Category: CPS

What are art materials?

Art materials can be anything. The most common art materials that are mainly used are acrylic, oil paint, pencil, watercolour and so on. However there are a huge range of materials that artists use that are so unusual that people would never thought it was possible. Materials can be a wide range of different things such as cutlery, wood, fabric, food.

Historically what materials did artists use?

One of the first ever materials to be used in prehistoric times was natural pigments. Artists used organic materials from plants, soil and even animals to create colours and different dyes to then apply to a surface. The first paintings in pre historic times were cave paintings that involved techniques such as dabbing, brushing and wiping the organic materials into stone. Some of the earth pigments included charcoal and yellow ochre, and even to this day many artists are still using charcoal. Materials were very limited in historical times.

Maurice Bennett

Maurice Bennett is an artist who uses pieces of toast to produce pixilated portraits. He began his toast art in 2000, his work is entirely made up of toast that is cast in bronze.

• 

I decided to look into a very unique material that not many artists use and this is food. Maurice Bennett is an artist who uses pieces of individual toast to create these pixilated portraits and different patterns in toast, he began using pieces of toast in 2000. Before bronzing the toast, it is dipped in polyurethane, this is done so it preserves the art work so it stops it from going moldy. He bronzes the toast by using a flame as a paintbrush to create different patterns/shades of toast.

What inspired Maurice Bennett to use this unique material and the way he works was triggered by pacific motifs. Motifs in art is a recurring pattern or theme that appears in art, so the idea that Bennett repeats the process of burning multiple pieces of toast to produce his pieces. A motif can also relate to the subject matter of the art work. Not only was he inspired by pacific motifs, the idea of creating art work with pieces of toast also came to him during a barbeque.

Food has been a very key thing within art history around the 18^th/19^th century, when artists wouldn’t use the food as a material however would paint food in their artwork, such as painting scenes where people are socializing around food. Also, food would be a key object to paint as they are easy still life objects that were easy to get hold of. How ever in the 1960’s a new movement came out called eat art, where instead of painting the food the food became a material just like paint. Another artist who uses food as a material is Jan Sterbak who created a dress out of raw steak which weighed sixty pounds, he did this to make a visual statement of food and humanity.

Being an independent or a collaborative artist has always interested me, the idea of people buying my artwork, or owning my own shop or even having my art work displayed in a gallery is a big goal of mine. There are many challenges that may occur being an independent artist such as it can be very expensive from finding a studio to the amount of materials that are needed. Also another big challenge for artists is actually marketing their art work and selling it as the artists world is very crowded and chaotic, therefore new artists are often ignored and forgotten about compared to the artists who have worked their way up and have become well known.

Also another challenge to being an independent artist is that it can be very hard to become recognised. In modern society art has evolved and adapted massively, therefore more styles have been produced and it may be harder to produce art work that hasn’t already been done before, that people haven’t seen. Also being an artists involves harsh critics as some people might not like the style of the art, however some other people may love it.

Another career that interest me is art therapy, I love the idea of combining art with helping people out and it also involves psychology, which I enjoy. Art therapy is a method where people express how they feel through art or something creative, and can help peoples cognitive and sensory motor function. Art therapy can also relieve stress, it may help the clients self esteem, emotional thoughts and many other things.

To become an art therapist you would need professional experience in an area of therapy such as counselling or an area in health care, examples of these would be social work or an experience in nursing. You would also need to be registered with the health and car professions council, to become registered with the council you need to have completed a masters degree in art therapy or art psychotherapy, you will also need a degree in art, however this is not a must, but you would need to have a strong art background.

Contexts inside of art: Context in art is where artists work in regards to their environment, historical trends and traditions, social movements, cultural values, personal commitments and many more. Artists do not create contexts they work within them

Jenny Saville

One of themes I have decided to research is ‘The Body’. An artist who uses a lot of body imagery within her work is Jenny Saville. She is well known for her fleshy female figure paintings, Saville combines figuration and abstraction within her artwork to create direct images of human form. Jenny Saville goes against the art historical theme portraying women to be bigger in her artwork showing all the curves and dimples however this is very normal within modern society, for example looking back at historical art, artists regularly portrayed women to be small in size.

• 

• 

• 

Jenny Saville has always been interested with the human form and how bodies move. The reason she paints the human body is to portray modern life within the body. Saville’s artwork goes against he historical image of women looking all perfect. She uses the female body in her artwork to portray the fact that its realistic and normal to have marks, cellulite, dimples and so on, the idea that not every women is flawless and has to look like the typical stereotype. Saville’s fascination with bodies extends to what people will endure to change them.

