Reflective Summary

Word Count - 1003

1. Contexts: 
   1. Concerns, themes, inspirations and key subject:
      1. Free will and reclaiming agency through considering aspects of nature vs nurture. Understanding the world around us (epistemes, semiotics, psychogeography and propaganda) and recontextualising it to expose contrasts we can learn from. Eclectic, endless experimentation of curation. Art as a bridge and a language, using it as a mirror by using everyday objects (but also thinking of environmental impacts). “Shonky” art (as coined by John Waters), outsider art and the aesthetics of awkwardness. Arte Povera, art in the extended field (mainly inspired by Jessica Stockholder) and using art to prompt introspection (through open questions).
   2. This has changed and become more refined over the years. It has taken me a long time to narrow it down.
2. Key Learning Moments:
   1. Processes I have explored and how they have influenced my practice:
      1. Using found materials (items important to my everyday life) gave me a good starting point in concise and considered recontextualization. It also allowed me to seek out others similar to me and therefore, conversely perhaps, get away from making art about myself – rather, making art about my interests and my research. Allowing me to hone my critical position.  
      2. Experimenting with how my research/conceptual ideas come through in the product. Either having a specific idea in mind and making something in direct response to it, or having a lot of research in the back of my mind and creating more instinctive pieces, letting research come through subconsciously. Alternatively, letting the making lead conceptualisation – this comes far less naturally to me but was important to experiment with. Given my concerns in regard to making, it is a less relevant process for me.
      3. Curating a creative process that involves a specific feedback loop: research and conceptualisation -> art making -> investigating it’s reception and how effective it was at portraying my concept. Then going back and tweaking it and continuing the feedback loop.
   2. Attending workshops and learning about process influencing decision making in my practice
      1. Using the wood workshop taught me to keep plans realistic. To balance out planning and making as a continuous feedback loop rather than two separate things and taught me patience and carpentry skills. 
      2. It taught me to select found materials not only for their potential meaning, but also for their physical properties and transformability.
   3. What processes have I learnt that have positively influenced my practice? How and why?
      1. Learning safe and secure drilling allowed me to install my degree show piece more professionally and allowed me to help others.
      2. Learning various techniques for joining wood allowed me more creative freedom in designing shapes and forms.
      3. I rejected my initial paths into illustrations and painting because they were less effective in getting my concepts across and therefore less relevant to my practice. I kept one drawing in my degree show installation because it added to the atmosphere and also because I felt sentimental, and it went with the colour scheme and slightly surreal attitude of the install.
   4. Importance of experimentation and investigation in relation to the development of my ideas and form my work has taken:
      1. Experimentation is vital – almost all of my work is experimentation, seeing what different combinations of materials and different settings achieve. Creating a feedback loop of concept, making, reception and so on…
      2. I was interested in radio work at one point but decided against following it. I was super interested in the collaborative and public facing possibilities of working with radio, but my ideas were not yet refined enough. I was more into curating atmospheres through physical objects so decided to focus on that channel for the time being. Also, my ideas would be more effectively refined in this way. I feel in a more conceptually secure place now to maybe return to my interest in radio work in the future.
   5. Taking risks in my practice and how this has progressed my understanding:
      1. I took risks in my degree show installation. This came from applying everything I had learnt over the year to make my installation the most effectively true to my practice. I realised I’m a “recontextualiser”, so I recontextualised my piece to fit and respond to the space. It was risky because it was ambitious, and I might not have been able to finish the whole project.
3. Analysing my work in relation to key contexts:
   1. Artists, philosophers, art movements and theories that have influenced my practice. How have I aligned/developed on artists processes and how my interests have driven decision making in my practice:

My influences are far reaching and wide. This allows my to make multifaceted and meticulous work with well thought through decisions, considering all aspects.

