Mark Wallinger / Artist

Born 1959, Mark Wallinger is a British Artist creating vast artworks, concerning various themes and mediums. Above and below are some of Wallinger’s ID Paintings, where just like a Rorschach test, he paints one side of the large scale page, using paint and his hands, which he them folds over to make a mirror print on the other side of the page.

I’m really interested in how the artist labels these as ‘self-portraits’. They can be interpreted in so many ways as a Rorschach test intends, but this then questions so much to the audience. In one way they are non’human and very alien in aesthetic, but they are also the truest representation of self from the reference to Rorschach, where the tests reveal our deepest thoughts and the way we think.

These pieces are made with blind instinct, we search for clues in the works to what we can see and how it can relate to the artist. Wallinger explains, “every viewer is exposed and implicated here”, which is very true and an aspect I love, this is something I want to strive for in my own work, and the more i think about it, my prints are a self portrait too.

 

Below is Wallinger’s commissioned piece; Labyrinth, 2013. These individual pieces are all the artists re-creations on each of the 270 tube stops in commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the London Underground. Although the context is completely unrelated to my work, I really like this specific image and how the pieces are displayed in the grid, it really reminds me of a set of brain scans. I also like how all the images have the same line pointing down, it makes them come together as a set and they look more professional this way, display is something I need to consider in my own work and seeing these circular artworks has given me ideas.

 

Images from:
-Feature image – http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/mark-wallinger-turner-prize-winning-artists-new-exhibition-shows-he-still-has-a-sense-of-humour-and-a6901556.html
-ID Paintings – http://www.widewalls.ch/mark-wallinger-hauser-wirth-london/
-Labyrinth-https://www.dandad.org/awards/professional/2014/graphic-design/23660/labyrinth/

Resemblance / 1

This week I presented my developed cone prints to an audience during a critique, overall my prints got positive responses and I really enjoyed seeing people find the text and I was commended on creating my own printing technique. I also  received a lot of responses as to what the circular motif resembled. At this stage, there is no strict image I am wanting to convey through the circle, and is something I am going to develop this semester, but it was really interesting to hear all the different references and how they can connect to my context of my fear of death.

Eye/Iris:

• relates to a life, and in turn death – when the eye is closed
• daunting to think eyes are staring at you – as though they are judging or waiting
• cones of the eye – connection to my printing tool

Vinyl Record:

• Connection to my use and inspiration of music – can bring the lyrics back into my work
• Music helps me find contentment – so using it in the context of death will be interesting and will help me come to terms with it possibly

Radar:

• idea of finding something or searching
• suggestion of being lost
• attempting to try and find answers, which I am doing

CT Head Scan:

• the prints become a scan of my brain and the text inside the prints are my thoughts
• similar textures and uneven pattern as a CT scan
• similar circular shape, maybe attempt to make prints more oval?
• Referring to image at the top of the post – I like the idea of having many prints in a grid formation, to suggest the prints are a brain scan

 

Its been a great exercise to find these images and compare them to my work, and I think doing this constantly throughout my process will help me decide a definite conceptual path to what my work will convey, at this point I really like the idea of the CT scan representing my brain and thoughts and also like the reference of the vinyl record, as a means to bring music back into my work. It has opened my eyes to hear what people relate my work to as the circular image is both familiar yet unidentifiable, which means an uncertainty arises.

I now need to connect my prints to a chosen idea, experimenting with colour, scale and amount of text in the prints will help me decide which route to take. I also need to ask myself what I want for my audience, and re-visit the context of my work by analysing my process and what the pieces represent to me, doing this will strengthen my work and decide where to take it.

 

Images from:
– Eye/Iris –https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/c9/13/50/c91350c18022301e0a651c7eb35bafa1.jpg
-Vinyl Record – http://www.nowlookhear.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Rob_Vinyl-small.jpg
-Radar – http://nilkanthmarinesolutions.com/images/t1.jpg
-Brain Scan –https://academic.oup.com/brain/redirect-unavailable?url=brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/brain/124/2/249/f1.large.jpg

 

Booking a Neon Workshop

Today I booked to take part in a Neon workshop at Neon Workshops in Wakefield on 26th June. In order to develop in my practice, I want to progress from EL Wire to actual Neon, in order to achieve a more professional result.

Neon making is very expensive, so this workshop will allow me to use the material and process, and then see my results; from this I can make a decision as to where to take my practice from this point.

The workshop I have booked is a 2 hour taster course, which will offers me;

‘Customers will see glowing examples of neon art explained and mesmerising demonstrations of cutting, blowing, stretching, bending and fusing glass with flame, whilst having a go themselves.’

