Contextual Research in relation to group crit - Self directed.

When looking into the work by artists suggested in a previous crit on my self directed project, I found the work by Spencer Gore and Oskar Kokoschka most interesting and relevant to my own work.

Spencer Gore

(Somerset Landscape, oil on canvas
1909-10, 41.5 x 50 cm)

(From a canal bridge Chalk Farm Road
oil on canvas, 1913, 43.3 x 68.6 cm)

Spencer Gore was a British born artist, born in 1878 and he unfortunately later died at the young age of 34 in 1914. Gore studied at the Slade school of Fine Art where is was taught under Philip Wilson Steer who became one of his most profound influences which was shown in his early landscape work showing elements of impressionism. Steer himself was inspired by artists such as Claude Monet and Georges Seurat who was a part of the impressionists. 

During the early 1900's Gore spent a lot of time in London, Somerset and Dorset producing paintings expressing subjects such as landscapes and theatrical scenes. Gore is most known for his importance within the 'Camden Town Group', and along with fellow artist Walter Sickertt gathering together artists for the Fitzroy Street Group which was an organisation to help support and promote artists. The Camden Town Group was a group consisting 16 of English post-impressionists, men only. Their work was exhibited in the Allied Artist Association a group which was separate from the Royal Academy. Their paintings later went on to be exhibited in the Tate Britain in London. The Fitzroy Street Group was merged with the Camden Town Group in 1913 forming the London Group which still exists today.

Gore's early paintings have a neo-impressionist appearance with the strong use of bright pastel colours and also elements of pointillism. However his later works made in his final years have a strong relation to the post-impressionists with evidence of inspiration from Cezanne and Derain. Gore's paintings were displayed in the post impressionist founder Roger Fry's second exhibition. 

Studying paintings by Gore, it is clear that throughout his career he experimented greatly with colour and application of marks to help express emotion and atmosphere within his compositions. He looked at both country and urban landscapes well as portraiture his work gradually increasing in exaggerated tones and shapes which relates back to his inspiration from the post-impressionist artists. 

In relation to my own work I find his use of colour pallet particularly interesting as each cool or warm range in tones helps to generate a different atmosphere to complement the subject being depicted. I can relate to this as in my development I am using colours that I see within the environment to show atmosphere and what I felt at the time. Looking at his work this has encouraged me to consider the temperature of colour that I use and what it does to the landscape, how it changed the atmosphere. 

Oskar Kokoschka

( Self portrait as a Degenerate Artist
oil on canvas, 1937, 110 x 85 cm)

1886 to 1980, Oskar Kokoschka was a Austrian born artist as well as poet and playwright. He is most famous for his highly expressionist portraits and landscape paintings. He was a soldier in the First World War but was dismissed in 1915 due to being severely wounded. Among his influenced are Gustav Klimt and Adolf Loos who was an architect. During the 1920's he was doing very well exhibiting artwork in Berlin. However when the Nazis came about after WWI, Kokoschka was deemed degenerate (art that did not support the ideas of National Socialism). Many of his paintings were shown in the 'Degenerate Art' exhibition in Munich in 1937 and as a response he produced a self portrait called 'Self Portrait as a Degenerate Artist. He fled to the UK where he remained for the rest of the Second World War. After the war he moved to Switzerland where he remained for the rest of his career. 

His most successful works were his portraits. Kokoschka's painting technique was very erratic with a lot of texture and movement creating expressionist paintings. His paintings appear very moody and dark in terms of atmosphere due to the intense application of brush strokes depicting movement and depth. Kokoscha also worked a lot with colour experimenting with complementary and contrasting tones, his paintings often quite cool in temperature. In particular looking at his portraits, Kokoschka generates a lot of emotion though his use of colour and texture. 

I feel very inspired by his work in particular his portraits and his ability to generate emotion through his application and use of colour. Within my work I intend to reflect a particular atmosphere through my interpretation of colour. I want to express my emotions in the landscape, how I felt when in that location and how I remember it. 

Self Directed Project - Crit 03.03.14

Group Crit.

(My current work for my self directed project)

Points made during my crit: 

- work again with using only colour looking at night time and low light contrasts.

- If I go bigger I will need to use bigger tools to compensate.

- continue to play around with perspective; it helps to draw in the viewer and generates a strong atmosphere.

