Evaluation

To try and encapsulate my thoughts about the negative impact that stereotyping can have on people, I wanted to portray a celebration of our individuality. Groups of people are categorised into models that seem to fit their personality. Stereotypes occur when people are similar and so these people are labelled to all be the same, instead of being recognised for their complex individuality. However, it is known that these stereotypes are never accurate and so I wanted to challenge their presence within our society. I researched into how we collate information about others and situations and found that we all have schemas which influence the way that we judge a person/situation. A schema is an innate biological device that is formed through experience which helps in future scenarios to assess situations. Conversely, these schemas usually aid us in spotting dangers, whereas a stereotype applies a label to an individual unnecessarily.

I had a clear initial focus on which part of stereotyping I was going to investigate; looking at men and how they portray emotion. As a society, there have been recent attempts to rid of this kind of stereotype, for example, the new British Army campaign that states that its okay to cry, as well as these notions being taken by modern music artists, presented in Paloma Faith's - Crybaby. They have portrayed this idea through advertisement and song, and I have been inspired to reflect this through fine art. These two notions have influenced me as my Dad's side of my family is heavily military and so I think it is important for them to show their emotion, as well as Paloma Faith's song, as I listen to her regularly, seeing her twice in concert and meeting her once. I have taken this use of words in advertisement and song to add direct meaning to my experiments that responded to Barbara Kruger.
Continuing on, I performed a photo shoot, taking portraits of a female and male to add a figurative element to my work, to make the theme surrounding people more direct. Cutting into these photographs writing stereotypical words related to the genders created an immediate effect on the viewer as my concept is clear. Following a military theme, I used photographs from my Dad's service to represent the ideologies of a soldier being a fearless, contrasted with the internal emotions of
concern and anxiety.

Having hit a rut with exploring my concept through words, I found another artist, Guy Catling who alters images, infusing them with colour. As I was using a limited colour palette before when working in the style of Kruger, I think that injecting colour into my work made its so much more exciting. It meant that I was able to present a wider range of moods, from dull to adventurous ones. I sought photographs that I had taken whilst on trips to places that I had been to since the start of February to fuel my experiments. I adapted Catling's application of colour to fit the exploration of the reductive process, by placing vibrant wallpaper beneath the photograph, instead of on top like Catling does. This technique provided a sleek, sophisticated outcome and so this was a major turning point in my work. I began to refine this technique, looking at the arrangement of colour and how I can use this to ignite emotions revolving around stereotyping. To invigorate these refinements, I put together an experimental sketchbook where I trialled many different techniques using several mediums to see what effect this would display. I particularly valued the energetic colour that drawing ink implements and so I tried using this in the foreground of my Catling responses. After doing so,I found visual influence from Yuji Hamada (a photographer) that inspired me to print onto my work. Even though I had used printing before in my earlier sketchbooks, it wasn't until I seen Hamada's work that I thought about applying this to the recent studies. As I was to begin printing, I needed to find a shape that captured wholesomeness and virtue,leading me to using circular objects for printing. As the ink absorbed into the photographs, I needed to use a denser medium that still enlivened the composition and so I chose acrylic paint. The application of these prints provided organic marks that reinstate my concept of celebrating each other as individuals instead of stereotyping. There was a contrast between the structured photograph beneath and the organic marks which revealed the difference between a dull stereotype and an eccentric individual. As this refinement encapsulated my concept efficiently, I determined that I was going to use these techniques in my final outcome.

Furthermore, I investigated the artist Shaun Kardinal that embroiders postcards and responded to them by sewing words that are relevant to my concept,like 'cry', into my own photographs. However, these experiments didn't progress as I envisaged but then I began to look at how Kardinal arranged his work. His arrangements are what influenced me greatly,as he fuses together several compositions to make one larger one. This idea has allowed me to bring together many compositions to reflect how we should all be together as one. This message is subtle but I wanted to make the viewer inquisitive as to what it meant. Moreover, I think this subtle message also allows the viewer to take a personal stance as to what the meaning is, which is important as I wanted to draw out everybody's uniqueness.

