Notes from Crit

Paintings with photographic elements.

Neil: like the paintings as above/collage. Depth with photo element. Gestural and less flat/exciting. Re; Home. Home is fluid and rented, makeshift. Quite interesting to see this contrast.

Derek: like the sculptural pieces, and drawings of the sculptural pieces too. Also the digital drawing/painting is interesting. Like hair. Also home as a context for public realm, yes to inviting people into the project/ childhood memory/ demolition of home. Photograph, wallpaper…flashback of childhood home being demolished. Living spaces reflect the memories, changes in life.

Sinta: Loved the text in crit post. Pushing and pulling. Not sure how the context is in the work yet. Trigger of touch and this seems more apparent in the sculptural pieces. Keen on previous landscape, these are separate…about expanse, really using the space. Abstracts are centralised….why? Think about composition, space to breathe. Pictorial space.

Anya: Yes you could include. Many will have stories relating to home. You could do this anyway in or out of the public realm project. There are other ways.

Anya; The larger one feel different. There is focus. Good to see the work alongside landscapes.

Sinta: Landscape has a recipe. Maybe a formula to deal with composition. Horizontal line maybe? They may need weight? Something to anchor them?  Volume, weight. Keep making the sculptures. In groups? Preferring the clay, more universal, zoom in to the paintings there is evidence of process.

Anya: Taken with clay. Don’t stop. Looking forward to seeing them in person as objects. It’s up to you in the end.

Sinta: The clay, is it fired?

Derek: Love the innocence of the clay and that you are inexperienced. The clay has something in common with the paintings. Both have similar feel like they are inner holes. The cropped in paintings over photographic images. This works really well and is focussed inward. The landscapes are in contrast focusing outwardly.

Anya: scale? Print and ceramics will be open in the uni soon. Interesting those landscapes are imaginary.

Sinta: Have you thought of doing very large scale charcoal drawings? This may help get to grips with the edges/composition. Sense of energy that you get with drawing which perhaps is not there for painting due to the nature of the materials. Look at Bacon and how he combines detailed thoughtful elements with quick/ marks of lines and dashes. Draw on the paint? Charcoal over paint. Howard Hodgkin’s – try turning them over for periods of time. Bacon uses the interior/furniture look at figurative/abstract/materials. Always a floor.

Derek: sounds like you are tidying them up. Sometimes maybe it’s better to not. Like the idea of setting aside. Baconesque white dash of light feels like going in/focus and that any minute you could pan out. Solid lines of horizon. Looking into a room.

Anya: there is a sense of memory in the ‘Hall’ piece. Cropped in. associated with memory.

Aldous: Urbanware. Different coloured. Low firing temp. can get glazes for green urbanware. Black clay. Grogg for texture. Glaze technology is a massive area. Speak to Gabrielle. Pit firing…Gradual heat building. Could try a bbq maybe achieve 600 – 700 degrees.

Neil: Porcelain would be good. The work would lend itself. Translucency. Plays with the light. Get very fine. Paper porcelain. Use pencil to draw on it. No need to fire. PVA over it. Came out well. Form is similar to your paintings. Fish factory clay artist. Take it to uni, they will fire it. 

Sinta: Rachel Kneebone. Figurative and abstract both.

Neil: You can get matte glazes. If you cont fire dust is bad for you. 1060 is best but 600 /700 will make it enough to be safe.

Sinta: Why not expose areas of canvas?

Sam: The contrast clay/canvas/landscape expand the term home beyond idea. Microscopic to cosmos. Non human homes/ bodily/ reflecting on the body. Real expanse that’s happening.

Anya: Suggestions of writers?

Derek: H D ‘The gift’ Great writing/ a shape

Chat comments

13:45:05 From Sam Machell to Everyone : In the Air Tonight by Andrew Norman Wilson – https://www.reddit.com/r/philcollins/comments/hp5xlv/new_details_on_the_drowning_that_inspired_in_the/
13:53:29 From Sinta Tantra to Everyone : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/08/will-will-self-review
14:50:52 From Neil to Everyone :  https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/peter-randall-page-2326 His drawings resonate
14:56:51 From Sam Machell to Everyone : https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/17/chris-ware-here-richard-mcguire-review-graphic-novel
15:06:25 From Sinta Tantra to Everyone : https://www.riflemaker.org/Francesca%20Lowe
15:16:04 From Anya Lewin to Everyone : https://www.artsy.net/artist/rachel-kneebone
15:22:36 From Sam Machell to Everyone : i think we’ve moved on from this point so i’ll say it here instead of aloud: i think the contrasts in scales from the canvases to the clay helps to expand the term home beyond an anthropocentric understanding. i think about tiny shelled crabs and all the bacteria that live inside me, and their homes, and i also think of my body as my home and the little bodily bits that the clay makes me think of, and then the large canvases speak to the cosmos, and our home among that
15:25:43 From Neil to Everyone : https://www.lynnespeake.com/ Links in also to some of the previous sculptures you showed in you presentation with other materials
15:26:59 From Aldous George to Everyone : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_PeaHVcohg girl in the wild creating pottery