Daisy Collingridge

Another artist who uses the body within their work is Daisy Collingridge who uses a lot of textiles, sculpting different fabrics to form wearable pastel coloured body suits. Her artwork involves using traditional techniques such as quilting, applique, and cutting. Also she uses materials such as jersey, wadding, bean bag beans, calico or any stable fabric to support her artwork. Collingridge is inspired by the human anatomy and most of her artwork is very figurative, the squishy looking sculptures she produces reflect on the human form however with elements of fantasy and humour.

• 

• 

After making these amazing costumes, Collingridge is the one who wears them while they get photographed and says its an exercise to get into them. All of these costumes neither promote or demote one body type, the idea society only has one body type is ridiculous, so collingridges costumes kind of give you that realistic body image in a grotesque but funny kind of way. Her artwork is is more about the ideal way to inhabit a body.

Both these artists use the human body to break the norm that society expects us to be perfect, so both these artists do actually portray the real image of what its like to be human. For example the ideal body people give women is to be on a diet and to be very slim, there are many people in this world that are ashamed of their bodies, however both these artist portray it as a very beautiful thing showing the word that its normal to have lumps and bumps and that its not a negative thing. For example through Jenny Saville’s work she tries to create a new ideal about beauty, beauty is usually the male consideration of the female body, her paintings are beautiful and have their own individuality, but they have been convinced to despise their own body through the social structures. She represents something in between reality and the perception women have when they inspect their own bodies in the mirror and compare it on the scales.

That’s what I really love about both these artists, that they are portraying individuality, and showing the world that its a beautiful thing to have stretch marks and be unique.

What is context?

Context is the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement or an idea. For example context in art is where artists work in regards to their environment, historical trends and traditions, social movements, cultural values, personal commitments and many more. Artists do not create contexts they work within them.

Two of the main contexts outside of art that really interest me are biology and psychology, I’ve decided to talk about psychology as it really appeals to me when an artist uses emotion within their work, also the idea that psychology is based on the human mind and its functions and how we behave. The fact that we use our brain every second of the day even while we are sleeping, and we all have different social norms. Also the idea that psychology comes into so many categories even art being therapy to some people.

Social norm definition is an unwritten rule about what is acceptable within a particular society. A person thinking and behavior is classified as abnormal if it violates the rules about what is expected or acceptable behavior in a particular social group.

I am going to be talking about the Stanford prison experiment which involves social influence in psychology, this experiment was conducted by Zimbardo in 1973. This study explores how we conform to social roles for example being a sister is a role or being a police officer, for each role in society there is a set of norms that tell us how we should act and behave and which we normally tend to follow. The aim of this experiment was to see how ‘ordinary people’ would behave if they were placed in this prison environment where some of them were guards and others were prisoners.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Zimbardo converted a room into a prison, building it into a mock prison. Many people volunteered for the study of prison life. Zimbardo chose 24 men who were the most physically and mentally stable, the participants did not know each other and were paid 15 pounds a day to take part in this experiment. They were then randomly assigned role of either a prisoners’ or a guard, so in total there was 10 prisoners and 11 guards. The prisoners were treated like a real life criminals, they were unexpectedly arrested at their own home and taken to a local police station, then they were finger printed and photographed.

Within this experiment they did everything a normal guard would’ve done in a actual prison environment, the guards made the prisoners strip naked, they had all their personal possessions taken away from them, and the prisoners were only to be called by their prison ID number. The guards and prisoners all had uniforms, prisoners wore a smock with nothing underneath they also had a cap to cover their hair and a chain around one ankle. However the guards had identical uniforms, clubs, whistles, handcuffs and reflective sunglasses.

This is Deindividuation. This is where the uniforms removes a persons sense of individuality, it also means that others treat you less like an individual. This may make people more conformist because they conform to the social role of the uniform.

A couple days into this experiment the participants seemed to have forgotten that they were acting and they had adopted behavior like real life guards/prisoners. The guards would wake up the prisoners at ridiculous times in the morning by making noise, they would insult the prisoners’, give them pointless task to complete and would punish them, the prisoners were dehumanized.

On the second day the prisoners decided to rebel, they removed their ID numbers from their uniforms, they barricaded themselves in their cells by putting the beds in front of the doors. The guards decided to retaliate and used fire extinguisher which shot carbon dioxide, they did this to make the prisoners move from the doors. The behavior of the guards started to get really aggressive and the prisoners continued to rebel.