Piece from 12 Months of Love produces in Neon Workshops. Image Source.

The company; Neon Workshops, specialises in the development and manufacturing of neon lighting for the creative industry. I believe it is ran by artist; Richard Wheater whom I have researched on my blog, and they have made works for many artists including Tim Etchells, there works are exhibited in there on-site gallery.

I’m very excited for this workshop, it will be my first time interacting with neon and I can’t wait to finally use the process and make my own sign. The workshop offers you to make a small piece, but if I want to continue the process, I will need to book an intensive course, where your ideas will be produces into Neon and costs marginally more than the taster workshop.

Map to Neon Workshops, approx 1 hour away from Sheffield:

 

Neon Workshops – http://www.neonworkshops.com/

Formless: A User’s Guide (book)

Formless: A User’s Guide by Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind E Krauss. Zone Books Publishing, 1997.

It was suggested to me to read the book Formless for my dissertation next year, but when my tutor explained it, It sounded so appropriate for my current practice.

In the book, The authors both discuss and introduce new concepts and theories that further our understanding of avant garde and modernist art Practices. However, in the chapter; Pulse written by Rosalind E Krauss; She discusses Sigmund Freud’s theories of the Death Drive and Repetition compulsion and compares it to how artists use flickering neon signs; Krauss makes the point that the flickering relates to the beat of a heart. Below are some points that I highlighted in the book, that are relevant to me:

• The flicker film was invented to stop time, to disable the afterimage’s perceptual mechanism by means of which the visual persistent of information contained in one film frame would bleed into the next, creating the illusion of an uninterrupted flow of movement This stoppage, the reasoning went would make it possible to look past the illusion and actually “see” the basic unit of film, the real support of the medium: the single frame.
• black and image frames. can break the flow of motion, it cannot turn off the afterimage
• projecting itself onto the visually ’empty” spaces provided by the “flicker’s” intermittencies of black leader-now has a place to exist within which it can b .. experienced as the ghostly counterpart to the passages of filmic representation
• our own nervous systems, the rhythmic beat of the neural network’s feedback, of its “retention” and “protention,” as the nerve tissue retains and releases its impressions.
• In beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud questioned whether repetition should be considered as the throb of eros or should instead be seen as something that lies beyond pleasure, threatening it with violence – something that must therefore be identified with death. Coming to this question after hearing the repeated dreams of trauma victims, Freud began to theorize the structure through which a patient is doomed to the compulsive repetition of an event, particularly an event which, far from being pleasurable, is an ,extreme source’ of anxiety and terror. If this is so, he reasoned, it is because the event was one that the subject both witnessed and was absent from; which is to say that it happened to a subject who was, peculiarly not there.
• finally to prepare themselves for the event,
• forms that the visual is daily invaded by the pulsatile: the blinking lights of neon signs; the “flip books” through which the visual inert is propelled into the suggestive obscene; the strobe effects of pinball machines and video games – and all of this under-girded by the insistent beat of rock music surging through car stereos or leaking voicelessly through portable headsets.
• form in order to undo that order, and to de-sublimate that vision through the shock effect of the beat.

Formless Book URL: https://monoskop.org/images/b/b3/Bois_Yve-Alain_Krauss_Rosalind_E_Formless_A_Users_Guide.pdf

 

My understanding on this will improve when I read it in full again, but I can understand why this was suggested to me. I have been making Neon signs that flicker, the words are in my current context of my fear of death. Freud is suggesting that people who are in fear do ‘repetition compulsion’; they repeat aspects or events, in order to prepare – and from this the fear is decreased. Krauss compares this to the ‘death drive’; in the drive towards death this repetition compulsion is heightened and people become obsessed with preparing for death as they fear it. Rosalind E Krauss then compares all these theories to the need to use flickering lights and how they replicate the heartbeat or a pulse – they represent being alive. In terms of my use of them, I never really considered this but maybe I did use flickering neon lights subconsciously because of this concept, but it gives my work further context. I will definitely be re-visiting this in the near future.

Video of one of my neon signs for context:

Video is my own.

Mel Bochner / Artist

Above Image – Nothing, 2006, Oil on Velvet. Image Source.

 

Born 1940, Mel Bochner is an American Conceptual Artist, and a prominent figure in Text Based Art.

I have found Bochner’s text paintings really interesting how he gives attitude to the words. He’s visually give them personality, and shows how it is said through the way he paints the word. For example the first blah painting below on the left is very draining, the paint dripping and constant repetition, really gives it a very exhausting feeling. The second blah painting below on the right is very built up, the words overlap each other in a panicking manner; it looks quite obsessive, and it’s give the piece narrative of someone talking quickly and fast. This sort of narrative creating is seen in most of Bochner’s works.

