Before starting the course we were asked to conduct research into three different artists as an introduction to the contextual and professional studies unit; one from the Turner Prize shortlist 2013, one from a gallery you visited over the summer and another one from an artist journal.
Turner prize 2013 shortlist artist - Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Born in
1977, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is an artist currently shortlisted for the Turner
Prize 2013. Yiadom-Boakye is based in London and she has shown her work in
galleries across the world. She was nominated for her exhibition ‘Extracts and
Verses’ at Chisenhale Gallery in 2012. Her work is traditional yet the subject
matter is very innovative. Being a figurative painter the people in her work
are not real but are familiar in terms of character expressing ideas that
depict particular characters like revolutionists, fanatics, savages and
missionaries. They are created from real life drawings and also memories, each
painting showing a hidden story left open to the viewer’s own interpretation. Yiadom-Boakye’s
pallet is very dark using warm browns and cooler tertiary grays that complement
one another helping to generate a stronger more intense atmosphere for her
subject matter. Her style is full of movement and texture which brings the
characters to life heightening the hidden narrative behind each painting. This
is what I particularly like about her artwork, the raw colours used help create
a powerful atmosphere and story evoking the imagination of the viewer to give
these people a story whether they are real or not.
Yiadom-Boakye’s
work raises many questions for its viewer about how we read pictures, in
particular, black subjects. Personally I think her paintings generate questions
about race, politics and society. Her work goes beyond the galleries onto the
streets of everyday life raisings many unanswered questions about society
today. As well as current life issues her work also challenges the history of
portraiture in art due to the absence of black subjects in the past along with
their complete disappearance ever since portraiture became central to contemporary
art.
In an
interview with Jamie Stevens about her Chinsehale Exhibition in 2012 she
comments that her paintings are translations of words, seeing them as
paragraphs or sentences, with the hope they are read as stories with the
suggestion of a narrative left open to the viewer. She also says the reason why
she chose the name ‘Extracts and Verses’ for her 2012 exhibition was for a
similar reason, that each painting is a piece of something else without
providing the whole story. During this same interview Steven’s asked
Yiadom-Boakye about the decisions taken when hanging the paintings for that
particular exhibition. She says that she doesn't have much to do with the
hanging of the paintings but always wants to be involved as she has a
particular way of seeing. Also she creates so many paintings that there are so
many meanings available. For this particular exhibition she comments on the
fact she didn't want to depict her paintings like a community of men and women,
but it was important to her that her paintings are hung in coherence to one
another complementing each other in terms of tone, colour and form.
Yiadom-Boakye
received great press for her work. In April 2012 the guardian wrote about her
work. The headline of the piece was ‘Everyday actions are made poetic by
Yiadom-Boakye's paint coaxed figures, emerging from her canvases with secrets
intact.’ They comment about how she is one of life’s ‘great manipulators’ being
able to depict character from bold textural strokes of paint. It is also said that
her paintings are so compelling that it is difficult to believe that the
characters in her paintings are not real. Yiadom-Boakye has put black subjects
back into the soul of European painting.
(Paintings from ‘Extracts and Verses’ exhibition 2012)
Gallery visited over the summer - Convento de Santo Antonio, Loule, Algarve, Portugal Fernando Pinheiro's 2013 summer Exhibition - ‘La in Loule-al- ulya Pintura’
Fernando Pinheiro is a painter who lives in the Algarve in
Portugal, as well as moving in between two major capital cities; Paris and
Tokyo. Pinheiro’s work often expresses ideas influenced from his surroundings
that influence his day to day life like people and their own memories. His work explores the theories behind the notion of
modern art, his paintings in particular reflect on the fact that we are just a
small spec in a large universe. As well as this his ideas also represent a
generation showing images of war, immigration, debates and society.
His 2013 summer exhibition of his work in a converted convent
in Loule, Portugal shows a range of different billboards of work placed
deliberately around the Loule council. They present both paintings and phrases
together in china ink. During the mounting process of his exhibition he invited
the general public to come and view this stage of work for a couple of weeks to
involve everyone as a community. In an interview for a local Algarve magazine about
his exhibition in Loule, Pinheiro says that he thought it would be interesting
to transform the area into an artist’s workshop for those first two weeks
creating a real environment to show the general people how an artist works.