Friday 20 April

In today's session I have sawn the board down to emphasise the arrangement of the photographs. As I had printed one of the yellow circles over the photograph and an area of the board in which I was going to remove, I would need to see the outcome after cutting to see if I needed to add anymore incomplete prints. After I cut the board, I decided that adding anymore yellow prints wasn't necessary as this would overcomplicate the composition as there would be too many marks in the very foreground. To give the composition a cleaner finish, I sanded down the edges that had been cut with sandpaper and repainted the edges with black paint. I then hung my completed final outcome on the wall. I did this using nails by trapping the board between the head of the nail and the wall so that I didn't put any holes in my final outcome.
After I had hung the final outcome on the wall, I looked at it from afar to gage how it appeared from a distance. I found that the dark background is quite intense and so that vivid colour in the foreground contrasts this well. Also, the straight structure of the board and the photographs contrasts the round prints in the foreground. There is a division between a rigid mood in the background and a more expressive mood in the foreground and so this represents my concept of leaving others expectations of yourself behind and exploring your own individuality through challenging your stereotype.

Thursday 19 April

In today's session I was going to add the shorter marks to my final outcome that I applied to my mock final outcome. However, after looking at my final outcome this far I have decided not to add them as I feel that they spoil the sleeker finish to the compositions. This is because the shorter marks are more organic and suggest a motion and so I think they would remove the attention of the viewer's eye away from the circles too much. Additionally, this would cover the photographs even more than what they already are and so I think the shorter marks would make the composition look overwhelmed by contrasting mark making. These marks are straight and so would conflict the wholesome, unified mood that I am trying to present between people and communities.
Instead in this time, I added the large yellow circular marks using a large paint lid to print with. In the mock final I used a plate to print with but I need to scale up what I used to print with in my final outcome so that it is relative to the size of my final outcome. I planned where each print would go, three going diagonally across the middle so that the eye stretches the whole diameter of the final outcome, and one print to the side of these to encourage the eye to explore the rest of the final piece.

Looking at my final outcome at this point, I felt that it looked unfinished. My mock final outcome is still up on the wall and so I began to compare them as I was happy with my mock but didn't feel satisfied with my outcome at this point in time. Upon observation, I realised that my mock final outcome was not restricted by a frame like my final outcome is. My final outcome is framed by the black board behind it to form a larger rectangle. This means that the shapes that the photographs has made is lost and so the idea of being a little bit different and challenging your stereotype is consequently lost too. This restriction is something that needs to be taken away and so I am going to cut the board around the edges of the photographs so that their arrangement attracts the eye due to it unconventional presentation.

Wednesday 18 April

Today, the plan was to trim all of the white borders off the photographs and to at least get all of the circular prints onto the photographs.
I began the four hour session by trimming the white borders off of the photographs. I didn't do this in my mock final outcome as behind the photographs it was white. However, now that I am going to be attaching the photographs to a black painted board, I have removed the white borders. I have done this to prevent the rectangular edges making the finalised composition looking too structured, especially once the circular prints have been applied. Also, the white borders would have been incredibly noticeable as they would've contrasted the black board directly and so I cut them off to remove this light shade in the background. I then stuck the photographs to the board using double sided tape rather than nails that I had done in the mock final piece. This is because I want everything on the board to be flush and that the nails would have just made the outcome look poorly assembled. Sticking the photographs to the board took a while as I had to trim down the A3 ones that go in the four corners as they were slightly too long. I did try to get a piece of board that was big enough to cater for my final outcome, however this was the biggest that I could find in Selco. By sticking the photographs to the board before printing on them, I could see where to put each print in regards to spacing. Whilst printing the circles, I found that when there was little paint, a singular circle line was made. The precision of this line made the composition feel more wholesome, especially as I have used line in the background on the newspaper. This addition of line adds another one of the elements of art into the foreground, as well as it being in the background.

Thursday 29 March and Tuesday 17 April

Thursday 29 March

On Thursday I planned to get the wallpaper and newspaper behind the last two A3 photographs so that I was ready to move onto the next stage which is was to be painting the board black. Doing this took shorter time than what I anticipated and so I began to add line to the newspaper using blue and orange biro. I was inspired by Tom Phillips to directly incorporate to add another element of art that in this case, is minimalistic. I did this in my mock final outcome but used different marks, both straight and curved. I decided to use only curved line on the newspaper so that there is a harmony between the background and the circle prints that I am going to do in the foreground. Even though this harmony is very subtle, it helps enough to make the composition not feel disjointed upon completion - as I found out when carrying out the mock final outcome.
The first coat of the black wood paint dried well and even though the coverage is good, I want to add another to just be sure that when the light catches it, that there are no translucent spots.