Blah Blah Blah, 2008, oil on canvas. Image source – http://www.simonleegallery.com/artists/mel_bochner/selected_works.html

Blah Blah Blah, 2008, oil on canvas. Image source – http://rebloggy.com/post/art-typography-mel-bochner-conceptual-art/31339063351

 

It’s really interesting how the some of the pieces are very raw; like the piece below. I assume it his his handwriting, but it looks quite rushed but retains a high art quality, which I put down to the choice of words; a very important aspect to me in my work is using the correct words for the context, which I believe Mel Bochner has done. It’s really great how he’s made a self-portrait with words (below), very innovative. From seeing these works, I want to experiment with paint and text as Bochner has done it so well, It’s a really suitable material for text art and clearly produces interesting work.

Self-portrait, 2003. Image source.

Mel Bochner – http://www.melbochner.net/

12 Months of Neon Love / Inspiration

12 Months of Neon Love is a collaborative project between two independent artist’s; Richard Wheater and Victoria Lucas. The project began on Valentines day 2011, where the two collaborated and the project ended one year later; Valentines day 2012, resulting in a years worth of neon signs that illustrate lyrics from love songs.

The neon signs form a ‘sequence of twelve lyrical statements, borrowed from well-known songs that feature the many configurations of love. Presented over a year in large red neon text, twelve expressions are visually re-presented to an unsuspecting audience going about their everyday lives on the roof of Neon Workshops in Wakefield’.

 

“The project is specifically born out of a romantic relationship between two artists; one passionate about neon (Wheater), the other passionate about the subject of time (Lucas). Together they created a year long public artwork that celebrated the many configurations of love, including expressions of intimacy, adoration and heartbreak, using the medium of light with its time-based properties.”

The project location was very specific to the pair;

“We initially began to think about the train line, and how the location of the workshop sat in perfect alignment with passing commuters. We realized that if the neon sign was big enough, we could build a roof top platform to communicate with passers by, visually shouting from the roof tops of Wakefield; a human heart felt voice burning above the industrial setting of warehouses. We thought this subject matter would be something that everyone could identify with.” – Wheater

 

I really love this project for various reasons, but 3 stand out to me the most. Firstly, I think their specific location for the neons is something to consider. Making your work site specific extends the context of the work, which I think they have by placing lyrics about love near a train station; a place where you say goodbye or meet loved ones. And placing it where so many can see it when the context is so universal is a great aspect about the piece.

Secondly, I love there use of lyrics. I am currently creating work that involves lyrics as I believe they can speak volumes I can’t, I look to music for inspiration constantly, So I can understand why the two have used them. They describe there use of song lines as:

‘Lyrics allow us to explore the world and ourselves through the sentiments of another. Love in particular is an emotion so complex it is often difficult to define, and love songs provide a way to articulate the emotional intangibility that the feeling evokes. These poetic interpretations of rapture bestow a rare euphoric sensation that is evocative and poignant for those in love; whilst some love songs strive to make sense of the agonies provoked by unrequited love, lost love and abandonment’.

I can relate to looking to music when emotions are so complex and often are difficult to define, I also found a lot of what I felt, yet couldn’t describe myself, through lyrics, So seeing other artists use this is very inspiring.

Another property I love about these works is the colour of neon. I have been quite apprehensive about using colour in my own Neon EL Wire signs, as I feel with colour comes presumption of emotion, colour is always associated with feelings, so I kept mine white to avoid this, but seeing these works has made me reconsider. They have used the appropriate colour for a very particular context; red = love, and it work’s fantastically as it’s very clear what the context is about.However, with my choice of words, it can be interpreted different ways, maybe adding a specific colour will amplify and make my context clearer – definitely something I will consider.

A really influential project, that I can learn from in terms of considering colour, location and context and transpose them into my own practice.

 

All images and quotes from 12 months of neon love – http://12monthsofneonlove.blog.com/

Richard Wheater – http://www.richardwheater.com/

Victoria Lucas – https://victorialucas.co.uk/

 

Glenn Ligon / Artist

Above Image – Glenn Ligon, Invisible Man (two views), 1991. Image Source.

 

Born 1960, Glenn Ligon is an American Conceptual Artist. His works explore American History, race, Identity, language and society. Ligon is mostly known for his text based work, specifically his ‘textured text paintings’ (above and below).