Zimbardo intended this experiment to last 2 weeks however it only lasted 6 days due to the emotional breakdowns of prisoners there was a lot of crying and some of them even got anxious also it was not just the prisoners however the guards aggression towards the prisoners spiraled out of control.

In conclusion Zimbardo, after this experiment ended they reveled how people will conform to the social roles they are expected to play, especially if the roles are strongly stereotyped as those of the prison guards. This is because the guards were were placed in the position of authority, they began to act in ways they would not usually behave in their normal lives, and this is the power of social influence and how we abide and conform.

After the experiment had ended most the guards found it difficult to believe that they had behaved in this brutalizing way, many of them said they did not know this side existed to them and they were capable of such horrible things. Also the prisoners too couldn’t believe they responded in such a submissive way.

There were some ethical issues to this experiment, there was a lack of consent by participants as Zimbardo did not know what was going to happen so it was unpredictable. Also the prisoners did not consent to being arrested at home. The participants who were playing the prisoners were not protected by psychological harm, experiencing incidents of humiliation and distress. For example on prisoner had to be released after 36 hours because of uncontrollable bursts of screaming, crying and anger. However Zimbardo did conduct debriefing sessions for 7 years after the experiment ended and concludes that there were no long lasting negative effects.

Jackson Pollock Autumn Rhythm no 30 1950

Jackson Pollock was the first man to create the drip painting in 1950. Looking at his painting the colours are very plain only using black, white, grey and brown, however these colours contrast with the canvas Pollock did not prime. They stand out more making these colours more vibrant, bold and eye catching. Where as if the background was a solid colour you would lose the abstract line work. Pollocks painting portrays a lot of curvilinear with vast long lines he created by pouring, dripping, splattering paint with sticks, knives and trowels. He achieved these dramatic lines by laying the canvas flat on the floor instead of using a easel.

The form of this artwork is dynamic not one line/splatter is the same, and the idea that there is a constant change in this painting not one bit will match a section of the artwork. It is also very dense and abstract with everything being closely compacted and the idea of it being abstract with the different shapes and textures of paints layed on top of one another, making the artwork unrealistic to the eye. The tonal aspects of this painting include the dramatic marks and the lines he made on his artwork that were impetuous and demonstrated to look like an accident however also show Pollocks control with his technique he used with his paintings.

This piece of artwork is also very chaotic with some of the markings being heavy, light and even some of the paint has been diluted down to build layers. The linear work is very unpredicted some being vertical, horizontal, straight and curved. Back in 1950 a traditional way to paint would be to use paint, canvas and to produce something very realistic, however Pollock wanted to go against the traditional ways using different materials, techniques and producing abnormal paint markings.

Andres Serrano Piss Christ 1987

This piece of artwork depicts a photograph of a small plastic crucifix statue submerged in a bright red/yellow liquid, in which the artists openly admits that it is his own urine that the art has been submerged in. Looking at this piece of artwork there is a massive contrast between this piece and Jackson Pollocks piece. The colours are very bright and bold, also the photograph is very saturated with a variation between different tones of red, orange and yellow. The tone is very light around the crucifix however if you look at the corners of the art work the tone is a lot darker, the artist has done this to draw the viewers attention to the crucifix. When looking at this photograph the texture does not seem smooth due to the air bubbles in the tank. The photograph is 60 by 40 inch Cibachrome print.

The photograph was one of a series of photographs that Serrano had made that involved classical statues which had been submerged in various liquids, for example other liquids Serrano uses apart from urine involve blood, milk and semen. His art work is very unique and strange due to the unusual materials he uses. Serrano’s photograph of the Piss Christ symbolizes the way Christ died and the idea that not only did blood poured out of him however other liquids did, such as faeces and urine. He believes that the idea of using urine within the photograph of Christ on a crucifix is bringing the symbol closer to its original meaning, the idea that Christ probably did see urine and faeces come out of him when he was tortured and left to die on the crucifix.

This piece of art work did cause a lot of controversy, some people thought it was disrespectful to use urine to submerge the photograph in to. The art work was not intended to cause a political statement on religion, however it did cause a lot of commotion. Serrano’s photographs featuring religion are heavily influenced by baroque paintings. Piss Christ is considered to be the most controversial artworks of the 20th century.

Here are some of the images I took when I went to visit a couple of galleries in Coventry.

