Thursday 8 November 2012

The repeated form in contemporay art

Marcus Harvey, Myra 1995 gave me an idea on relating the repeated image to the image made. Marcus’s work Myra was seen as sick and disgusting art piece at the time. As well, one of the mothers of the children asked for it to be removed from the gallery. This was because the women in the image was a known serial killer, that tortured young children and this story touched the nation. This created fury for the mothers of the children murdered. This touched me as the story meant something in relation to my own.

I wanted to express an opposing view to Harvey’s in my work, but I still used the human face as my subject.  Myra Hindley took away freedom from people so I wanted to work giving freedom back into my work.  Many people still do not have there own freedom and many countries chose not to have freedom of speech. This is why I wanted to do freedom in a portrait  form.
One of the other images I looked at was Antony Gormley’s Field, this made me feel as if the work was encroaching on the room, it felt like the work has cornered you in that room and gave a claustrophobic feeling to the work. It tried to take away your personal space but how the work was set out tried to create a waving motion to give the idea of freedom. This is like an opportunity to get out and have your freedom.
I feel the mentioned artists are taking a negative view on the world, and this is in conflict with my own work.  I want to make a piece that expresses positive ideas rather than negative ones.  The idea of having androgynous face is the you can have freedom even if you female or male and the idea that every one has there own freedom even if they are a child. The wave relate to the soul and to freedom, this also relate to the eyes are the key to the soul. In my work to can see wave being product by the eyes this link to freedom is what your soul wants.
I feel that I could develop off my final piece to progress within this subject matter, using the idea of putting waves into a portrait to show the freedom we have or need. It gave me another ideas that I might progress on in the future. This idea is to have a glass or crystal skull and have water as waves as well putting it on a moving plate, so it can move and create waves.  The influence for this was perhaps Damien Hirst’s For The Love Of God the skull in that piece helped to develop my idea that I might progress on.

Another idea was to countuine the idea of waves and create a room to display them in.  Using narrow aquarium's to give the effect of living waves being curated in a sort of zoo.  Calm, sedate waves flowing slowly; and other, quicker waves representing anger or impatience. This would be displayed with mirrors to create an effect of reflection of life and emotion.  This can be created by light and changing the consistency or the strength of the lighting.  Taking away the wall that people have set as a defence against raw emotion the exhibit is transparent.  Instead of bottled emotions these are free.




  • This is my finish piece. left full image, right close up of the eye.