fineart blog

"if you can talk about it, why paint it "-francis bacon throughout my work I always try to explore things that either don't make sense to me or things I cant or wont talk about myself. I often find it very difficult to talk about my art work because sometimes its not all that clear in my mind I think if something is meaningful and worth painting then you shouldn't be able to talk about it with such ease. I have also experimented with the context of my work throughout this semester by putting it in gallery spaces I realised my work does fit in to a gallery context however I feel it only works as a series and not as stand alone painting I feel that onw alone is not quite powerful. I have also discovered my work can belong in a public context as well by displaying it at a local barbershop. the main objective of my work was to develop it and push it in to something new and exiting for me to paint and explore I feel I have achieved this and have realised that this is

Francis bacon was an Irish painter who's main focus was on the human figure and of faces. he is known mainly for his distortion of the figures he paints some of which are considered very ghastly as you can see in his art some of his main inspiration came from surrealism which I am also heavily inspired by, other inspirations of his include films and photography. his figures were always presented as sort of isolated so from them the carry a sense of despair I wanted to also convay this in my figures but contrast that with some bold bright colours to ensure it was not all doom and gloom.

these painting are the final stage in my developmental process the first painting is on acrylic on a very large canvas I decided to incorporate the face as it can convey the emotion of stress I am trying to get across I wanted it to look as if the face was being torn apart by stress. I used many layers of paint in order to portray this flesh like tone which makes it feel more real. in my second painting I did this on a very large wall as I was inspired by the lack of boundary and in making the painting bigger it enabled me to include so much more detail in this which is something I feel has been missing in my work I wanted this one to have more masculine features as beauty is not something I wanted to be important within this piece. both of these I have just painted a white background as I feel this makes my figure stand out and become its own life not relying on a background to make it seem grounded. my main inspiration was francis bacon his painting of distorted paintings

I attended an artist talk which featured an artist named Neenah percy who was from the royal college of arts she taslked us through her her worked had progressed and changed over her time at the college. she used to paint with just acrylic on canvas but then she started experimenting with the paint its self looking at it as more of a sculpting material than a painting material and started to create these wonderful sculptures that hang from the wall made purely out of acrylic paint I found this very inspiring and unique as I was not a wear that this was possible

in this crit I got to see the works of lauren and jack, lauren had taken inspiration from a variety of different artists including one of my favourites noel fielding I think our work is very similar there is a similar boldness to it and we both like exploring the surreal. jacks work was mainly inspired by Jackson pollok and his abstract expressionist style in a way he tried to recreate this but with is own personal flare I feel he has been very successful in  contrasting colours and working to a large scale. both their works were very large and both were painted using acrylic.

I went to an artist talk in which laura Lancaster was the guest speaker she is an artist from Northumbria university her work is contempary paintings in which she expressed she liked to experiment with size saying that the size can  change the whole feeling of a painting, this is the same issue I am working through at the moment the idea of making a painting bigger and if it affects the meaning or feel of a painting . the images she paints are inspired by photographs she gathered from charity shops I thought this was a very unique and interesting way of obtaining inspiration.

I went to the Baltic to see another artist called holly Hendry who had created this immensely sized installation piece it was quite breath taking to be in the presence if a piece of art that large. all the colours she used were quite light and pasteli which was nice it gave the room a calming feel to it. there was lots of layers of what looked like sheets and within them various objects such as bones and bottles I found this very interesting as I really wanted to take it apart and put it back together. I found it very interesting that she painted right on to the walls so that they became part of the art I feel I may try this as the wall offers very little boundary unlike a canvas where you have no choice but to stay within it.

alex gray is an American painter, sculptor, performance artist among many other things. he has a lot of knowledge of anatomy which makes his art works of figure that much more compelling. he has done artworks which have featured in many album covers including nirvana, the beastie boys and most commonly Tool. I would love my art work to feature on album covers as your work gets linked to these artists and since much of my inspiration comes from music it comes full circle. his work is very large bold and vibrant I intend to express these characteristics the best I can with in my next few paintings.

these are more works dedicated to developing this fairly unique living shape thing I have and also to experiment with painting and backgrounds. the first painting was very fast paced and very spur of the moment, although I like having this freedom with the paint I don't feel this worked as successfully as the second painting, because it is more controlled the detail brings out the liveliness of the piece and give it added depth as apposed to the first painting which I feel feels a little flat. I have been looking a lot at alex gray he does mainly psychedelic imagery using very bold coulors he usesd a lot faces in his art work and I feel I may try to incorporate a face or some facial freatures within these somewhere as nothing convey emotion more thamn a face. alex greys work lives in many different contexts but I feel the main one is a commercial context as he sells his prints on t-shirts and you see a few of them on album covers, I think my work would be successful in

I visited the Rodney graham exhibition at the Baltic in which he has displayed a very large series of photographs in which he is in every single one in a different costume and scene the work is entitled "that's not me " the images are both amusing and complex and have all been displayed on giant light boxes. I loved the personal touch he added in his work by putting himself in all the photos I feel I would like to do a similar thing with in my paintings but not in a self portrait kind of way in a more emotions way. although the photos are just still life they have so much movement and because they are so big you almost feel like you are inside the photograph which is a insane euphoric feeling before this I had never thought about making my paintings much bigger but now I want my audience to feel the same way I did when I was standing in front of those large photos. I intend to experiment with size in an effort to make the audience feel part of the art.

in this weeks crit I got the opportunity to see some of zoe harrihills work, which I really enjoyed this is my favourite piece that she had done I think the colours and the composition is particularly successful as I feel everything seems to just work in harmony with each other. she was inspired by monet and van bough but wanted her work to show in a more contemporary way and I think she has been successful in doing this.

wassily Kandinsky was a Russian abstract artist his works were mainly very colourful and within then featured lots of lines and shapes he wanted to create a sense of spirituality and didn't believe in copying from nature I feel my work is quite abstract so I though expanding my knowledge of abstract art would inspire my work although there has been some inspiration taken I feel my style and work is just not on the same wavelength so I intent to look in to artists more like myself.

this is a development of the kind of strange shape I am aiming to achieve I want the shape to look like it is being torn apart  but also to look like its living like some sort of organ. I was actually researching in to Kandinsky when I did this painting, my work is not as abstract as he is but the way he uses shapes and blends colours together I found inspiring in particular the use of color I tried to get a similar sort of blend with this piece however I don't feel it was successful as the grey is very overpowering.

jean Michael basquiat was an American artist who was heavily involved in the SAMO project which was an informal graffiti duo they did a series of works in Manhattan in the 1970s. he was a very expressive painter who exhibited many of his works all of the wold. most of his art work commented on some of the worlds issues at the time and although his art was very serious in its nature his use of bright colours and bold line work made it very appealing to look at and would seem quite joyful. I personally love the style of his work and hope to convey some of that raw boldness and freedom within my art.

this is an experimental paining I did focusing on the blending of the colours in the background then layering over the top with a strong outline and bold brush strokes to create a figure. I like the way this face is distorted and how the highlights really bring the picture to life. I like painting in this graphic style I take a lot of inspiration  from jean Michel banquet and his street art I find there is a lot of freedom in his art work and I attempt to convey this same feeling. I feel I may experiment more with shapes and see where that takes me rarther than just focusing on the face for now.

For this semester I intend to try and develop my work from last semester i will not be working with the same themes but I intend to work with the same style and will attempt to develop my painting technique. I will take some inspiration from last semester but my aim is to move on to bigger things perhaps creating something more personal. I would also like to explore etching in more detail as I enjoy the process and feel I can convey much more detail within my art work. I also want to gain a greater understanding of the context of my work through experimentation.