- draw at night to look at light?

- focus on parts; what is it in the paintings I enjoy?

- It is apparent that I am showing my interpretation; what I remember is in focus and what is my memory is blurred (this is a good contrast)

- continue with this; depicting what I felt and saw in the chosen location. 

Artists to maybe have a look into:

- Spencer Gore

- Michael Andrews

-Richard Tuttle

- Oskar Kokoschka

- Walter Sickert

-David Hockney's polaroid pictures of Root 66

(Peer Assessment)

My intentions:

After this group crit I felt very positive knowing that what I am doing is working with helpful feedback from the whole group . As suggested I will do a little more into my use of colour showing experimentation with the time of day and also idea of perspective. This will then help me to decide on what I ideas I will represent as my final body of paintings and what colours and application of texture to use to help generate an atmosphere that reflects a city environment. 

Self Directed - Further development.

After experimenting with colour, texture and my use of structure I decided to try a previous technique of using my own colour photography against my painting combining them together once again as I felt it had been a previously successful use of media. When doing this I wanted to play around with composition layouts, portrait landscape and also time of day, afternoon contrasted with night. My aim was of this was to show my research into the use of texture and my interpretation of colour and light generated either naturally or by neon city shop lights. I also wanted to reflect on how I interpret my ideas that show a different time of day and the atmospheres created by these in terms of colour, structure and perspective which seems to be a key element that is working within my compositions helping to draw in the attention of the viewer. To paint these ideas I used a range of pallet knives and acrylic paint on a section of my photographs taken whilst on a recent visit to London which helped me to gather many more compositions to play around with in terms of structure and lighting. 

(Untitled, acrylic and photograph, on foam board, A1)

(Untitled, acrylic and photograph, on MDF, A3)

I very much enjoyed painting these different ideas; both creating different challenges for me in terms of shadow and light and also emphasising the depth within the pictures. Looking at my use in colour I think that I have experimented positively, applying what I have learnt previously when it was suggested that I focus only on the colours within the environments I am depicting. I think that this helped me to reflect the time of day my ideas are showing. 

Self Directed - Development continued.

Continuing with my development of colour and composition I decided to experiment a little more with using only colour and texture to create my ideas instead of incorporating my photography into the arrangement. I felt that I had not fully experimented with colours and tone to represent different times of day. When creating these small paintings shown below I chose ideas that were captured at a time of day that I think were quite difficult to represent; late afternoon as it is beginning to get dark so the cool winter colours are heightened against the city lamps and dark shadows created as the sun sets. The colours used are ones which I felt were dominant in the particular location applied using a small pallet knife. I wanted to reflect an atmosphere of a cool winters afternoon showing my interpretation of the location; how I remember it to be, my memory. 

This can be related back to my influences from the white paintings by Maurice Utrillo; he stuck to a limited pallet using white based tones to create a cool atmosphere. My ideas can also relate right back to my research into the work by Sabine Moritz. I feel my work does relate to her ideas in the fact that I am representing atmosphere through my own personal interpretation of colour, almost like a memory.

(Untitled, acrylic on acetate, A4)

(Untitled, acrylic on un primed canvas, A4)

After looking into colour and selecting out the dominant tones showing my interpretation of light and tone, I wanted to play around, incorporating this with my photography adding more formal structure back to my ideas. To do this I stripped my photos of colour so they only consisted of shape in a high contrast monochrome edit. From these I then added colour using my pallet knives as a layer on top of the picture selecting particular areas that I wanted to express making them stand out to the viewer against the dull duo tone of the location. I experimented with applying more or less colour to the pictures and to layer the colour on top I painted onto acetate or placed the acetate over the image to add a contrasting texture to the ideas. I found doing this interesting as I could pick out tones that would contrast against the black and white image behind. This application of high contrast colour and marks related back to my research into Post Impressionism. Even though it is very different, the artists in that group often heightened the colour and texture within their ideas. 

(Untitled, acrylic and acetate on photo, A4)

(Untitled, acrylic and acetate on photo, A5)

London visit Feb 2014.