During the interview he also says how he did this to give people the opportunity
to see his work as it progressed, just
like they would have centuries ago when artists would paint the churches. As
well as paintings he also produced sculpture and installation work for his
exhibition, one of them being a group sculpture produced by the general people
and himself.
Pinheiro is an artist that doesn’t like to work alone; he
prefers to be surrounded by people because it is their stories and experiences
that really inspire his work. In the same interview previously mention he
quotes - “If you are too
self-centred you hide yourself away; if not, you communicate with people and
ideas start to grow, and they are no longer yours, they are universal and
eventually important things start to happen”. I love this comment and I think
Pinheiro represents himself a universal artist that can reach out to anyone
from any country, city and background. His aim for this exhibition in Loule was
to transform that small city into the centre of the world. His reason for this
being that small cities are never considered as the ‘centre of the world’ and
he wanted to challenge that conception. Pinheiro believes that if you have the
right imagination and passion you have the ability to make where you are the
centre of the world.
In each of
Pinheiro’s paintings he always incorporates parts of flying transport; like
helicopters, planes and spaceships. Another noticeable feature within his work
that I personally noticed when at his exhibition in Loule was the way in which
his paintings had been arranged. They were placed in positions where extremely
large paintings were placed next to tiny pieces of work. His installations were
also placed in particular positions acting like obstacles for the viewer as
they made their way around the gallery space, forcing them to dodge out of the
way of things that had come away from the main sculpture.
(Work from his 2013 exhibition)
Artist selected from a journal- Sarah Morris
Interviewed by ArtReview on her 2012 commission ‘Big Ben’ for Art on the Underground.
Sarah Morris
is a British born contemporary artist who lives and works in New York but also
works in London. She is a painter and film maker finding her inspiration from
urban landscapes within some of the world’s major cities; New York, Chicago and
Beijing, more closely looking at the architectural structures of these
locations. She observes the unique characteristics of her chosen locations and
often explores the relationship between ideas and the cities physical sounds
and images. Some of her well known earlier work explores stained glass windows
from cathedrals and intricate patterns found on Islamic mosques. Her paintings
are very complex generating ideas about the experience of modern life. As well
as her paintings her film work also explores urban themes often breaking down
some major architectural components of a city to show their true form.
In her video
interview for the art magazine ArtReview she explains the process in which her
mind works, how she structures her work and what the viewer’s get out of it.
Morris begins by commenting on how she produces her work often thinking in a
series. This is then reflected on how she presents her work; the viewer can see
that they are part of a bigger picture. She believes that this is what you
experience when moving around in a, especially when in the underground or
subway, you only see a flash of what you are passing. In this video interview
she speaks specifically about her commission ‘Big Ben’ in 2012 produced for the
Art of the Underground. She envisioned this particular work to be looked at
whilst on the move rather than a billboard piece, in motion when travelling on the
underground trains.
Some people
believe that Big Ben and the London Underground work together. However Morris
believes them to be completely seperate. In the video interview she comments
that Big Ben is like a marker, a marker for where you are in the city and also
where you are in terms of your day. She goes on to say that this is because Big
Ben has a long history of what happened around it but it fails to tell this.
Morris’ commission ‘Big Ben’ in the underground tells the stories of both the
past but also the imagined future. Morris wants this to be in the mind of the
viewer when they admire her work. Along with the hidden meanings behind her
work, Morris’ idea of placing her pieces in the underground was also to make
the paintings look like an animated film; they flicker as you travel on the
trains showing them come together and come apart. Morris goes on to say that
this is in fact the process of how she produces her work as well as the way
things happen in cities. When creating her work Morris often looks at the
networks within cities and this was why she was drawn to doing a piece for the
underground; she thinks the structure of its map is beautiful. People comment
on her work saying that they looks like maps but in the video interview she
reveals that she has never used maps but that her works act like a virtual map to
her brain linking politics, entertainment and society together. She believes
that as an artist it is impossible to avoid this.
In a way
Morris’ paintings remind me of the Piet Mondrian’s work, like his work her
paintings use lines and colour to generate structural forms with depth and
movement. Looking at Morris’ paintings I
can see the links and structures hidden within the abstract shapes. I can see
the architectural references clearly and for me personally I do get a real
sense of city life as the bright colours and lines within the paintings
generate movement.
(Pictures of her 'Big Ben' commission)
