The Mind Map; figuring out my Framework

Lornas reference link to slides.  FINAL MIND MAP DIAGRAM AT BOTTOM OF PAGE 11.12.22

I've properly considered what I love personally so that I can bring it into my practice and really enjoy what I'm exploring, so this is the first mind map that includes fairy tales and really acknowledges my need for natural spaces.

I've been reluctant to do this before because I've felt that I didn't want my work to be overly personal but may have mixed this with autobiographical. I'm comfortable to produce work around experience but not literal situations in the way that Tracey Emin might do.  Fairy tales actually give me a mechanism with which to code some things.

I've also found that I like to find the untold story - which is what made my placement working on Dolly Henrys portraits by John Currie so interesting. I've just gone back to the Veiled Venus, an artwork that I'd stepped away from after finding that the muse was a nazi propagandist but with a couple of years between to consider how to approach this work now - I'm looking at it in a new way, through a curators lens for WACCA


 Mediums

  • Oil on canvas 
  • Print
  • Mixed media 
  • Collage and tiles
  • Sculpture

Visuals

  • Children 
  • Portraiture
  • Figurative
  • Abstraction 
  • Realism
  • Collage and tiles
  • Texture and tonal value

Personal interests

Fairy tales 

  • Escapism
  • Encapsulates archetypes
  • Satirical
  • Draws from social scenarios - and allows me to explore social class without being overtly political

Natural spaces and morals

  • Woodland aesthetic
  • Personal encounters and the Sublime
  • Indiginous plants and wildlife

Personal experience of female identity
  • Childhood, homemade outfits v the 80's, "2 youngest", boxed up, hidden, torn off
  • Motherhood
  • Age
  • experience 

Contextual Theory and discourse

Society, Patriarchy and Female roles 
  • Childhood
  • Motherhood 
  • Age
  • Experience
  • Erasure of natural religion to establish christianity 

 

Tutorial with Rachel about framework 4.11.22

Overview of practice; what mediums using so far and themes - 

  • Testing; I have some rabbit skin glue - Rachel warns is very stinky but both this and gesso hold the tooth in the canvas better than PVA
  • Discussed that there's something nice in having bare canvas on work, exposing process and material, like seeing the sketch marks behind a painting or smudges in graphite in artwork.
Explained that my themes centre around women and roles - Rachel suggested a podcast by BBC Sounds: 28ish days later, about how the female body is celebrated, explored, alienated, medically acknowledged.

Shared the ideas I have next - series of 3 paintings 
  1. Me as a child in witch hat (dress up as role that would need to avoid in 16th C)
  2. Me and sister dressed in homemade matching outfits ( reminiscent of the shining in the sketch)
  3. Image of me in dark (Michael Borreman vibe)
Rachel suggested that all are evocative of emotions, responses and associations  there's an immediate connection to something thats established (black hat= witch / my painting of old woman in studio = witch / sisters = shining)
Recommended ; BOOK: Calabon and the witch; Sylvia Federici political / persecution / systems / historical 

Talked about how we approach books - Rachel looks at discussions in response to them before reading which helps to contextualise them when she approaches them. Gives her anchor points. - I like this and will try by looking at reviews and podcasts ahead of reading books that are particularly dense. 

Suggested - look at Maria Lasnik - self portraiture - mythology and reality 

Everything I've looked at so far has led me to explore something and then revert back to a central point - but all helps me form the bigger picture. I agree with Rachels suggestion that Womanhood is my anchor point and that feminism, relationships between, mother/child/daugher/ exploriations into age and gender, childlessness etc all can be hooked back to this central anchor.
Anything I choose to investigate will operate was a branch with its own history (ripples into smaller branches) Find a corner to branch out from. 

Keep asking how does this fit? Why am I interested in this? 


Tutorial with Rebecca Davies about framework 15.11.22

Talked about the difference between context and theory as they merged in my mind. 
Established 
  • Context - What about society informs my work now.  How I draw from sources. My artist statement on my website contains this. 
  • Theory - the research I have done that informs my practice - what helps me to make sense of my practice and shapes how I understand something.  (Andrea Liss, Ronald Hutton for example)
Talked about Rebecca Solnit - hope in the dark.  There are sections of her writing that change your perspective around our capacity to be influential.  eg, how women protesting in the rain felt insignificant, but they were noticed by a politician and actually made a big impact to their cause.  The way she writes is mobilising.  This is what I like -new perspectives that promote personal growth.

We talked about my approach to the exhibition proposal, the works I'm considering for the exhibition have a timeline that shows research behind the work that has been curated or produced.  This is something that I did on placement too, when I exhibited John Curries work and timeline of life events alongside new work made in response - Rebecca asked if I wanted my work to be educational? 
I'd started the conversation by saying that I wanted to be subtle and not literal or didactic but was then explaining how I would present works in a way that delivers a lot of information. I want to be able to engage the audience... is this the right way to go about it? 

I have a collagraph print in the studio that Rebecca explained that she felt she wants to be able to figure out for herself. She may not want the prescriptive explanation - the mystery can be good. 

Had a conversation about galleries and engagement - talked about kids being encouraged in an exhibtion to make their own judgements and readings of the art in a gallery that they didn't think represented them. White cube v art on the underground and public spaces.

I questioned if maybe I was taking the wrong approach with the exhibition - RD pointed out that retrospectives are curated based on timelines and the approach wasn't necessarily bad - just there for consideration.

I do like how artworks read when they are curated together - I like the relationships. Maybe this is the route I need to go down for the exhibition?  The gallery handout could contain some of the things I drop?

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21.11.2021

Theoretical references;

Art and the maternal, Andrea Less
The Witch, Ronald Hutton
Maternal in Art 
Artist and Mother, Artbound, Season 9. Episode 7



 Contextual references;
 

The Mother :

Revisited my Framework to consider the relationship between women, nature, reproduction and control systems.



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