Evaluation of the project

Theme for the AS coursework unit: Discover and Explore; The Unseen
-Afterwards

The journey I started in September at the beginning of my AS course my theme was nature but I was struggling to get the observational studies of it. This has led me to work into a more personal direction. As for the first few weeks I was only focusing on the three themes faded, memories and traces. When I came towards preparing for my final piece I realised that the more personal my practice pieces, the better and more successful the final piece would be.

During my journey of AS Fine Art I have studied the artist Lucio Fontana; he has influenced me to work with sharp objects to “discover the space beyond”. I decided to use a kukri knife to explore ideas like Fontana. This then led me to enrich my own history to the course as my Granddad had used the kukri knife in the Falkland war as a solider; which gave him freedom to discover and explore new countries beyond the habitation. My Granddad’s habitation was Nepal, he gained his freedom. Then he discovered and explored new countries such as; Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and India.
My Granddad has left traces of bravery in the battlefield, The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The sharp Kukri knife was a weapon of protection and the walking stick, a means of guidance and direction.

I have used sharp objects to discover and explore the space beyond on many different mediums such as a branch, an old coat, papers, frames and many more that I didn’t even knew I could. The Coat worked very well even though it was an accident. I had successfully experimented with my own technique on discovering the space beyond the surface that is visible, in this case the visible surface was the dark violet fabric of my coat and the space discovered is the white cotton that lies beyond the visible surface.
I found out a very interesting fact during this course, my Granddad used the sharp Knife around 1962 when he was in the army and Lucio Fontana published the Spatial Concept in 1968 which was around the same period of time. I felt that this had a strong personal resonance for me and this fired me on.
I have also looked at Joseph Mallord William Turner. As Turner said "The sun is God" just before he passed away. He has had predominantly used the sun in his work to create a vibrant effect. I found this inspirational and have created sun in many different ways in different colours on my pieces to make my work expressive and meaningful. For me the sun represents spiritual living angel of my granddad.
Salvador Dali is one of my favourite artists and I find his work very interesting, the use of his creative juxtapositions to add meaning to his work has inspired me to explore ideas such as combining two different materials and work on it as one, applying meaning to it.
Robert Rauschenberg’s use of faded images to emphasise the past has inspired me to use transfer techniques to give my work an aged look. I have used transparent adhesive tape for transfer technique on my pieces. The most successful transfer technique using sello-tape was on the album cover of my adored musician. As the musician has passed away the transfer technique was perfect to give my work a faded and aged look.
Benny Andrews and Hans Hartung have also inspired me through my journey, the use of the straight lines on their art work is very expressive and I can relate them on a lot of my work. I have employed the use of the straight lines and explored the ways I can express my work by slashing and cutting in straight lines using the kukri knife on various of different materials.
The technique of showing emotion by Holly Thoburn has inspired me to show emotions in my pieces. I was able to rebuild the technique by using transferred technique called etching to show emotion like Holly Thoburn. I etched two crossed kukri knives on a polystyrene plate. Then I inked up the polystyrene plate and transferred it to a plain piece of paper. To etch I used a sharp knife to make the cuts, this then led me to explore the space that lies beyond the cut. Like Lucio Fontana, I have created a variety of different marks on a polystyrene plate using a sharp knife and successfully investigated the space beyond the cuts.

Final piece evaluation

Final piece
William turner inspired me when he stated “the sun is god” just before his passed away.  In my piece, I have created The Sun god illuminating a soldier (my Granddad) helping to get his freedom. I have created sun itself mixing yellow acrylic paint and PVA glue to make the sun shine which generated a vibrant look. I used a trace of sun colour for the soldier and the kukri knife to emphasise that the Sun God has spiritually given the strength and power to my Granddad. My Granddad used the blessings and fought for his freedom. This has a huge impact on my life, as now I have more freedom to explore beyond the established habitation.  For me, my Granddad is my-self in past life which engaged me to feature my Granddad in this particular piece of art work to make my whole project personal. Robert Rauschenberg’s use of faded images to emphasise the past has inspired me to use transferred techniques to give my work an aged look. I have used transparent adhesive tape for transfer technique on this final piece. I have also used collage technique and then transferred it onto my final piece to indicate the hazy memories from the past. I have contrasted the piece in half; the restriction and the freedom my granddad had experienced are divided in two different atmospheres as it was.  The right side of the piece from the viewer’s eye is the before when living in the habitation and the conflicting half, later on when the freedom to discover and explore was accomplished
I decided to use a kukri knife to explore ideas like Lucio Fontana. My Granddad used the kukri knife in a war; which gave him freedom to discover and explore new countries beyond the habitation. My Granddad has left traces of bravery in the battlefield, The Valley of the Shadow of Death. The sharp Kukri knife was a weapon of protection and the walking stick, a means of guidance and direction. In this piece I have made a big slash right in the middle using a sharp knife to divide the piece in two and also to discover/ explore the space beyond. I have also used the big black cross to illustrate death which my granddad had witnessed with his eyes a number of times.