The old rehabilitation clinic

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Herbert art gallery and museum

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Arcadia Gallery

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

In 2019 I was lucky enough to visit the Coventry Biennial Of Contemporary Art, the Biennials title for the exhibition in 2019 was called ‘The Twins’ this incorporates events and activities about relationships. The first ever Coventry Biennial took place from the 6th-22nd October 2017 in venues across the city. In 2019 they also used an old rehabilitation clinic to display some of the artists artwork, this was one of their major events. Coventry has also displayed work in residential tower blocks, universities, drop-in centers and in community centers.

Due to research I have found out that Coventry was the first city in the world to twin with another and now has 26 twins around the world. When a city twins with another it involves close contact with both the cities and creating cultural relationship within another. The artists that took part in Coventry’s Biennial ‘Twins’ exhibition show positives and negatives of Coventry being a twin city, it portrays togetherness however also portrays political inequality. Coventry has a huge passion for diversity and all the different cultures within the city, the Coventry Biennial is about being together no matter the differences between individuals and its commitment to its society.

• 

• 

When I visited the Coventry Biennial exhibition in 2019 what really interested me was that one of the galleries was displayed in a rehabilitation clinic. The building itself gave you a feel of what it would have actually been like in the clinic as a patient, they had left the telephones on the wall, there were marks and holes in the walls which I believe gave it that eerie feel to it. However if the artists decided to cover all of that up then it would have lost the derelict feel, and would have looked like any other ordinary building. Even though the building had a gloomy look to it the art work was the complete opposite, which gave it a nice contrast between the artwork and the building. Most the artwork itself was bright, luminous and some was even very psychedelic which I thought was rather unusual due to the fact it being displayed in a rehabilitation clinic which itself is not very bright or cheerful unlike the artwork.

Not only was some of the artwork of Coventry biennial displayed in the rehabilitation clinic it was displayed in the Herbert art gallery and museum in Coventry also at the Arcadia Gallery which I was also lucky enough to visit. The Arcadia Gallery is a temporary exhibition owned by Coventry Artspace which is a charity who provide affordable spaces for artists to come and exhibit their artwork. This exhibition is available to artists in Coventry also the surrounding areas nearby to come and present their artwork.

Michael Snodgrass by Ryan Hughes is the artist curator and director of the Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2019.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

What is a studio?

A studio is where something is created within that room or confined space. It is a place for an artist to work, create and develop ideas. Not only artists have studios however a studio can be used for acting, making music, radio or television broadcasting. A studio can also be their home, due to the many hours artists spend in the studios creating work. Nowadays a studio is not just about having a space to work, it is now more about the community and feeling apart of something and discussing their artwork with one another.

Christopher Wool

• 

Christopher Wool is a post conceptual artist. Wool is best known for his black and white abstract paintings, he pulls his inspiration and also materials directly from the environment. He is interested in the visual representation of language and colour through abstraction. His loose style of painting allows him to make mistakes, however the artist embraces these imperfections within his artwork it makes each one of his paintings individual and unique. He has a passion for paint and uses techniques such as spray paint, silkscreen and hand painting. He is also known for his large word paintings, which often demand reading aloud to make sense, as Wool decides to manipulate the words and erase certain lettering, almost as if he wants to create a puzzle for the viewers.

Christopher Wool’s studio space is located in New York, the words front and rear are stenciled in block capital letters on the buildings front where his studio is in, which may have been graffitied on the building by Christopher Wool. The studio located in New York was a very tough neighborhood, Wool recalls that there would be many homeless people who would camp on the street opposite to his studio.

He also owns another studio/house in west Texas desert town of Marfa that Wool and his wife built, which they both share together. The studio/house looks out onto the vast desert and the clear open skies, he uses some of the deserts materials to create sculptures which was one of his new interests in art. Marfa is somewhere Wool goes to for peace and quiet but often goes back to New York because he believes that the city has become a part of his work.

Looking at some images of Christopher Wool’s studio space, it looks rather tidy and well maintained, as you can see in this image there is nothing on the floor and there is hardly any mess, for an artist it is a very well kept space. Also as you can see in one of the other images there is a punching bag in his studio space, and if you look closer I believe there are some more gym equipment in the space. The reason Christopher Wool has a punching bag in his studio space is to relive stress.

In his studio space in Marfa, he uses the space outside to create and store his sculptures, he also uses rubbish and items found in the desert to help him create these sculptures.

• 

•