Unit 2 studio practice

Unit 2 materials and processes

This piece was finished for the interim show at the Lewisham Art House, May 2018. materials include :

hardboard found on site, cardboard, emulsion, gesso, pva glue. Because I thought it had to keep to the dimensions exactly, which was 30x30cm, I took off the lower piece of collage for the show.

These pieces were made for an exhibition at the Town hall in Lewes, August 2018, using found wood, wire, nails, paint. I was limited to displaying the work on wobbly display boards which meant they had to be small and light. Most of them have now been remade and incorporated in to other pieces, works in progress. The surfaces and use of worn, reused materials is to echo the messiness and alterity of derelict buildings and wastelands. I also like the textures of Prunella Clough and also Tapies and artists working within the Arte povera movement because they used low grade, cheap materials. I also referenced Ben Nicholson and his low level reliefs made with wood and plaster.

brown paper collage, oil pastel, pencil. This is one of a series of drawings and collages made using old maps of lewes , I was looking for simple, abstract shapes to describe the shape of the town, its topography alongside the river which was such an important means of transport for materials in earlier industrial times.

found wood, blackboard paint, gesso, nails. Again, this references Ben Nicholson in the restricted colour and sanding back to see brush marks.

larger piece, taken in for Mark F tutorial and group tutorial ( see in Journal for notes on tutorial) . constructed from found wood, paint, cardboard, polyfilla, paper, paint and parts of it are repurposed bits from earlier pieces in the show in the summer. It sort of folds up and unfolds like a folding bicycle. Making it was like a painting, and actually it is better from one side or other and not the side, so its not sculptural in that sense. It references P Barlow in using very low grade materials, and any joints left visible and the colours are references to industrial colours on building sites/demolition sites, touches of bright blue, yellow and red from safety tape and notices. It was the maximum size I could comfortably carry on the train to college.

This is a really small piece, maybe 20 cm long, made from lots of pieces of found wood, canes, vinyl tile, glued together and then sawed through. It also has a small piece of b/w photocopy of a photo collaged on it.

work in progress piece made with found wood that leans against the wall, like a buttress, and reminds me of parts of derelict phoenix estate and the inside / outisde feeling of bits of materials joined together but coming apart. The bits of paper collage and canvas wrapped round are like bits of bandage wrapped round wounds.

Part of this piece was put up for a group crit, in October 18. It is made up of lengths of found wood, collaged with cardboard, canvas, paper, and little pieces of b/w photocopies of photos. Some bits are painted though I then would often try to sand that down. I also wrapped a piece of tarpaulin round the long piece and used some little pieces of broken found chalk on the floor. I wrapped all the pieces up in a bit of tarpaulin with string to carry it and , again I was trying to find maximum length I could carry on the train. After these pieces I've moved away from the pieces of wood to look for lighter combinations which mean I can somehow work both larger, and smaller too.

I began making a rubbing of a plastic woven bag, cut down the sides, and then glued that to a papier mache (layers not a pulp), cast of the bag itself. then glued that bag together. The idea was to create a bag to carry the smaller pieces of work to college, along with the rubbing of a large tarpaulin, again backed with papier mache.

Rubbing the textured surface with a graphite stick worked well in picking up not only the surface of the bag/tarpaulin but also the plywood studio floor. I could use this technique outside in the phoenix site, to make rubbings of parts of buildings. It works well with newsprint, only sometimes it tears easily but it can be easily repaired with masking tape. I quite like the look of the repairs, they look a bit like torn architectural drawings.

I made a rubbing of the small blue record card box, and also made a cast of the box. I have made it up in to 3D and it can hold record cards for the installation. I will just put a few in and maybe make copies for another time as I wouldn't like them to get damaged or lost. This means that I have found a way to include these personal notes/records as part of a larger display of an archive of sorts...

I made rubbings of the whole tarpaulin on several sheets of newsprint. I then covered tarpaulin with a layer of Papier Mache using mostly A4 paper with text on. This was the same method as I used for the bag. When it was dry I peeled the paper away from the plastic tarpaulin sheet. Then glued the newsprint to the Papier Mache layer. it creates just the right thickness when dry to be able to fold and hold its shape, like a map, or again, like vellum or a thick parchment.

I then traced the river, town ditch, green wall and town walls on an enlarged medieval map of lewes and used it as a stencil to use a blue spray paint on the large piece. I was worried about the blue being too much but as there is little other colour I think it works alright. Also, the spray paint made a diffused edge which looks like the graffiti marks on the wall at the Phoenix and also like sprayed street marks for road works, which is an effect I Iwanted to get.

I cut out and collaged on to the piece a small town ditch and green wall labels, and painted over them so they are barely noticeable. I didn't want it to look too like a map. I also wanted it to look like a rubbing of a tarpaulin, and the ground beneath, to reference building sites.

Do-hoh Suh's rubbings of his entire New York apartment were a good reference for me for this and the process of the rubbing is a hands on, intense drawing activity. I could use it to make larger pieces outside at the Phoenix estate.

I had collected bits of earth and bits of chalk from the site a while back which id kept in jars. I also have kept sweepings from my studio while I made the last small sculptures using found objects from the site. I am using these transported in paper bags to college to put in/on the tarpaulin. I like the idea of the bits sitting in the folds. I also like the idea of leaving instructions with this piece for the viewer to take the bits out of the paper bag and handle and then arrange on surface, but this might be a bit risky for this installation.

The bits of wood with collage etc are all pieces of previous pieces which I have sawn off, sanded a little and then heaped together. There are a few traces of previous bits of paintings which have been collaged, torn, sawn, sanded, and left. There is also one of the sewn books I made with copies of photos of site and also a collage of a photo on a folded out cardboard box.

For the interim show at the nunnery gallery I made a new piece, which had elements which moved the ideas forward and others which didn't. The elements I repeated didn't work so well : the blue spray paint was too much, the record boxes looked really badly made !, and I wanted the rubble rubbish to be covered in paper not masking tape ! Also, the netting which I ended up spraying brown just didn't work even though I spent ages cutting out. I can try to make it again but maybe need to find way to make it more like a textile, like lace or crochet. However, the bits of stitching really worked I thought though I won't use that form again of the concertina with photos on reverse as not strong enough to go with whole piece. Hazard tape may as well be red / orange not, different colour as suggested by Benet Spencer in tutorial (see in Journal notes).

Also, it was so difficult showing on the floor there. literally no one looked at the work, the lighting on it was rubbish, it was all concentrated on the paintings on the wall.These paper floor pieces, I am coming to realise, are vulnerable and it is possible the safest solution is to have some sort of anchor to a wall, to keep them from washing away !