For my next project I would like to:
 Do tons of effective experiments to build up my confidence
 Link all of my studies and experiments.
 Plan ahead before making a big move.
 Make my piece clearer to understand for the viewers.  

Inspirational Artist's Artwork

René Magritte - La Victoire (The Victory)

Lucio Fontana- Spatial Concept

Robert Rauschenberg- Signs

Antoni Tapies- Journal

Joseph Mallord William Turner- The Fighting Temeraire

Benny Andrews- Latter Day Saint Sebastian

Experiment on discovering the space beyond

I took this kukri knife to my room as I wanted to use it for my project. I had just got into my room; I put my coat on the chair next to a mirror. I picked up the kukri knife, started slashing the air to try-out and measure the heavy weight of such a Knife as I was looking  at my reflection in the mirror, accidentally I slashed my coat leaving a big slash cut on the back.

I had successfully experimented Lucio Fontana's concept on discovering the space beyond the surface that is visible, in this case the visible surface was the dark violet fabric of the coat and the space discovered is the white cotton that lies beyond the visible surface.

The kukri knife was used by my granddad in a war. He was in Gurkha regiment at the time when this photo was taken. And the Kukri knife above was used by him.

Here is a photograph of my Granddad in 1962.

I have chosen this particular object for my project because Lucio Fontana have influenced me to explore ideas by experimenting using sharp objects such as this Kukri knife.

Lucio Fontana

Spatial concept, Waiting (1968)

Lucio Fontana  has introduced elements of time and spaces into art by slashing the canvas with a razor blade.

Fontana literally cut between the space occupied by the viewer, through the surface of the canvas, to the space that lies beyond.
Fontana saw this as meaningful experiment of infinity, and later claimed ‘I have created an infinite dimension’.

I figured out that my Granddad using the sharp Knife and Lucio Fontana publishing the Spatial Concept was around the same period of time.

I felt that this had a strong personal resonance for me and this fired me on...

Experiment of discovering a new space beyond a cut

Discovered a new space that lies beyond the cut.

Influence Artist: Lucio Fontana
Like Fontana, I have discovered a new space by slashing the visible material.

Handle of a Khukuri

Khukuri (large curved knife)

This is a Khukuri (large curved knife) and the two small blades are used to sharpen and maintain the Khukuri. Khukuris are used as a tool and as a weapon.

Khukuri (a large curved knife)

Joseph Mallord William Turner And Antoni Tapies Analysis

Joseph Mallord William Turner - 'Rain Steam Speed' (1844) Oil on canvas

I have chosen this painting Rain Steam Speed painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner.

As Turner’s said "The sun is God" just before he passed away, I can see that he has used mostly the sun colour in this piece of work. This illustrates that Turner had traces and visions of sun god in his mind before he passed away. A steam train is coming towards the viewer at a speed while the rain is hitting the train.

The scene is fairly identifiable as Maidenhead Railway Bridge across the Thames between Taplow and Maidenhead near the area where Turner lived in his childhood with his maternal uncle.

Joseph Mallord William Turner’s Life and Career

Joseph Mallord William Turner’s date of birth is unknown but he claimed that he was born on April 23, 1775 in Covent Garden, London and died on December 19, 1851 in Cheyne Walk. He was a British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivaling history painting. Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolour landscape painting. He is commonly known as "the painter of light" and his work is regarded as a Romantic preface to Impressionism. Some of his works also are cited as examples of Abstract Art.

Turner’s father, William Turner was a barber and wig maker and Turner’s mother; Mary Marshall came from a family of butchers. His younger sister, Mary Ann, was born in September 1778 but died aged four in August 1783.

Turner traveled widely in Europe, starting with France and Switzerland in 1802 and studying in the Louvre in Paris in the same year. He made many visits to Venice. On a visit to Lyme Regis in Dorset he painted a stormy scene now it is in the Cincinnati Art Museum.

As Turner grew older, he became more eccentric. He had few close friends except for his father, who lived with him for 30 years and worked as his studio assistant. His father's death in 1829 had a profound effect, and thereafter he was subject to bouts of depression. He never married but had a relationship with an older widow, Sarah Danby.

