It's all over

Here is the finished work!  I finally got to see how everything would look as it would be in the exhibition and I am very pleased with it. I had some problems with the weight of the paintings bending the screws but I think it should all be fine now. It's a weird feeling having everything you've been working on over the last few weeks in one little space but it's definitely a great feeling.
I think the themes of the paintings are honest and run deep and the video art compliments them very nicely and I don't have much else to say apart from that I am extremely happy with how it turned out and actually very surprised by how small the problems I have encountered along the way have been which is obviously great to do what you love in a relatively stress free environment.
I read a quote from a Woody Allen film; 'Midnight In Paris' that pretty much sums up how I feel about my paintings in particular and how I feel about making art generally and it feels appropriate to end this blog with it.

“The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.”- Woody Allen

Presentation Week

This week all the work in the studio has stopped and it's been all about painting the boards, cleaning the floors and getting our work up. Today I actually got all of my work up, I got a corner of the studio to hang my work in which was great for me because I could have a painting on either wall and then the video on the plinth in the centre dividing the two. 

There were some problems actually getting the video to play on the Mac monitor because I didn't bring the video in on a USB stick or anything which was stupid of me but it was fine in the end, I just went to the Mac suite and downloaded it from Youtube onto a friends USB stick and got it playing on the Mac in no time. 

By the end of the day my space was set up pretty much how it will look apart from the table which is being used to lock the Mac to but overall I can really get a feel for the finished work now and to see the video playing in the middle of my two completed paintings I am proud of what I have achieved over the course of this project and over the foundation course generally.

I will probably do a final post of the definitive set up without the table etc but for now I don't have much more to do apart from catching up on sketchbook work and enjoying my last couple of days of college.

Second Painting Done

 It's been a long time coming but I finally finished the second painting and I am really pleased with it. These are two images I took yesterday of the final stages of the painting and as you can see even on the last day I was making quite a few changing which resulted in the finished product (the bottom picture)

One thing that was challenging about making this piece was that I wanted it to look similar to the first piece so they would look a lot better when presented next to each other, this was a problem I didn't have to face with the other painting but I was happy to take on the challenge nonetheless. 

Overall I am really pleased with how both paintings turned out and I can't wait for next week so I can start arranging them in my space and eventually get a feel for what it will look like in the show.

Video Art Finished

After a long editing process I have finished my piece of video art. I am really happy with how it turned out and ended up not only including things I have looked at this project but the previous project as well just because a lot of things I picked up in the last project have hungover into this one, for example I have included clips from Wes Anderson movies which is what I looked at for the last project but I am still using a very similar colour palette as I was in the last projects work and this is something I picked up from those films so to leave them out would be dishonest to the projects original intentions of pinning down my influences.

I showed my video art to my tutors and a couple of friends and they all seemed to like it, they described it as being hypnotic and autobiographical, both of which I would like to portray to people viewing it. I just cant wait to get it in the studio next to the paintings and see how they compliment each other. 

Some Last Minute Inspirations

As it came to the end of finishing my second painting my tutor told me about a couple more artists and I have definitely been mulling them over whilst working and making the final decisions.

Keith Haring 
Keith Haring is a name I have been hearing for months, a couple of my friends have recommended that I look at him as they saw some similarities between mine and his work. After looking at quite a few of his pieces I can see why they recommended it, although his work is figurative and mine are abstracted I think the use of colour and bubbly shapes with thick outlines. I think the main thing I've taken from looking at Haring's work is its cleanness and I have really tried to make my outlines a lot neater and I think in doing so they have a much nice finish.


Jonathan Lasker
My tutor also recommended me Jonathan Lasker and what I really like about his work is his use of sections, The contrast between spontaneous black swiggles and thickly applied colour offers a really nice effect. Much like the Keith Haring pieces they have a really clean look to them which I like and want to try and emulate in my work. I particularly looked at the thick black line on the image on the left to try and reflect it in my borders.

Progress on painting 2

Now I have done with the first painting I'm really putting all my effort (in the studio) into finishing the second painting and it's good having the first painting completed because I can use it as reference so the paintings have some similarities and therefore will look a lot nicer when hung next to each other in the exhibition.
The main thing I have changed about painting 2 is just having bigger sections in the center of the painting like the ones in the first painting, I also put a white border around the central section in the same way that there is a dark blue border in painting 1.