I really like these paintings for the blurred effect he creates half way through the text. Only recently I have noticed that the blurs form a human shadow. Reflecting on his context, the works represent a lost voice. The aspect I like about them is how powerful the text becomes as it’s blurred; the person in the image becomes silenced, yet I feel this amplifies the piece. I also find it interesting how much of a print this resembles, reminiscent of a mono-print, Ligon has created a really angst filled work. The below piece has a really intriguing, how he has used black paint on a black background, yet the text is still visible; comparing this to his context – the piece becomes very powerful.

Untitled, Etchings, 1992. Image Source.

 

 

I love how Glenn Ligon gives a voice to all his works, seen below in the neon. He has used what appears to be handwriting, which gives the work a human characteristic. I love the technique he has used by painting the top of the neon black; the glow of the neon still remains, but it now appears really ethereal; as though someone has written with pen yet it glows.

Untitled (If I can’t have love, I’ll take sunshine), 2006, Neon and Paint. Image Source.

 

I’m also really interested in how Ligon transposes work into other mediums; seen below. He has mad a print from one of his neon works. I like how he has taken the quality of a neon; the glowing outline, and then used that to replicate the neon in a print. I think both have individual qualities, but I am more drawn to the print. I love how he has taken what a neon has/needs; the glowing light and the dark surroundings – it’s a really interesting process, and something I want to experiment with myself.

 

Glenn Ligon, The Death of Tom, 2008. Photo is my own taken at Tate Liverpool.

Untitled (America), Screen-print, 2015. Image source -http://www.artspace.com/glenn_ligon/untitled-america

 

 

Glenn Ligon – http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/glenn-ligon/bio

Richard Prince / Artist

Above Image – A Piece from Princes’ ‘Joke’ series, 1986. Image Source.

 

American Painter and Photographer, Richard Prince (born 1949), has influenced me with his ‘joke paintings’. These works pictured above and below, have really intrigued me, in how Prince has placed text in a cloudy pastel background. The text sets really well on the canvas and has a great contrast to the dreamlike effect he has placed behind it. This combination of text and imagery is similar to what I want to achieve in my works, but I want them to be seen as one; With Richard Princes’ pieces, it does feel like a background to the text – but it still works well, the texture isn’t all lost.

Richard Prince’s work, 1989. Image Source.

I think it’s really interesting how he’s changed how the text would normally be presented, because of the barrier of the canvas. It’s odd how he’s let the canvas change his text, but at the same time carried on the continuous line of text despite the restriction.

Something I can relate to with Prince, is how he tests words before making the finished piece. As you can see below, Prince writes out his text/jokes onto paper first. I have used this technique in my book of musings; I found testing the text and seeing it plainly first, makes your choices more appropriate. It shows that your choice of text was thoughtfully chosen, and you see something stand out in the word, when it appears so plainly.

1986, Ink on paper. Image Source.

 

Richard Prince – http://www.richardprince.com/

Angela Deane / Artist Interview

Above Image – ‘In the palms’ by Angela Deane, part of her Ghost Photographs project. Image Source – http://angeladeane.com/artwork/3405617-In-the-palms.html

 

*This post does not relate to my current Artistic practice of Text Based Art, but it is still a part of my developing Art Practice and Art Knowledge. I sought inspiration from the artist in my artworks January 2016 and previous to that. However, I still find it amazing that an established artist replied to me and this is why I have included it on my blog, as well as the content of the email being of my interest and recurring theme of my fear of death.

 

For my most recent essay titled; Death is a part of life, should fear be too? Exploring contemporary artworks that accept death, which may also ease the fear we hold, I analysed artworks that ease the fear of death in various ways by three artists.

This included Teresa Margolles’, En el Aire (in the air), Francesca Woodman’s photography piece, (Untitled) 1972-75, Boulder, Colorado and finally Angela Deane’s, Ghost Photographs. In terms of research, I couldn’t find much on Angela Deane that suited my essay, so I took it onto myself to email the artist some questions for Deane to answer, so I could use it in my essay. She replied and answered the questions fantastically. Although this was research for my essay, I feel it’s still great research and opinion to know in my current practice too, so below is the email I received for artist Angela Deane on 24/02/2015:

 

Lydia!
Hope it’s not too late!

Do your works show hope on the thoughts that there could be an afterlife?
I suppose in a roundabout way they do. These ghosts stand for the shell of a moment, the memory of an experience, and so these beings, these ghosts are the energy they occupy next. The “next” after the experience has occurred. So I suppose on a grand scale yes, they suggest hopefully that after all of our moments have occurred that we will be an assemblage of them in a new form or type of way of being.  Does that make sense? 😉 I have just thought of it. Personally I am quite optimistic about an afterlife…but I’ll get to that down in the last question.

