Investigating my Rural Space

Cutting out abstract shape

Working in a black and white context in order to develop the ideas of light and dark and shadow. I wanted to convey a visual to someone looking at my work. By blacking out certain areas within the picture I wanted them to focus on the detail and allow there minds eye to fill in the missing details. I cut up various copies of the above photograph and put reassembled them differently. By doing so I created a new variation each time. Some of the resulting images look quite abstract but I really liked experimenting with the photos and think the overall result is very effective.

Kiki Smith

Looking at the work of Kiki Smith.

Kiki Smith (American, born Germany, 1954) is among the most significant artists of her generation. Known primarily as a sculptor, she has also devoted herself to printmaking, which she considers an equally vital part of her work.

The daughter of American sculptor Tony Smith, Kiki Smith grew up in New Jersey. As a young girl, one of Smith’s first experiences with art was helping her father make cardboard models for his geometric sculptures. This training in formalist systems, combined with her upbringing in the Catholic Church, would later resurface in Smith’s evocative sculptures, drawings, and prints. The recurrent subject matter in Smith’s work has been the body as a receptacle for knowledge, belief, and storytelling....

I love her woodcuts. They are very detailed, quite stylistic and intriguing.

Woodcut titled Frontier.

Woodcut titled Roam.

The above prints stem from nature.

In the early 1990s, as the human body became a central theme in contemporary art, Smith looked outside the body and began producing closely observed images of nature - from insects, birds, and animals to the cosmos. In these works Smith reveals the precarious state of nature, and man's vital relationship to the environment and its creatures. During this period Smith also discovered that the delicate line attainable with the etching medium was particularly evocative of feathers and fur-motifs that dominate her nature studies. In 1997 she began an important and productive relationship with the New York intaglio workshop, Harlan & Weaver, which fostered her exploration of the medium's potential for her work on this theme. While creating these works, Smith often sketched directly from specimens in natural history museums.

Charcoal Shadows

Some more investigative drawings based on light in an urban space. Photo of my shadow as seen through park gates. I thought these were interesting and wanted to experiment with a new media so sketched them using charcoal on brown paper. I'm pleased with how they turned out.

Original primary source photographs:

Charcoal interpretation drawings:

Branching Out

For my first 3D piece I wanted to create a three like structure using white straws and capture the shadows it cast using a torch. However the torch wasn't strong enough and my camera isn't to sharp but never-the-less I've uploaded the results.

Conditional Approval Project

Week 1

Original Photograph

I felt this photograph represented the overall theme behind my idea for this project because it shows a stark contrast between the gritty, run-down urban side of life but the tree and greenery growing among the urban decay represents nature.

I wanted to manipulate the colour of this photo.

This lead me to further investigate the use of colour in relation to urban/rural surroundings. In my mind I can imagine a sort of urban/rural colour palette or moodboard consisting of reds, greens and yellows.

Below are some different colour saturations of the original photo made using photoshop

I love the green hues and deep reds that are highlighted. 

 In preparation for creating a woodcut of this photo I edited the colour once again this time simply changing it to black and white:

I really liked the work of Kiki Smith and wanted to reflect her style in my woodcut
Print of nature amidst the urban environment. Making the woodcut.

Unfortunately forgot to reverse the image so it's back to front.
I placed the monochrome prints on coloured paper for added effect.

First Tutorial Mike Fox

Had a tutorial with Mike Fox and he suggested I look at the work of artist James Casebere..he's an American contemporary artist and photographer living in New York. His photographs evoke our deepest fears and longings. He builds tabletop models that mimic the appearance of archetypal institutions (home, school, library, prison), or archetypal architectural tropes (tunnel, corridor, archway). In Casebere’s photographs, these miniatures often appear to be actual structures.