A live performance by Charlotte Faye Ramsay will take place in the ground floor foyer at 7.30pm…

Just because you may not think your work is strong or successful doesn’t mean others will have the same opinion…

On Saturday the 17th of November I performed my fine art final outcome as part of a public art exhibition. Exhibit curator Kimberly Emeny had asked me days before if I would be interested in re-doing my performance as part of her art show, although being in utter shock, I knew I could not let an opportunity like this go.

I’m still in shock now at the fact that I coped so well during the performance and feedback received after the performance was just as amazing as the experience itself. So I must thank Kim for the fantastic opportunity and her partner Julie for capturing some brilliant photos of my performance.

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http://www.departurefoundation.com/Exhibitions.html

The History of a Space or Surface…

The History of a Space or Surface: This was the brief for the fine art rotation week. In order to start off our inspiration we were asked to bring in some objects so that we could all begin by doing some observational drawings. I used two old fashioned style perfume bottles, having chose them for their interesting shape and beauty. After realising (or certainly my opinion was) that my observational were  only to a satisfactory standard I began to think of how I could use the objects in a 3D/sculptural way. From this I began to think of the use and application of perfume with the traditional perfume bottle. I than completed a few sculptural experiments before deciding that a performance could be my final outcome.

So I had decided to do a performance, but what to do for that. I began to think about the fact that perfume isn’t visible when worn but as I was wanting to do a performance I felt it had to be visibly clear. I decided to use a black Indian ink  as this would be clearly shown to the audience, along with this I wore a white top during the performance again so that the ink would be easily seen if any of the ink fell onto the top. I also chose for the piece to continue for the duration how much ink I had in the perfume bottle. This piece being influenced by Janine Antoni, a performance artist who uses her hair and hair dye to paint with. The idea of the hair dye having a secondary use as paint and the motions and process of the piece are more important than the final outcome of the work. The ink would be layered onto my skin. This idea having a lot to do with beauty and the obsession we can get into related to everyday actions. Most women apply perfume but how many times a day? I also felt that the ‘perfume’ being black also signified/was used to make the audience question what was in our perfume. People always questioning what ingredients go into our cosmetics and have they been tested on animals?  I felt this piece; from which I thought would be the weakest of my works, worked well and worth doing even though the ink took a while to remove from my skin.

Reaction…

Reaction: This was the brief for Glass and Ceramics rotation week. For this week everyone had a choice of two out of four workshops happening during the week. For this I chose ceramics and architectural glass. The tasks completed in both workshops were great as they were all new experiences for me. I completed my final piece with the skills learnt from the architectural workshop. For this I created a sculpture, which I thought if done on a larger scale had the potential  to be used for a theatre set. I used four pieces of 4×4” glass, one of them acting as a stage and then the other three created the backdrops. On these pieces of glass I created a design of three different flowers, this linked with Shakespeare and his great references to flowers throughout his plays.

For example:

Romeo and Juliet-
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

The Winters Tale-

”When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale”

”The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one!”

With the use of these quotes, I put a design of each flower onto each piece of glass. I chose these flowers as all there meanings are closely linked, rose meaning love and unity, daffodil meaning chivalry and lily meaning devotion (there are alternative meanings according to the flowers colour). In order to make the design visible on the glass I used a technique called sand blasting, this is the use of sand to wear down the glass surface and it gives the glass a opaque colour and a soft, less sleek texture. I really like the final outcome of this work and think the use of light gives a more theatrical look to the piece.

Black is the new black…

Black is the new black: This was the brief given for the fashion and textiles rotation week. This title congers up many thoughts and feelings. My personal view was the meaning and connotations of the colour. For example when black may be worn, funerals and the colour representing death and loss. On a lighter note I began to think of the colour white and the use of white for weddings and christenings, white representing life and purity. Being interested in costume design I wanted my work to be related to a fictional character. I chose to create something that would visually represent the character Miss Havisham from Great Expectations. She is such a fascinating character and quotes from the book where a great source of inspiration.

As for my own representation of her, I created a sculptural piece of work. Having bought a dress from the charity shop I transformed the garment with the use of icing sugar, mod roc, scraps of fabric and white emulsion. I doing this I completely ruined the studio space… therefore my punishment was tidying up. Aside from tidying up, I really enjoyed completing this piece of work and I think the way the sculpture was hung added to the art works atmosphere and gave almost a ghostly effect to the gallery space, which i felt represented Miss Havisham well.

Disruptive Narratives…

For the Lens based media rotation the brief was Disruptive Narratives, for this I chose to disrupt the narrative of time. For this I wanted to have a historical style setting with items included that wouldn’t have been available in the historical setting, for example mobile phones/MP3 players. When completing this brief I was particularly influenced by artist Yinka Shonibare, who has created a series of photographs in which have a historical setting with a character within them who is wearing clothes that are accurate to the time but are in fiercely bright African patterns, which really causes a contrast within the frame of the photo.

I think this idea worked well and I particularly enjoyed creating a set as a backdrop and subtly adding items into the shot to relate to my brief, which resulted in some quite humorous photographs.