I started working on the Parallel Project from the beginning of this course. This way I had the opportunity to do the course exercises with the underlying subject of the Parallel Project where this was applicable. The subject derived form the first Assignment regarding Exploring Compositions.
Maybe because of my Psychology Degree and my subsequent way of thinking and probably personal needs I wanted to deal with self related explorations. My initial ideas was to explore self identities by placing my half portraits on environments and then completing those half self portraits with portraits of significant others and explore relationships.
Before having the opportunity to try out those ideas, I differentiated the subject after doing the projects for Part 2. In Part 2 I introduced explorations of relationships in a different way through the work for the Narrative Project.
I specified my parallel project theme to be the relationships with my children and husband.
Through the following projects and exercises I experimented in many ways of approaching the relationships theme for my parallel project.
Through my experimentation the work was becoming more conceptual and possibly affected by the Post – Partum Document of Mary Kelly, that my tutor introduced me to, as her subject is her relationship with her son.
My work became more abstract. The connecting thread that related the diverse pieces of work was the tracing. The directness of the instantaneous and spontaneous recording of the prints that implied the search at a different level beyond the drawing of even a very expressive or symbolic portrait.
For creating a drawing or a set of drawings that could be a coherent statement I aimed at incorporating the main elements that is the tracing of time as it has emerged from the time related Assignment 5 and the actual imprints of the persons that I am exploring relationships to, that are my husband and my children. Following the paradigm of Assignment 5, I chose a piece of cloth belonging to each family member. I placed each cloth on the drying loft under the sun separately and did the shadows tracing, including my own shadow while drawing the drawing, on four consecutive days, at the same time of the day.
On the back side of the four drawings with the shadow tracing I asked my children to step on with their feet covered with charcoal. To take my husband’s footprints, I asked him to place his feet on a piece of paper and I traced the outline. Then I cut out the outlines and used them to trace the feet outlines on my drawing surface. This corresponds to his presence in the family which is sometimes conveyed through me towards the children because of the practicality of being away to work many hours of the day. To be more specific I take the role of replenishing his presence spiritually to overcome the physical absence. For The actual imprints, made by our own bodies are seen as documentation of our presence together on space and time. Me as the artist manage the action of producing the imprints on the drawing surface. Additionally, as the artist and part of this relationship that is being explored, I am the conductor of the procedure and the final outcome. This explores my identity as an artist, wife and mother. The red thread connects the four drawings and has references to the umbilical cord that connects and reconnects affinities. The artwork takes the form of an artist concertina like book that can be unfolded or folded and be seen by different views apposing two, three or four pages each time.
To my view the final piece of artwork that I did has visual interest. The line drawings created by tracing with marker the shadows on paper have a continuous movement, energy and flow. I feel that I was able to transmit those attributes that I experienced while creating the marks on the paper. The softer imprints that I added at the back contradict the boldness of the marker lines on the other side. As both sides can be viewed simultaneously, this contradiction creates a visual interest. The red thread I added makes the work more lively and creates another texture, besides the practicality of connecting the separate sheets of paper. Taking also into consideration the conceptual underpinnings of the work I believe that it makes a complete artistic statement, that satisfies me at this stage of my artistic development.
Investigating Drawing OCA 