Exhibition: Liverpool Biennial

Liverpool Biennial, Bluecoat
Exhibition: The Unexpected Guest

Whilst on our trip to Liverpool, one artist's work caught my eye- animation artist, Sun Xun. The two pieces featured in the photographs both, I believe, allow an insight on the kind of journey that I am thinking of basing my Origins project on- emotions.

The large scale mountain canvases were the first piece to have caught my eye- as I enjoy working in quite an expressive way, similar to the artist. The landscape seems to have been created in inks, and as a continuous line drawing. Whilst looking at the mountain range, the first ideas that entered my head were the feelings of loneliness and a sense of abandonment- a place that can be full of negative thoughts- expressed by the harsh tones of black and blue brush strokes. However after further consideration I also decided that a mountain range could be a calming, peaceful place- somewhere that you are able to think and feel. It could be interpreted that a sense of calm has been shown in Xun's work through the white canvases in between. The black against white is very simple, allowing an audience to approach the canvas with an open approach.

I also enjoyed looking at Xun's second piece- large canvases running along the walls of the gallery. They feature pencil drawn birds, which when played in animation would show the birds to be taking off. This piece, when linking into the idea of an emotional journey can be interpreted as a sense of freedom, the motion of flying away (or moving away from home in my case) being an exciting, yet emotional experience, unaware of where you are going, or the outcome of the journey. In comparison to Xun's mountain canvases, these drawing are a lot more detailed, showing the true beauty of the animals.

My favourite style of drawing is quite expressive, similar to the first pice of Xun's work, however after seeing these pieces I've decided that I am going to start to incorporate both expressive and detailed accounts in my 'journeys' unit. I think that this idea will work well with the idea of emotions, as detailed drawing will be able to link with the times that I have over-thought or been certain about my feelings towards a situation, and expressive pieces will be able to show any confusion that may've been going through my mind.

Origins Introduction

As a task to help us settle into the course we were given a list of sentences, and asked, using 12x12 squares and an oil bar, to re-create what we felt these sentences meant to us. I really enjoyed this task, I feel that it really helped to loosen up my ideas and to become less structured with the way that I like to usually work.

Summer Project Part Two

Today has been our first day on the Textiles course. It has been such a wonderful day getting to finally meet my tutors and friends, and seeing everyone's kites all together in All Saints Park. As an induction brief we have been asked to get a feel for the campus, and to photograph our kites in various/ unusual locations around the School of Art, and add them to our blogs.

After getting very lost, and having a lot of fun looking around the campus, I decided that these are my three favourite example photographs of my kite. I feel that the simple backgrounds best show the detailing that went into the making of my kite, especially with my use of bold colours being exaggerated fully, on the while/ brown backings.

Summer Project Part One

Once being accepted to MMU we were asked to complete an induction brief as part of our summer project: creating a kite based upon our own textiles preferences. I really enjoy the use of colour schemes, layering materials and machine stitch, so found this brief very exciting. I decided to base the kite on the idea of textiles, and the everyday objects that I use in my ow work- scissors, buttons, tape measures etc. I am very pleased with the way that my kite looks overall, and am looking forward to (attempting to) flying it, and meeting everyone on the course on our first day.