xmas2012

Well here we are at the end of semester 1.....hoping we've done enough to get by, floundering in the open seas searching for dry land.

What can you do but smile.....

2 versions of the most disturbing element of the previous face-lifted woman. Pixellated to heighten the artificiality of the already overly emphatic smile. In a painting the best of smiles become leers and you have the whole thing of the smile looking fine from a distance but fragmenting into discrete squares on closer inspection.
Not finished above but you get the general drift. Looks good but the downside is it takes forever...........to do.

In addition to keep my little grey cells happy....I tried out glazing on a beautiful skull image from the web. The resultant giant skull was produced to which I added an ambiguous piece of text......funny,tragic.....you decide ...just try out a few guesses of who the skull could belong to.

Have looked at Borremans, Close, Currin,Kippenberger, Prince,Rauch....etc etc and admire some of their work. However, what is it that drives an artist to stick with one relatively narrow field of expression....for the rest of his working life. (sure, if you've done it well a couple of times....what's the point, where's the fun.) Pretty sure branding,self-advertising ...the filthy lucre in general is the answer....but hope to be pleasantly surprised. happy Xmas....Every...Anyone.

Oh, yeah...forgot cool video. You can enjoy this only at max volume.....

A musical passage from 'A Day in the Life' - Beatles accompanying a video on the continuous intrusion and disturbance from technology in our lives.

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AQI1-8nI1o

 

Youtube pulled the plug on this after my violation of copyright of Messrs Starr and McCartney. From my perspective this video is a re-appropriation of a fantastic piece of music which complements the ambition of the video , perfectly. Surely an act of reverence rather than an act of theft!

 

1st semester year 3

Based on book ID by Susan Greenfield started exploring ideas about how we project our individuality to others....starting initially with the facelift as a literal way of changing one's appearance. Thinking about the ever invasive screen alter ego and this dual existence .....what could happen in the future...what is happening now?

And yet more attempts to portray an 'unreal' human face based on the photot of a middle-aged womans face.

This is in a more realistic vein. The bathroom shelf on the left shows the hanging skin removed from her face and the vial of blood and fat from the operation.

Slightly scary but definitely strange and unworldly....progress.

THE HUNT MUSEUM EXHIBIT

The Hunt Museum Project - Exhibition 3rd - 20th May 2012

Take inspiration from the Hunt Museum and produce something for display within the  museum.

I chose the Olmec Man Statue situated close to the exit door in a sort of miscellaneous cabinet.

A bit of research into this little guy was intriguing. Something like 2500 years old from Gulf Coast of Mexico.....2 things struck me immediately. 1) The statue itself is in wonderful condition and 2) what the hell is it doing stuck in a cabinet in a stuffy museum in the south west of Ireland ...devoid of any context. A little bit of reading on museum ideologies indicated that many museums are trying to move with the times and acknowledge both the objects they have and discuss the rights and wrongs of how they came to be here.

Therefore my piece for the museum was going to pose similar questions.......

1st pose is suposed to be reverrential, looking from below with strong accentuated features...a la deity.

2nd pose is contextual...showing iconography from the era/location against a jungle / pyramid structure.
Whether statue reflects a king or a god is unknown but it is strangely a little different from all of the other Olmec statues that I have reaerched.

3rd pose shows a contemporary iconic image a la hollywood portrayal of a film star. Taken from below at an angle it shows the Olmec Man's strong features in the most positive light.

The last pose shows the sorry way the statue is currently presented to the viewing public. Not only is it surrounded by artefacts from different cultures and eras ....they are representations of animals. To add insult to injury the statue is overlooked by 2 crucifixes as if to put the 'foreign' icon in its place.

No reverence , no context....what is it doing here??????

Finished assembled piece showing different ways of portraying an individual.

And there we have it ...The Olmec Man ....as you like him....gift wrapped for your pleasure!!!

 

1st dabble in the world of video.

 

What happened? Bishop / Cardinal Sean Brady

So, all of a sudden its the end of May, the sun has at last arisen over the emerald isle and all us little art student creatures can crawl out from our little crevices and face the real world again. First, a recap of the last 3 months of head scratching, wall head butting, sleepless nights and whatever else goes on when trying to fill the vacuum between one's ears.
The last piece produced was dear old Cardinal Brady. I hope to have conveyed the total lack of respect for this so-called man who turned his back on his devoted flock for the sake of his even more devoted antiquated church.(a choice no normal human being would surely make).

And now for the Dorian Gray representation !!!

And closer up....

Looks pretty grotesque...and thats the general idea. man or Monster.

2 more images of old Seanie.....

This follows the previous renditions of Brady in an attempt to excorcise my demons on why this man is allowed to determine his own fate , in spite of everything! This condemns the Irish public, in particular the church going fraternity, who by there silence.....allow the church to roll on and on regardless of what crimes have been committed under their banner. SHAME INDEED.

I tried to capture this aspect using a mirror mosaic with sections angled to relfect the viewer whilst reading the hidden message.

