Degree Show!

Degree Show is over as of last Thursday!
My plan for the show was to have a few pieces of work (two painting/installations and 8 photographs) available and to play with them in the space until they settled and began to look like a show. In the end I showed both painting/installations and one of the images.
Canvas Unpicked and Dipped III is shown above, I saw this as my main work. The other two pieces, pictured below, were Canvas Unpicked and Dipped IV and a digital photograph entitled Medium Behaviour (2).

All the works shown explore the materials of painting, and in particular canvas, through a process of unpicking and soaking canvas threads in oil medium. There is also a play with the relationship between the canvas and the frame. Both painting/installation works began with the canvas stretched over the frame, as if I was going to paint on it. The canvas has then been pulled off, unpicked and the threads soaked before being laid back over the frame. The canvas was then pulled off the stretcher for a second time and, in the case of Canvas Unpicked and Dipped III, is shown hugging the frame again. 

Apart from a fairly continuous level of panic the whole way through I enjoyed installing the works in the show. It wasn't dissimilar to making the works, in that it involved a level of playing and testing until the pieces seemed to make themselves. Canvas Unpicked and Dipped III in particular suddenly settled into position. Canvas Unpicked and Dipped IV was exciting to install as it seemed personified. The canvas lattice ended up on its back, showing its soft underbelly and as such was quite vulnerable.  

The works will be installed in Seventy Feet, as part of the Free Range Graduate Art Show from the 7th to the 11th July. F block T3, Free Range Graduate Art Show, Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London E1 6QL  

Canvas Details

These are a collection of images I have been taking throughout the making of my unpicking canvas works. They all show details of canvas, displaying its materiality and behaviour.

Failure

I have my 'Installation Under Sink' work on the Failure blog, Take a look!

http://failure2011.blogspot.com/

Canvas Unpicked and Dipped III

 

These are a series of images showing the making of the work I am intending to show at degree show. (Bath School of Art and Design Degree Show, 11th - 15th June 2011) I have built a 120 x 200cm stretcher and stretched it with canvas. The canvas has been tugged off the stretcher and is being unpicked thread by thread.

 As each thread is unpicked it is dipped in oil medium before being laid back over the stretcher. Each strand is laid over the stretcher in the same direction as it was unpicked from, i.e. if a thread was pulled from the canvas vertically it is lain vertically. The 'finished' lattice of dipped threads then will, in part, be a description of the structure of the canvas. The oil medium is vital in retaining the liquid, visceral quality of painting. The addition of the medium and the process of redeploying the canvas strands means the work is not only read as a deconstruction of painting.

The finished installation will hold the performance of the making within it but also transcend the process. The viewer will be asked to look at the, often hidden, materials of painting and see them in a different light.

These Words I Seek Are Not My Own

I performed a work for an exhibition in Bristol recently, the work is entitled 'Canvas Unpicked and Dipped II' It consisted of me pulling canvas from a stretcher, unpicking it thread by thread and dipping the threads in oil medium before remaking the canvas by laying the threads back over the stretcher.

The performance seemed to be quite mesmerising for many viewers. However the whole thing looked rough, practical and as if it was a studio space. This meant many viewers had trouble reading the performance as a  whole. Instead they were looking at it as if I was making a piece, not that the act of unpicking and dipping was the work.

Even though it was not a complete success it was well received and gave me alot to think about. The performance needs simplifying and staging more. The other route however would be to accept the object as the work and to concentrate on making the performance evident in the object itself.

20 x 30cm Canvas Unpicked and Dipped

This series of images shows 20 x 30cm Canvas Unpicked and Dipped as it is being made.  

The work has moved on quite dramatically recently. I have been making works which make more of the fact I am unpicking canvas. I have begun to unpick whole pieces of canvas and am displaying the resulting threads together, rather than unpicking and isolating a few strands.

Consequently I feel the work is much less charismatic as a finished piece. It works much better as I am making the work, as a time based performance. This is something I wish to explore further.

For 20 x 30cm Canvas Unpicked and Dipped I began with a piece of canvas the size the title suggests, I attached this to the wall at a comfortable unpicking height, next to a shelf also at a comfortable height to work on. I then unpicked the canvas, dipping the threads in a jar of oil medium before dropping them onto the shelf.

The canvas therefore went form being an ordered piece of material to being a pile of chaotic, sticky threads. There are numerous problems with this piece however. I intend to further the work by moving away from the wall and making the work into more of a practiced, rather than an accidental, performance.

Intervention Under Sink in Painting Bays I

 This is an image of 'Intervention Under Sink in Painting Bays I'. It is an almost invisible work, consisting of a length of canvas thread installed under a sink and poured repeatedly with Lukas IV oil medium. The work has a tension within it; it looks as if it could have been formed from the sink, yet if the viewer looks closer it becomes apparent this is improbable, and it has been installed.

 As the reader can see the work is almost imperceptible. I do not know how many people, if any, have seen the work without being told it is there. This does not bother me however, I like the notion of rewarding anyone who does notice it, yet simultaneously I like the idea it is a secret work. To me it seems more of an intervention, and gives the work a parasitic feel if it is unseen.