Artist: Antoni Tapies

Title: Journal (Galfetti 166)' (1968)

This piece looks quite negative especially with the big cross in the middle and the colours used black and red. The red paint splattered looks like blood and the black cross next to it emphases death or kill.

The paper looks quite old and has a lot of texts which links with the title of the piece journal.

Antoni Tapies’s Life and Career

Antoni Tapies was born on 13 December 1923 in Barcelona and died on 6 February 2012. Tapies was a Catalan painter, sculptor and art theorist, who became one of the most famous European artists of his generation. Tapies’s father was a lawyer and Catalan nationalist who served briefly with the Republican government.

At the age of 17, Tapies suffered a near-fatal heart attack caused by tuberculosis. He spent two years as a convalescent in the mountains, reading widely and pursuing an interest in art that had already expressed itself when he was in his early teens.

Tapies had painted portraits in the style of van Gogh and Picasso. But then he turned to the abstract painting and developed his own style. He wore paint and other materials thick and partially scratched off. By alternating application of paint and scraping out the surfaces gives a look like old walls. All this may relate strongly to the character of the Spanish countryside.

Tapies is widely considered to be the most important post-war Spanish artist and his work has achieved international praise. Later he produced heavy clay sculptures of everyday objects such as baths and chairs.

The Autumn memories fading away leaving traces...

Traces
Faded

Robert Rauschenberg

Overdrive (1963)

Materials: silk-screen and oil on a canvas

Robert Rauschenberg was dyslexic, reading was very difficult for him in school sometimes he saw words backward, upside-down, or even double; which he has used as ideas in this art work.

Rauschenberg has used 4 stop signs all facing different directions to make his work look unique. He may also have put the stops signs as he used to see with his eyes when he was in school.

Near the middle of the collage Robert has drawn four birds, each of them are in different position to take off. The one bird flying has a white background to it, to make it stand out as the rest 3 birds are in different positions to take off and has a yellowish gold background. Robert has a faded clock which looks like a hypnotism clock, right at the top middle and the time is 7:17.  As Robert said that his job was to be a witness to his time in history. Clocks were especially interesting to him as he liked thinking about all the different ways we measure time.

Rauschenberg has mostly used black, white and primary colours and a couple faded drawings to give his artwork look old and original. The way he has set out this collage, makes the viewer’s eye focus on the right side from the viewer’s side.
The birds are facing to the right, the backgrounds on the left side is plain white and whereas the background on the right is black and grey which make the collage more stand out on the viewer’s eye. There is an old photograph of the statue of the liberty upside down at the top of the collage. As we know Robert was American and lived in America he may have been to the statue and have some meaning to put the photograph on his work.

Robert Rauschenberg’s Life and Career

Robert Rauschenberg was born on October 22 1925 in Port Arthur, Texas and died on May 12 2008 at the age of 82 in Captiva Florida United States.

Rauschenberg lived and worked in New York City as well as on Captiva Island, Florida until his death from heart failure on May 12, 2008.

  

Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects are employed in combinations. Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor and the Combines are a combination of both. He imagined himself first as a minister and later as a pharmacist. It wasn't until 1947, while in the U.S. Marines that he discovered his aptitude for drawing and his interest in the artistic representation of everyday objects and people.

Rauschenberg also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993. He became the recipient of the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts in 1995 in recognition of his more than 40 years of fruitful art making.

Rauschenberg was born as Milton Ernest Rauschenberg in Port Arthur, Texas, the son of Dora Carolina and Ernest R. Rauschenberg. His parents were Fundamentalist Christians. Rauschenberg married Susan Weil in 1950. Their only child, Christopher, was born on July 16, 1951. In 1953 after the end of his marriage; Rauschenberg had romantic relationships with fellow artists Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns.

Rauschenberg was quoted as saying that he wanted to work "in the gap between art and life" suggesting he questioned the distinction between art objects and everyday objects. From the fall of 1952 to the spring of 1953 Rauschenberg travelled through Europe and North Africa with his fellow artist and partner Cy Twombly. In Morocco, he created collages and boxes out of trash. He took them back to Italy and exhibited them at galleries in Rome and Florence.

Rauschenberg thinks that anything such as cardboard, tires, light bulbs, photographs, old clothes, found objects, found images even dirt can be used to make art.

Rauschenberg thought of himself as an artist-reporter. He said his job was to be a witness to his time in history. Clocks were especially interesting to him as he liked thinking about all the different ways we measure time.