Reflecting on Tutor Feedback

In the feedback session we discussed how I need to be more aware of my motivations, what interests me as an artist and as a person – for example given the work I do (social justice/migration/sustainable development etc.) how might I want to bring that in. 

It really made me think as another comment was how my work was quite positive and aesthetic which is very different from the work that I do.

Some initial ideas for this I might be able to explore in the final assignment or in the next courses:

• Landscape and climate change. 
  • Desertification, global heating, warm colours? Take a typically lush landscape and make it affected by colours, drought or…
  • Use a photo of such landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa or somewhere else very affected by climate change
  • Potential to make it more abstract? How would this be conveyed emotionally? Burning, frenetic, jagged, textured…. Oil pastel?
  • Pollution? Sky? Ozone? Using the clouds/abstract mark making? 
  • Plastic waste, particles and how we dont know the effects of all this yet bothers me a lot!!!
• Figures on the move
  • Haven’t gotten to this in the course yet but I have been thinking a lot about the migrant corridors coming from Ukraine, could this be something to explore using photos
• Figures/portraits
  • Same as above, use photos of people affected by the war in Ukraine. Portrait of a child/woman/soldier?
  • Issue of people being affected and all the politicians struggling to figure out what to do while people are dying. Maybe use newspapers with headlines and articles etc. as a background?
  • Or thinking about the irony of Poland opening its borders to Ukrainians and migrants in Ukraine also fleeing and being treated badly, beaten up etc….. check out Pawel’s recent social commentary art work on this considering he is Polish.
• Still life: 
  • Climate change – museum case of winter sports artefacts like skis related to global heating, melting of ice and glaciers etc.
  • Not that inspired by still life though I liked the challenge of it
• Urban/Townscapes:
  • Another area I am not very inspired by though the feedback that came back was positive on my work here. Something to potentially explore more? In terms of my work/interests.. Bombed buildings in Ukraine? Go back to the book I read that talked about what would happen to our infrastructure if humans didn’t exist from one day to the next. Interesting explanations of how nature would take over? 
  • Linked to abandoned rural and island communities in Scotland or other places – look at how nature overtakes man-made structures etc.

Other feedback:

• We discussed how I have quite a structured mind which lends itself to me trying to be very precise in my drawings and being detailed. This is my natural go-to state and given how I enjoyed doing the mind map I have been encouraged to explore this more as a way of creative expression. Some thoughts on how I might do this:
  • Using mind maps to prepare my work better to bring concepts, ideas and interests together more?
  • How might mind maps be used more as the end result of an artwork? Is it about bringing drawings together into a map or looking more at infographics? I have certainly done some things there for work and will need to look at how to visualize the results of the Programme I manage. This would be a combination of information in a flow/way that shows a process and gets to results. I think I need to think more on this for the next course I want to do after drawing skills.
  • Mind maps and collage of drawings/inspirational things? How might that work? More for social commentary or story-telling?
• We also discussed the nice feel for abstract mark making that came out of the cloud investigation. I was quite surprised as I wasn’t sure I had done very well here but I did definitely enjoy the freedom of these trials. I wonder how I might combine my structured mind with abstract ways of expression? Or just explore more with abstraction, potentially in landscapes? Contrasting abstract parts of nature with more structure man made objects?

Based on checking out some more artists shared by my tutor:

• Grant Wood (American)
  • Focus on Rural American Midwest
  • His landscapes are very curated and realistic yet surreal at the same time
  • Really like the stylized trees/bushes that are very rounded and the usage sometimes of strange perspective and his rolling hills
• Olafur Eliasson (Iceland Denmark)
  • Has a glacier melt series – photos of a receding glacier from before and after pics across Iceland – has impact!
• Emily Allchurch (British)
  • Uses photos and lightbox to create new works based on masterpieces. Not sure to what extent I can use photos in a drawing course but really interesting to see and potentially take forward in other modules. I do like and have done a lot of photography also. I know my landscapes were very ‘framed’ like a photo and I like to frame even a sketch I do within a rectangle so my mind likes to look for a good composition!
• Andrew McIntosh (Scottish)
  • Very strange compositions of landscapes and objects and landscapes within objects! Really creative and unusual. Mixing man made and natural things – could be good for looking at climate aspects. E.g. a cool interior of a house using air con with the outside world heating up and burning all the animals/nature etc.
• Prudence Flint (Australian)
  • Stylised figures with unusually small heads and exaggerated legs and bodies. 
  • Lots of focus on gender stereotypes which is interesting – ‘moments of ripose resist sexualisation’ and domestic settings don’t require domesticity
  • Simply and unapologetically women! 
  • This is great, I love the approach though I don’t necessarily like her painting/drawing style but I very much appreciate the social commentary