDITED BY UTA GROSENICK, TASCHEN

My notes taken from the book:

• Hoch was a pioneer of photomontage
• a response to the political condition after the first world war
• the Dada used collage and photomontage as an (anti-) artistic means of shocking the public and thus a way of deconstructing a situation considered  absurd
• political work, gender focused work-feminism
• materials (pictorial and textural): technical brochures, private photographs, illustrated magazines
• deconstruction of cliched images of ethnic and sexual identity and remade them in ludic spirit
• also she produced work where the montage principle was imported into painting
• surreal tableaux
• still lifes
• expressive portraits

 

 

Part 2: Project 1: Research Point

Angela Eames: http://www.angelaeames.com/

1997 Wool winding. On a story written by herself for this work, the artist says ”…Jumpers are made form shaped sheets of woolen line. The line itself has three-dimensionality. Fancy that, she thought, we all wearing drawings…”(http://www.angelaeames.com/Wool.html)

Taking from that I am thinking that if you let yourself see further than the superficial, the obvious, the usual , see in that peculiar, incomprehensible from others way, a whole new world is opened to your eyes. A line is not only a mark on paper. a line can be discovered in different forms and qualities. Especially in this advanced digital world that we live today a line can be designed in very sophisticated ways manufactures in three dimensional forms that take the form of anything that surrounds us. So, we do not only wear drawings, but we are surrounded by drawings, we use drawings as objects.

”She had always had the feeling that when one made a mark on paper with a pencil, one was actually adding physical matter to that surface.” (http://www.angelaeames.com/Wool.html)

I would translate that as a drawing has it’s own existence, through the process of adding lines or other marks on the paper or other surface. The surface is physical, the medium is physical, the act of applying the media on the surface is also physical.

Michael Borremans:

http://www.zeno-x.com/artists/michael_borremans.htm

In my perception, Borremans paintings provoke a sense of surrealism with a very personal stigma. They portray psychological perceptions or states of mind and how one experiences being human. They speak to me as depictions of states of existence. At the same time they have a realism that makes me connect, just before I realize their hidden paradoxes . I perceive atmosphere, silence and solitude when I look at the paintings. However this states are shared between humans, and I feel that one can recognize to have being in such conditions and identify with them. I think this delusional realism was done in order to provoke this identification and stimulate reactions.

Jim Shaw: http://simonleegallery.com/Artists/Jim_Shaw /Selected_Works

Jim Shaw uses a rich source of imagery material (comics, posters, pop culture imagery) which he combines in several ways to create different kind of artworks including collages, photographs, paintings and posters.

There is a strong element of narrative in the works, which possibly reflects the nature of the source material and especially comics.

This work does not really speak to me, possibly because I have not cultural connections with the subject. However I can gain from the way different elements are combined and blend creating interesting compositions.  In the work Cake (Jim Head Clutch), 2010
Oil on digital inkjet print, and acrylic and ink on panel (http://www.simonleegallery.com/artists/jim_shaw/selected_works.html) a carefully oil painted figure is placed on a printed background of big loose brushstrokes, and also an acrylic panel is placed outside the main panel. In this case we have different textures. We have the texture of the oil paint in juxtaposition with the surface of the print which shows the texture of big brushstrokes , but there is not physical texture of the brushstrokes as it is a printed surface. In addition we have the texture of the acrylic paint on the panel.

 

 

Looking for inspiration for Part 2, Project 1: Space, Depth and Volume

Following my self portraits attempts for the reductive charcoal drawings, I searched internet for fine art charcoal portraits. I was attracted by Frank Auerbachs charcoal portraits, that many of the are self portraits.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/frank-auerbach-676

In the following links you can find information about an exhibition that took place in 2016 in Tate and also important biographical elements and critics of his work.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/frank-auerbach

http://www.timesofisrael.com/artist-becomes-subject-in-new-tate-exhibition/

What I see in Auerbach’s charcoal portraits is that they are a great source for investigating the reductive technique. The space, volume and depth are acquired through the application of the charcoal, the sweeping of the charcoal and the reapplication of it, the texture created and by the direction the the charcoal patches or strokes follow.

I feel that the drawings are very expressive, and this is an element I want to convey in my drawings. The drawings seem to investigate and portray something deep and internal, that goes far beyond the surface.

I observe in Auerbach’s portraits dynamic sweeps and dynamic charcoal strokes. Also the dramatic changes from black to white and vise versa, creates atmosphere and suspense, mystery that makes me look closer in order to read the pictures and the person’s character, mood and feelings.

there is a great value of distortion of the face which is characteristic of Auerbach, but I am much more attracted to his charcoal drawings, because his more distorted paintings make me feel uncomfortable.