Pick & Mix Project.

Keeping the idea of the Love Padlocks in mind, I wondered how you could represent that idea without having to describe it.
Of course you could make the locks love hearts, but I thought that was a little bit too cliche. 
As I previously said when I think of locks I think of completely opposite ideas to romantic metaphors. Locks make me think of more serious things really, so I felt it was quite a challenge to represent this "Love Padlock"  idea without being too cliche and without relying one words. 

This was a photo I took in Paris at the lock bridge. This padlock stood out to me the most as it seemed quite ironic. It's a really old and rusty padlock and it's not attached to another lock. It looks quite obtrusive and stands out from all the other typical locks. Though it has still got a date and name written on it, so the purpose still stands. 

Pick & Mix Project.

When thinking about locks, the idea of love padlocks came to my mind. I think it's from the severely cheesey and cliched saying of "Your the key to my heart". That made me think of it. 
When I went to Paris earlier on this year I found out about love padlocks. As the bridge close to the Notre Dame is covered in them. 
Lovers write their names on the locks, hook to the bridge, and throw the key in the Seine. There are currently over 2,000 locks on the Pont de l'Archevêché.
I thought this idea (As cheesey as some might think it is) Was quite cute. 

Heres some pictures of lock bridges (Not my photos):

Pick & Mix Project.

During assessment week we were given a one week project. The project was based round a random given object and we had to fill a sketchbook, using this object as the starting point.

My object was a....

Above is a photo of the lock itself. It's quite an old looking lock that is attached to a bike chain. I started the project with a mind map exploring different ideas associated with locks. What they're used for, why, how... metaphors linked to locks, and other abstract ideas seeing where locks could lead me.

This below is a scan I did at college of the lock I was given. Using monotone colours. I really like how this looks quite grungey and dark. When I think of locks in general I do think of connotations that are quite dark, scary etc. Old warehouses, prisons, forbidden places. So I think this scan really reflects that. 

Above are some photos I took of different locks and keys etc around my house and in the garden. Just to use as a reference and for ideas etc.

TEXTILES Week 8

Textiles Week

We've finally finished exploratory stage and this is a few of the pieces from textiles. We spent a lot of time doing experimental drawing and working with mixed media. Collage, inks, paints etc. In some ways very similar to Illustration.

This was one of my favourite ones. I really liked the idea of painting the negative space then turning the paper upside down to make it a background. It worked really nicely! I think would definitely be a technique I would consider doing again. 

This is another one we did. We were encouraged to work on two at once to create a pair. I really like the colours on this one more so than the first one. The mix of warm and cool colours makes a nice contrast. As a pair I think these looks really nice, but looking at them separately I struggle to like them. 

This was one of the first things we did, drawing different objects in different materials overlapping eachother. I quite like this one in particular. 

Photography

William Klein

Finally I looked at William Kleins photography. I was really very impressed with his photos. They are just really striking and eye catching. 

These are examples of his street photography. He's just really captured the essense of the time in his photos. I love the movement and how he's caught particular expressions. Also the black and white makes the photo really striking such as the black and white squares on the top one. 

I love little elements of it such as the advertising in the background, and the postures of the people captured. Each one of his photos has lots to look at and and are each strong in there own way. 

Photography

Andre Kertesz

Andre Kertesz is the third photographer I decided to look at. It's his series of distorted images that really caught my eye. 

 This is an example of one of them. He was first commisioned to do these for a magazine, then carried on to do more of this nature. Obviously the nature of distortion appealed to him, and I think all the photos are really genuinly intreguing. They seem almost surreal. He used carnival mirrors to take the photos and pretty much all of them are of female nudes. There is something about the photos that I find quite unsettling (In a good way) as reality is completley taken away and they are really confusing to look at. I think how he's not included the edges of the mirror emphasises this. It's not clear that these are taken through a mirror via the photos themselves which make them quite mysterious, and ulitmatly draws you in more to the figure itself.

Photography

Lorna Simpson

The fourth artist that appealed to me was fine art photographer Lorna Simpson. American photographer who made her name in the 80's/90's. The piece I wanted to look close at was "Five Day Forecast" which was first made in 1988 and she remade it in 1991. 

I think the general composition and how this piece looked visually is what drew me to it. But researching more into the underlying context I found really interesting and really made me aware how strong the piece is visually and contextually.

 

The is the piece "Five Day Forecast". It's hard to see from the size of the image but along the top is days of the week engraved in capital letters, san serif font on black plaques. Along the bottom of the images is ten more plaques with the words ‘Misdescription’, ‘Misinformation’, ‘Misidentify’, ‘Misdiagnose’, ‘Misfunction’, ‘Mistranscribe’, ‘Misremember’, ‘Misgauge’, ‘Misconstrue’ and ‘Mistranslate’. In the photos is a cropped image of a black woman with her arms crossed. They are not the same repeated image, there is subtle differences in each pose. But the pose itself is very defensive and obstinate. Despite the cropping you can still tell it's a woman in these images. I think it's clear Lorna Simpson is trying to say something about sex and race in this image.
The clothing that the woman is wearing seems to be a plain shift dress and looks to be some sort of uniform. You get the impression these photos are taken from each working day and are portraying the feelings and experiences of this day to day working life for this black woman. How the pose hardly changes suggests this is how she feels every day, this is her life. 

How the image has cropped the face off, gives the woman a lack of identity. A lack of personality. Which is presumably hinting to how she is treated in her work place, or how she feels as a worker. She's not regarded as a person. All the words below have negative connotations and hint to the working relationships.

To conclude, as only really looking at this image for 10 minutes I've read a lot into, shows how strong her images are. I think there is a lot more underlying meaning to this piece and I think that's what makes it really interesting.