As a chance to gain extra research and development opportunities for my term 2 self directed projects; my final project as well as my drawing project, me and a few peers decided to organise to go to London for the day allowing us to collect research from life and to also visit galleries to help us with our contextual studies. My aims for this trip was to gain some more ideas to work from looking at night and day compositions and to also capture different densities of crowds throughout the city. As well as this I also found out that the artist Sabine Mortiz, who I focused on for my seminar presentation, had a new show open in London exhibiting her current work which I mentioned towards the end of the presentation. 

(Inside Kashya Hildebrand gallery space exhibiting work by Marwan Sahmarani)

We visited galleries near to oxford circus along East Castle Street. Each gallery exhibited artist of a different style and medium which was refreshing to see. Their were installations, videos, paintings, photography and sculpture. Sabine Moritz was exhibiting in Pilar Corrais. I found it very interesting to see her latest work and it helped that I had researched into her practice as I had a better understanding of why she chose the subject matter she did. As well as this gallery we also went in gettyimages gallery, Kashya Hildebrand, Art First and PI Art works. Going into these small galleries was very inspiring to see as most of the artists exhibited were up and coming showing their first solo exhibition or in contrast they were well established showing their work in a small intimate space.

After visiting these gallery spaces we paid a visit to the National Gallery. With starting art history in term 2 and researching a little into post impressionism for my FMP it was interesting for me to see this work. I feel that having a better knowledge of the ideas and concepts behind these masterpieces I was allowed to appreciate them more.

This short visit to London was very helpful for me in terms of refreshing my ideas giving me more ground to continue my projects. I have been able to gain more research and also contextual suggestions that may be helpful to me or other people. 

Drawing - Development in relation to contextual research.

After researching into the contextual references suggested in my mini tutorial it opened my knowledge up as to how movement can be represented in many different ways; film/ performance art, animation and still photographs.

Michal Rovner's work, 'Current' referenced previously in my contextual research post, had a particular influence over the development of my ideas as she represents her work through layered projections of people and they create interesting lines and textures to enhance their movements. 

(Untitled, ink wet on wet, A4)

(Untitled, dry point on acetate)

(Untitled, ink wet on wet, A4)

When producing these ideas I wanted to play around with media and the textures created to enhance the movement of the people and also the atmosphere of that particular scene. I also wanted to experiment with backgrounds adding structures and shadows to ground the figures and then in contrast taking it away leaving them floating. 

I feel that my work does respond the the video installation 'Current' by Michal Rovner not in terms of her media choice but in terms of the movement she creates with the layered projection of people. I think that my ideas, even though they are static and flat, they create a sense of movement almost like sound waves through my use of lines and composition choice.

To continue on from this I will play around with composition, adding and taking away the background, as I feel I have not fully developed this element yet. My ideas will also remain focused on crowds of people showing different densities and ideas of movement and depth.

Self Directed - Development.

After researching a little into my use of colour producing colour pallets of what I see, in a particular location and how I interpret it, I wanted to take a look at producing ideas focused around different times of day. I chose to look into this to capture different types of light and in turn different colours. To create these ideas I wanted to use two different approaches looking at two contrasting locations. 

(Untitled, acrylic on foam board, A3)

To create this I wanted to interpret my ideas developed when looking at colour pallets and mark making. I chose to look at the city at night; showing my interpretation of the cool city lights against the night sky showing contrasts between the stationary lights and the moving city traffic. I found creating this rather interesting as I chose to only use a pallet knife to creating fine marks was a challenge but I find the scraping appearance of the texture eye catching. 

(Untitled, acrylic and photo collage on foam board, A3)

In contrast to my previous idea I wanted to show my use of colour and texture by combining paint with my photography which I found particularly interesting during my initial idea stage at the beginning of the project. To apply the paint I again only used pallet knifes varying in size to allow me to create different marks more easily. In contrast to my previous idea this combination of paint and photography created a much softer composition which is less noisy due to a use of finer marks and textures.

In terms of my choices in colour, I wanted to reflect what I see within the composition but this time I wanted to be more specific in what colour pallet I chose. This is in relation to my contextual research into Maurice Utrillo and his series of white paintings. What I find interesting about using a certain range of tones is how you can interpret weather and light in different ways generating atmosphere that is felt in that location. This is also a big part of my project. I want to produce ideas that create an atmosphere that is felt when in a city and I want to create this by my choice in subject matter, lighting, colour and also texture. For example the top image shows rough texture which reflects the movement of city traffic at night and in contrast the bottom image is relatively calm with no traffic.