Tuesday 17 April

In the hour that I had, I only managed to get another layer of black paint onto the board. Although this seems like it took a long time to do this, I did go round the edges with a small brush and so this was quite time consuming.

Exam times plus a reflection of the first session Wednesday 28th March

Exam times
Wednesday 28 March -  9:15-11:15
Thursday 29 March -  9:15-11:15
Tuesday 17 April -  11:30-12:30
Wednesday 18 April -  9:15-2:30
Friday 19 April -  9:15-11:15

Wednesday 28 March

In Wednesday's session I cut out all of the sections of the photographs. I cut the same sections as I did in my mock final outcome as I was happy with the arrangement of the cutouts when I did the mock. The paper cutting took me two hours and so this gave me some time to reflect over break time regarding the rest of the composition. I had previously thought that I was going to fix all of the photographs to a white painted board but instead I have chosen to paint the board black. This is because backing the photographs onto black will accentuate the colours that I am going to print with in the foreground. Having a black painted board also means that I can further get my concept across of a darkened stereotype in the background, as opposed to the vivid colour in the foreground that represents defying that stereotype. In the next hour, I stuck wallpaper and newspaper behind the A2 photographs, followed by 4, A3 photographs in the rest of the session. As the newspaper provides lighter tones to the background, I decided to only stick the newspaper behind outer middle four of the photographs in the middle section. This is so that the lighter tones don't interfere with the background being a dark, dull area.
I planned carefully which colours I was going to put behind each photograph so that they are all harmonious to each other and there is a balanced amount of each colour in the composition. I mainly used warmer colours, especially pinks and oranges to really infuse the background with connotation of happiness and being content.

Further refinements to my mock final outcome

As my chosen stimulus is all about the reductive process, I have been thinking of ways to make this more evident in my final outcome. Also, I thought that my mock final outcome didn't look like one piece together as much as it should have and so I wanted to find a way to bring each photograph together a bit more. As I have printed circles onto the foreground of the photographs, I have tried cutting the outline of a circle into the photographs. This also adds line to the composition which I think is needed as the line work onto the newspaper is very subtle. I have cut this circle out of two photographs to try and create a harmony between the photographs. However this didn't give the effect that I thought it would. I was expecting for it to enhance the reductive process that I have been investigating. Although the incision is sleek and controlled, each cut doesn't completely mirror each other and so it doesn't look very neat. Also, I think that this circular shape is now contrasting the organic marks in the foreground too much, giving the composition a confused mood. Therefore I am not going to do this in my exam.



Continuing with the idea of having larger circles spanning across two photos, I have looked at doing this using printing. I have tried to use different sized prints to create unity across multiple photographs. I experimented using green and yellow paint - colours in which I thought would stand out the most against the colour palette. I thought that the green was going to provide a stark colour against the black and white photograph and contrast the smaller warm circular prints, however it didn't and instead it was submersed b y the darker areas in the photographs and didn't stand out. When I tried doing this with the yellow paint, it was incredibly striking against the photographs and further enhances the positive mood that I am creating in the foreground. I printed the large circles using a plate, whereby I applied yellow acrylic paint to the rim and placed it onto the photograph face down. I am going to use this technique in my final outcome as I think that it successfully provides harmony between the each photograph.

Reference for the way my final outcome will be presented

One of the artists that I chose to look at is Shaun Kardinal and I was initially interested by his work because of the way he arranged his artwork. Kardinal makes smaller compositions and arranges them together to make one larger piece. After looking at how I could present my final outcome, I thought that this would be appropriate as it allows me to use all of the different techniques that I have selected to incorporate. I have chosen to do papercutting, printing, line work, as well as there being multiple surfaces like photographs, wallpaper and newspaper. By having multiple compositions I can use all of these without overcrowding or over complicating the final outcome, whilst using the printing in the foreground to create a unity between all of the separate photographs.

Shaun Kardinal, Alterations (found and unbound), 2013, hand embroidered vintage postcards, yarn

Each of Kardinal's compositions are postcard size and so are quite small but I have chosen to use larger A2 and A3 prints so that there is enough space to use the techniques that I have selected. Doing this also means that the techniques that I use are large enough to stand out and be easily noticeable to the viewer and so the viewer doesn't have to search for which part of the photographs has been altered. This is important as I want my theme of questioning to be evident in terms of the alterations in the photos, even if the subject matter in the photo itself doesn't obviously connote this. The vivid colour in the compositions will assist in reflecting the difference between the background and foreground to represent a change in society.