Would like to replicate this idea ....maybe wall-size so lots of people can see themselves together. Meantime Brady rolls on and on ...and nothing changes!!!

Last sequence of work based on photo project

More abstraction based on the flaking paint photograph as inspiration.

Further refinements as follows -

The final version of the series....made up of 4 pieces to correspond with different phases - see previous post re photoproject will arrive soon. Early stage shown below....

I have a lot of work to do but hope to finish it off as 4 panels against a black background separated by ~ 2cm. Should be interesting, at least.

Inspiration from Georgia O'Keefe  exhibition seen in Rome over Xmas holidays. She was some gal living to 99 years of age , much of that in the desert of New Mexico, painting sensual abstractish forms from nature.
http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/
http://www.georgia-okeeffe.com/
http://www.georgiaokeefe.com/

A flavour of Georgia's work.....

The Photo Exhibition - Splish,Spalsh,Splosh

The following images are of the display of photos along the corridor between the canteen and the foyer within LSAD.

View going down the corridor.

Photographs are arranged in a broad and irregular stripe following the contour of the floor. The irregularity of outer contour and arrangement of mixed portrait and landscape orientations is designed to reflect the random nature of the subject matter being displayed ....ie splashes of paint

However going up and down the corridor it only acheives this goal to a moderate degree. It still looks very regular and composed.

and lastly

With more space , perhaps a random order with some small arrays of order to catch the attention .....ask the audience to look for a pattern. Perhaps a band of colour.
Attempt 1 below using eyes looking up in bottom right hand corner.....

SPLISH , SPLASH,SPLOSH - Paint in Limerick City

Project from Peter Morgan was to photograph 'paintwork' in the city ....large or small...in an interesting manner. ie in or out of context, realist,abstract.....whatever.

9 photos that I assembled starting with the one I liked most.

The reasons why I like this are the 3 - dimensional nature and mixture of geometric and organic like forms / shapes. Thinking metaphorically I see the layer of paint retaining a tenacious hold on the metal surface but ultimately fighting a losing battle. There is a certain beauty in the contrast between the firm hold, the initial curling up at the edges, the shadow formed by the departing flake and the clean background with no visible traces of the paint. Could this be our lives....holding on, letting go , being remembered and influencing others for a short time only to become 'nothing'.

Thats what I think ...in my current state of mind. Thats the way it is!

I won't tell you what these images are. Some are very large ...some very small. Enjoy!?!?

An exhibition of the top one or two chosen by each student was subsequently put together in LSAD ,in the corridor reaching from the foyer to the canteen.

Next Blog!

Further attempts at abstraction

Inspired by a workshop on handling oil paint let it flow in the studio for a couple of weeks with no subject matter......Thought it would be easier than it was.

Enough said!

Perhaps with a bit more subtlety....liked this one (below)

This exploration was fun but ran out of steam as there was no positive feedback from the painting process.....ie was not in the place......

Photo project next ....maybe some more inspiration!

Its been a while....

Hi All,
A lot appears to have opnened over the last few months. Summer holidays were great but need to get a job next year. Did no painting whatsoever ...persuading myslef that this is due to intense activity during term.....not so sure. Anyway, back to college with a bang. Shall try and recount as best I can.

INSTALLATION - the word that strikes fear into the heart of any old skeptic like me.

The smart-arse idea (my speciality) of hanging unrelated objects from the ceiling backfired big time in that all I ended up with is a few discrete objects with no relationship to each other. I produced a few bits and pieces of some of the items as they dangled trying to inject some life in them with limited success.....and more importantly ....being pretty representational....not good, in this place at least.

Guitar strings made from barbed-wire with spot of blood. Looks better in real-life ...but not much.
In a similar vein I connected the broken string on the guitar neck with the twin towers 'event'. The painting is supposed to be two guitar necks with a broken string implying something is wrong. The perspective is similar to many of the views of the twin towers on that fateful day as the planes crashed in.

At this point started to try and go abstract.......1st ...a very twee attempt...

When you are in it , making it...you look at it closely and see some naturally occurring interesting patches. However on reflection afterwards it is vaccuous with no intent or purpose...jus chance.

Tried manipulating ink on a piece of blue floor insulation .

Some success but vey difficult to work with and though you can get marvellous ink suspended in H2O effects and gloss ....the fading and drying process diminishes the appearane dramatically. Will come back to this later on. layering and abstraction qualities ...very good.

Decided to concentrate on the broken string / tension as a concept rather than a representation or total abstract form.  Tried to capture physical feeling of tension by bending wooden dowl rods coming out of a flat planar surface. Dont have a good photo of this in its finished state hanging on the wall....but you get the idea below.

Broke 2 rods trying to squeeze into drilled holes in mdf board painted black. (wetting them first is apparently the thing to do) Anyway....painted the rods in increasing warmth of temperature from end to centre and placed image of hot element underneath to implay intense heat and imminent possible rupture. Beautiful but dangerous....sweet and sour.

Next blog for what happened next!