Artists who inspired me for this Assignment:

Romero Britto at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romero_Britto

Romero Britto is a Brazilian artist, painter, serigrapher and sculptor,  who lives in the USA since 1989. Coming from a very modest family from Pernambuco (Northeast of Brazil) he has developed a great sense of being creative using what was available around him, from cardboards, used paper and anything he could use for his artwork. Britto’s became known when the reinveted the bottle of absolut vodka. Millions of people saw that. His art is associated with pop art and cubism. Britto’s work is vibrant, busy and full of energy. Looking at his work is like looking at a Latino interpretation of Pop art blended with cubism. His work inspired me in the use of bright colours versus pattern.

Jones, Jonathan(2001), The night stuff, Louise Borgeois at TATE – The guardian  9 jan 2001 at : https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/jan/09/artsfeatures1

Louise Bourgeois was a French-American artist and  sculptor who created a series of drawings called ‘Insonmia’. Her drawings were of shapes, human figure and also patterns. Red is a predominat colour in this series. Bourgeois is well known by her magnificent size sculpure called maman, a spider that represents her mum. She was a remarkable artist who succeeded in the art world during 1940′,50′ when it was mainly dominated by male artists. Among drawings, paintings, installations and sculptures, Bourgeois main subjects were family trauma, the feminine, sex… Her work has a intense presence of emotion and energy.

The other three artists who inspired me for this assignment are Yayoi Kusama , Andy Warhol and Emily Kame Kngwarreye. The research on these artists can be found on my PP post of ‘Researches on artists who work with repetition’ and Kngwarreye research is found in Contextual focus point, part 4, project 3.

 

 

Assigment five – Time lines, ‘Insomnia series’

All these drawings are in size A3 sketch paper and canvas textured paper. The patterns were designed with markers, metallic paint,acrylic paint and  cut out from coloured paper.

Reflection on Assignment five

Being on lockdown has not been easy for anyone. I had made different plans for this Assignment but everything has changed since March 18th, when I became  allowed to leave the house once a day to go for groceries.  Part 5 of this module, was not an easy one  to start with. The most difficult Project was Project 2: An artist’s book, however I received an excellent feedback from it!  I might over think about some of the projects. Instead of just go with my guts, I cannot avoid worrying if I am meeting the success criteria in each task, and if I will achieve my credits to pass. I have even contacted my tutor Diana Ali to help me a bit more and she gave me great advise. It is not the first time she tells me not to overthink, and just do it, to not to follow the instructions in the module so strictly. After a lot research and reading about artist’s books, I think I finally decided to relax and keep doing, experimenting and exploring my ideas more freely. Despite the fact that I struggled to execute the first artist’s book, I found out how much pleasure is to do something that evolves through a certain period of time. I need to mention here that ‘Time’ is something that I have always craved for when it comes to my artwork, something that I never had enough due to day job, house chores and looking after my two children. At this moment,  I have plenty of it and I want tobe as productive as I can . I had to mention Project 2 because after that it seemed that everything started to flow better. I finally passed that phase of being stuck and worried about doing the right thing. I just kept doing things, kept producing within the instructions I understood but bending these instructions slightly,  to suit how I work. Using time to explore and create new work has proven to be very rewarding. Time to plan, time to try and make mistakes and time to execute it. The subject ‘time’ has also triggered  many thoughts and ideas.Right at this moment in everyone’s life around the world, time has become so plenty and yet, threatening . My initial plan for Assignment 5 involved a construction site.  I have recorded it  through photos the last month or so. How I would executed it, I didn’t think much about. I was focused on a subject and literally in finding something that would ‘elapse’ over a certain amount of time. Now I can’t go out of my house to check on this site. I have photographed it, but I still wanted to go back and observe the final changes. I am home, stuck,  with plenty of time on my hands to come out with something else I can do within my environment. Since the first day of lockdown I have become very anxious and restless. I feel for my children and family, I worry about the whole world and our future in it. I can’t sleep most nights. I am awake till 3am every day. The first couple nights I spent two hours just drawing. Not planning anything, until one night I started drawing patterns. The first one came out quite nicely. 

I just enjoyed doing these patterns, it relaxed me  and I know in my subconscious it might have to do with my researches for my PP;  to link my work to the work of Andy Warhol, Yayoi Kusama or Louise Borgeois and other artists who worked with ‘repetition’. Patterns is about repeating elements in an artwork  and repetition has taken over  my work and my everyday life , in a regimented way. It is not that we do not live in repeated moments .Most of us  wake up everyday, and do very similar things to keep up our own routines.   I suppose I have start perceiving ‘repetition’ in different angles . The repetition as in how I  want to present my PP, which I will discuss when it is ready,  but it also has taken another route for this Assignment in representing boredom, routine, consistency, subconscious thoughts, flow and  as an emotional practise. Drawing patterns had become a way of dealing with my  restlessness, the way Louise Bourgeois has used in her series of drawings called ‘Insomnia’. It became a  way of exploring my ability in working with lines and creating different images with them. I have being inspired by Andy Warhol, Yayoi Kusama, Louise Bourgeois, Allan McCollum, Britto Romero and Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Some of these artist’s  researches can be found in my PP post. Louise Bourgeois, Emily Kame and Britto Romero will be included in this Assignment’s page.

I have developed a series called  ‘Insomnia’, inspired by ‘Insomnia drawings’ by Louise Borgeois. I have started this series on the 18th of March.. Some are beautiful, others are boring, heavy, or too busy to look at. Some are conceptual and some purely emotional. Some are also unfinished as it all relates to how I was feeling on each day of sleepsness nights . I have tried them in different techniques, methods and materials. It has elapsed from simple patterns to more sophisticated and intriguing ones. I am presenting this Assignment five with 21 pieces of work. Overall, this course has helped me enhancing my abilities in working with different materials and techniques. It has broaden my knowledge in drawing and how to react and represent my ideas in relation to my environment, feelings and perception. I believe I am starting to  find my voice in my work.

Katia_Chester_ID5

Feedback on Report for Assignment 5

I am very pleased with this report, specially because I am coming to the end of this module. I completely understand Diana’s comment on trying not to make some drawing ‘pretty’ by colouring or making changes as sometimes they work as they are. It is true, I sill worry about doing something wrong and not seeing as a good work although I spontaneously do some work that seems that the spontaineity is exactly what is working! I am also glad I am improving in terms of context and concept. It is not completely clear yet, I don’t know If I can do it in every single work, but it makes more sense and it is better to work on something when I have in mind what I am trying to represent. My assignment was successful but I understand what Diana means by maybe adding some collage elements would make it look more interesting than be just patterns. I will take a look again and see how could I modify some of them. Overall, this is a good report and I am considering all the advises in order to improve for the next coming Assignment and Module.

Assignment five : Collage addition 

I followed my tutor Diana Ali  suggestion and add some collage elements to some of my pattern work. I think it made them more interesting rather than just pattern work.

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