1. Jessica stockholder and thinking about relational aesthetics led my to consider presentation of my work as part of my work. Opening up the reference points to the extended field provided a fascinating extra layer to what my practice could do. I then spent time recontextualising objects to suggest new perspectives or invite confusion/people to project stories onto them. I call them “personified objects” because, in many ways, they feel like little characters set in a world of my creation. Jessica Stockholder’s work in the extended field has been a real pivotal moment in my development.
2. Looking at William Blake’s work made me think of how work can be self-referential and an artists work can be better understood by looking at the context of their body of work
3. Marcel Broodthaers inspired me by looking at his meticulous presentation of sculptures, especially in context of the William Carlos Williams quote “no ideas but in things”.
4. Foucault’s theory of poststructuralist epistemes influenced my practice by making me fascinated with recontextualization to remove layers of familiarity and rethink how things could be.
5. Simply, the situationist international movement influenced my practice by inspiring me to study the world around me.
6. Elias Sime inspired me by making meticulously beautiful decorative things out of waste materials. However, his works don’t really ask too many questions.
7. Looking into the work of Tony Cragg – a process led artist - allowed me more room to instinctively make and reflect on the product afterwards.
8. Slavoj Zizek’s theory that “the path to love is through trash” radically influenced my choices in object picking and how lovingly/playfully to recontextualise them. He says that the waste problem will not be solved until ecologists love trash and find a useful purpose for it. Healing is through allowing our worst parts to be loved.
9. Nature vs nurture, how the world shapes us and reclaiming power to then shape the world. How we can choose to reshape our internal landscapes also. Communicating them and understanding others.
10. Using the language of art to disrupt autopilot/expectations, stop someone in their tracks/allow someone space to have some introspective thought, maybe even a perspective shift/or at least just make someone laugh.
11. I’m interested in humour, horror and honesty. Kindness without honesty is manipulation, honesty without kindness is cruelty. I find the primary colours used in newspapers provides a fun and playful way into this while still maintaining roots in human stories, epistemes,
12. Aesthetics of awkwardness and SHONKY art plays a huge role. Especially the traces of where the hand has crafted things grounds works.
13. Nothing repeating in nature, therefore it shouldn’t in architecture is a key part of Hundertwasser’s manifesto. This also pushed me forwards to keep finding new glimmers of interest and beauty. Repeating or mass producing work would take away from the curious uniqueness of pieces.
    1. Gallery visits that have impacted my practice:
       1. GERMANY VISIT. Niki de Saint Phalle’s grottos in Hannover and Hundertwasser’s train station in Uelzen creating atmosphere. These were such refreshing places to visit. These experiences, alongside research into Bauhaus and Memphis furniture, made me want to move from paintings and communicating internal experiences to wnating to curate atmospheres and rooms more. I also wanted to move away from focussing on myself as I am interested in more than myself – I am interested in society and culture and I was getting bored of being so self-centered in my work.
       2. Z-Arts exhibitions – making children feel included and accepted even in darker moments as community work rather than academic research work. Teaching and/or session facilitation as praxis and refining communication skills through nurturing connections via art making. Honing art as communication for e.g. aspirations to be an art therapist.
       3. Visiting Manchester Art Fair last year let me get an idea of the scope of the professional art scene in Manchester. As did participating in Unit X, a more corporate taste.
    2. How I position my work in relation to wider contexts: 
       1. Considering how effective a white box gallery space is in reaching community / providing a therapeutic space for the public is something I wrote about in my CP3 essay and has been incorporated into my practice.
       2. In response to the era of the internet, I purposefully keep my work 3D in lieu of wanting to keep tangible interaction alive. We live online a lot, but we still have bodies and they cannot be ignored, after all, the body keeps the score (Bessel Van der Kolk, 2014)
       3. Thinking about sustainability and the era we live in now, adapting what Fine Art materials can be, has been super important for me. Using only recycled or reclaimed materials and not feeding consumerism. Transforming what is around me also links into my key concept anyway. This links back to Slavoj Zizek’s theory that the key to solving the ecological waste problem is for ecologists to love waste (find a purpose for it rather than just hate it).
    3. Things I have watched that have pushed my work further:
       1. Donald Glover’s TV show “Atlanta” inspired me massively in its relatable surrealism. The element of contrast is something I love and Atlanta uses it to make statements about social hierarchies through surrealism.
       2. Wes Anderson’s use of colour in the Grand Budapest Hotel influenced me in giving me more space to be playful in my work. The world he creates in this film is unserious and full of lavish storytelling, yet is still effective. It made me consider style and let me blend my quirky/colourful/humerous/unsettling style come through in my more serious considerations. After all, having fun is super important to me and a good way of making introspection effective.
14. How research into professional practice has influenced my practice:
    1. Strategies I have developed for time management:
       1. See image below - FOCUS ON THE TOP RIGHT HAND CORNER
       2. Refining my creative process to be a feedback loop: concept, making, reception, through trying out different artist’s creative process models, allowed me to stay focussed on my body of work and also helped me manage my time effectively.
       3. Professional practice I have engaged in and how they have influenced my practice:
          1. Z arts – reception of art/different ways of doing art. Also, refining my communication skills when delivering sessions.
          2. Hacienda 2 – reception of art/networking/talking with people who are also interested in art to develop ideas and ambitions.
15. How I have attempted to communicate my ideas through my practice/how my understanding has been synthesised through my practice:
    1. What I want to communicate to my audience and how this has developed over the year:
       1. Open questions about existential responsibility accountability and identity. // providing a space for personal introspection
    2. Development of my work from studio to audience – when I have tested it and how it has impacted my making:
       1. In this day and age, people love things they can interact with – that hold their attention and feel personal. When performing the time machine with Alex Fletcher at Hacienda 2 we could choose what behaviour to reward and what to discourage – that was interesting to observe as we were hidden behind a fourth wall.
    3. What contexts/artists/experiences etc have influenced my decision making in the degree show?
       1. Visiting artist photographer talk using eco-friendly art materials. Also, a mixture of traditional to non-traditional uses such as painting the walls in the degree show to bridge that gap and make the contrast starker.
16. Other key influences and discoveries:
    1. Unique discoveries I have made through the process of making:
       1. Trying to be too subliminal can be counterproductive (like the movie sucker punch)
    2. Tutorials/crits/peer to peer learning that has been particularly influential:
       1. Tutorials: David saying “how you present it is part of the work” really pushed me from just making small 3D work to installation work.
       2. When I was working with Alex on the time machine – he was saying how good art shouldn’t need instructions to be understood – the less words in the piece the better, otherwise you might as well just be a writer. If I am interested in shaping landscapes, why am I trying to draw it or capture it in a single piece, the logical end to that idea is a room installation.
    3. How I will utilise what I have learned this year in my future career plans and practice:
       1. I think I can take earning about perspective shifts and taking charge of your life forward into my teacher training next year – understanding each other, encouraging compassion, problem solving and critical thinking are super useful skills in the teaching world.
       2. Being resourceful with materials will be super useful with limited budget in schools. Using non-traditional art materials can also feel more inclusive and accessible.
       3. Time management skills will help me stay on top of work as a teacher as well as maintaining my own practice and maybe some work with z arts still.