 

Does your work in anyway represent a fear of death?

Certainly it must as I do have one. Although I am confident of our energy carrying on and existing as another type of thing, on another plane, ,etc… I am however so attached to this body and this brain and this gut and soul that I would be sad to not be Angela Deane as I know her now.  I’ve always wanted to be a vampire; part for living for a long time to witness the world changing but mostly because of being rather invincible physicaly to harm. Though I cannot imagine my own death I am aware  of what a gift a full and functioning body is and how easily that can be changed.

So yes maybe these ghosts are apart from the ghosts of moments the ghosts of people I’ve lost (those family friends, even those unknown I admired as greats in the world) maybe they are also vehicles for them to hop in and hang out with me. I miss people when they are gone. Death is an odd thing how quickly that person is no longer there. The ultimate break-up. Though I still find myself talking outloud to my father who passed nearly thirty years ago when I was just a girl.

 

Can you please comment on your thoughts of death and the possibility of an afterlife?

I guess the above actually covers this quite well but I’ll say on the idea of an afterlife I’ve become more aligned with the Shamanic way of thinking. As a young girl I detested the idea of reincarnation but now it feels rather right to me. I was raised Catholic and still like the rituals there; prayer, stained glass, gathering as a group and voices harmonizing but I tend to feel spirituality most intensely when I’m alone. When I’m walking. When I’m singing.

When I’m quiet.

Strange this mix of being terrified yet feeling quite interested in what’s to come?

Aye! I really do wish we would span two hundred years. I think that would be more appropriate, don’t you?

 

Best,

Angela

 

 

Find Angela Deane here – http://angeladeane.com/home.html

Art and Text (book) by Aimee Selby

Above Image – Art and Text Book Cover. Image Source.

Art and Text, by Aimee Selby (Book) 2009, Black Dog Publishing

Beginning my endeavour into Text Based Art, I was recommended the book ‘Art and Text’. This book is basically a bible if you are interested or want to begin text art, it includes the history and origins, over 100 artists in the field of text art, and how they use text within their works. It also includes essays on the subject, where researchers have discovered the art style and its reasons.

I found this book incredibly useful for various reasons. Below are some key points I derived from the text that addresses the use of Text within contemporary art (20^th Century – Now).

• Text in Art represents a much deeper and more significant mode of thought, rather than a simple turning away from the visual and imagistic
• Artists found in text that it was not merely an opportunity for re-course to an anti-aesthetical, non material medium, but the possibility for an art that could be thought, purposed and stated; Art and Idea
• Text based art brings a critical questioning of the viability of language as a toll of communication

 

One of the included Essays is; The Schwitter’s Legacy; Language and Art in the 20^th Century by Will Hill. In this essay he discovers the origins of why text bled into art:

• Artists of this time (saw) potential of the printed word to convey meaning and express a particular attitude. The typewriter created a discussion between the written and printed word

The image above is of Lewis Carol’s ‘The Mouse’s Tale’. This essay uses this poem as the point of discussion as to the potential of written word as art. This is because of its use of form; the poem is shaped into a literal mouse’s tail – from this the context of the words is amplified and it has the play on words – Tale v. Tail, this kind of technique has since been used by Artists of today including Bruce Nauman.

Will Hill continues in his essay:

• To give text a pictoral form reveals complex contradictions between visual representation and linguistic description, and reminds us that language is a fragile and illogical construct, bound to its subjects by cultural compact alone. While we take for granted the equivalence between the word and its subject, they are not linked by any actual resemblance, but only by the shared perception of meaning inherent in language.

 

Another essay in the book; Turning the whole thing around: Text Art Today, by Dave Beech. He has included a quote by contemporary text art Fiona Banner, where she explains why she uses text as an art form:

“Personally I am very conscious of the brilliance of language and communication – I mean it is the blood of our thoughts – but I also find it frustrating and I have a lot of fear about language and communication”.

I think this quote really sums up why Artists use text within art; it is the blood of our thoughts. Art is the outcome of people’s thoughts, feelings, emotion, and so using text shows this directly.

 

I will continue to read this book throughout my practice and gain more knowledge from it. It has given me a huge insight in to the world of text, one line that has really stuck with me is at the beginning of the book; Text in Art represents a much deeper and more significant mode of thought. Considering my practice and what I want to achieve from my work, Text Art seems the most suitable art form for me; my work surrounds my fear of death which is a constant though in my head. I’m really excited to start a practice in text art and I’m excited to start using words more.