Sunday 31 March 2013

Northern Art Prize 2013

I visited Leeds Art Gallery on Wednesday 27th March 2013, to attend the opening night of The Northern Art Prize.
 
A new exhibition of work by four artists, each competing for £16,500 prize money and the title of sixth Northern Art Prize winner, will feature new and specially reconfigured work by shortlisted artists Margaret Harrison, Rosalind Nashashibi, Emily Speed and Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan.
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Emily Speed's audience participation piece, two seats inside a make shift room.
 
 
‘Carapaces’ (meaning an organic bony case or shield covering an animal) is a work that considers the idea of a personal or psychological space. Its two-person sized structure-on-wheels hints at protection and vulnerability, isolation and co-dependency. ‘Carapaces’ takes inspiration from the improbable, intimate and strangely scaled buildings in the frescos of Renaissance artist Giotto.
 


 
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Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan have worked collaboratively since 1995 making images, sculptural objects and installations that pose questions as to how we understand art.
 
‘The Reiterative Grimace’ is a new work made specifically for the Northern Art Prize.  It brings together two painted temporary structures framing the entrances to two interior galleries, one a home to part of the Leeds collection of 19th century Art, the other an entrance to the temporary exhibition spaces. These large painted  ‘portals’ highlight pivotal points at which the historic collection meets spaces in the Gallery used for temporary exhibitions.
 

 
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Margaret Harrison showcases her new series of work entitled ‘Reflect’.
 
‘Common Reflections’ is a reconstruction and reinterpretation of a perimeter fence from RAF Greenham Common. The installation presents the occupation of a site adjacent to the base where, in 1981, women set up a legendary peace camp to protest against the nuclear weapons located there. The work comprises two opposing constructions of concrete posts, wire, mirrors and corrugated zinc sheeting and is strewn with personal items – children’s clothing, toys, photographs and kitchen ephemera. This work excavates many of the themes about women and their position in society that Harrison has explored since her first solo show in 1971. The mirrors echo the ways protesting women held up mirrors to reflect back the base and those guarding (as if to hold them to account). Here they also serve to disorient the gallery viewer with a disconcerting sense of both viewing and being viewed.
 





 






 
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The photograph directly below, which I couldn't capture on the day for all of the people, was taken by Jules Lister, of Rosalind Nashashibi's piece from the collection called ‘A New Youth’.
 
Created for the Northern Art Prize, includes a tree displaying a photograph of a denim-clad crotch of indefinite sex, and a large cartoon illustration of Mickey Mouse’s hands in a familiar Buddha gesture.
 
Nashashibi’s new print work locates masculinity in a particularly literal place. ‘Monster Walk’ comprises nine unique prints on paper, made by putting men’s jeans and underwear through a printing press, leaving the paper inked and in places worn through with the stamp of every stitch and crease of the fabric. Often the jeans rise up from the ankles as far as the thighs and then stop, to reveal a white expanse at the top of the leg, and the underwear is exposed. These halved figures invoke the crude and absurd nature of bodies and things, through their exaggerated crotches, their intimacy with the body and their trace of the real object; and in this last aspect they bear a resemblance to film and photographic processes.
 

 
 
(All photographs taken by myself, unless stated, most information from the link below.)
 

Friday 29 March 2013

SPOT FREE skin

 
New typography to update my website http://zoelaurengaleart.weebly.com/
 






 
 Making 'art' is all very well and good, but to have more successful and meaningful pieces, the work needs to be produced for a reason or purpose.
 
Developing my work from my past videos, which are based on the theme of beauty, but looking at the uglier side- SPOTS; to watch my videos on YouTube, click the link below.
 
 
The images above are photographs which I have edited in Photoshop, adding some liquid from the bottle of "Freederm".
 
I chose Freederm because their target audience is similar to myself and my peers, who are - for the moment- my main audience.
 
 
Mixing autobiographical photography and illustration, the work will be a light hearted advert, which will be produced to make people smile and maybe help make light of their blemishes or insecurities.
 
Freederm's current advertisements can be seen on their website, below,

Saturday 23 March 2013

How to look good

The Easy way to get the Red Carpet Look.
With hair stylist Delores Charles, and make-up artist Margo Holder.
Full video on link below..
 
 
 
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Refinery29
 
"Plastic surgery in editorials is nothing ground-breaking in fashion, but it is always an interesting, revealing theme for a shoot. By taking what is done behind closed doors and in a private, medical facility and then giving it a glossy, glamorous sheen adds a surrealist element to the ways in which we edit or enhance our bodies. Editorials like this don't comment on the "rightness" of cosmetic surgery — though Noi.se's adds a kind of histrionic glee that feels a little sinister — but instead focuses on the way we poke, prod, and pull ourselves to "get right."

The best part of these shoots are always beautifying the "ugly": Baard Lunde's lens features a model with flawless make up, but the way in which her face and body are distorted becomes creepy. At the end, model Jordan Almen's gleeful, hysterical look is the only time she smiles — but is also the only time she doesn't have a contraption pulling at her skin. After injecting, plying, and cutting, we've got a manic, bandaged, and kind of insane version of beauty."
 

 
 
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Kim Kardashian getting blood platelets from her arm injected into her face.
Follow link for full story below..
 

 
 
 
 
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Jen Larsen writes about how losing 180 pounds and getting skinny wasn't all she thought it would be.
Follow link below for full story..
 
 
 

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CS6 Photoshop skills

With the autobiographical photographs from my first shoot in a studio, I have enhanced them using the newest version of Photoshop.
 
(The original images looked like the photo below before being edited)
 
"Spot-to-spot"
 
 
Using personal experiences to build on the theme of beauty, I felt that the work needed to be funnier and more outrageous!
 
Step one; make a spot...
Ingredients= bubble wrap, paint, latex, ink.
 
 
Step two; apply make up on the edges and blend into skin...
 
 
Step three; using Photoshop duplicate the spot, changing the size using transform button, under Edit drop down box.
 
 
 Step four; using tools such as the blur tool, and paint brush with a low opacity, make the spots look more realistic. Pick out colours from the skin by clicking the colour palette in the bottom left of the program, and using the pipette dropper icon, to get a perfect match.


Step five; next I used the paint bucket to whiten the teeth, and a wide brush to create the puss effect on the hand. With the large blur tool, I pulled out the arms and shoulders to make myself fatter!

 
Step six; I liked the blurry effect, so making the hair wavy was done with the smudge tool, on a thinner setting, to look realistic at first glance and more graphical when up close.

 
The image above was more of a trial for the tools on Photoshop, the paint brush, the pencil, the colours, the thickness of the nibs etc.

 
 I wanted this image to be less realistic, giving the skin a very smooth and flat finish, and the hair more of a frizzy and wild effect.

Friday 8 March 2013

London

These are the few photos that I took on my mobile whilst in the galleries in London. Images which i thought would be helpful for my next project in Major Project B.

The image above is by English artsit Heidi Kerrison from 1998, called "Heidi X: The true horror of cloning".
I liked this because it made me think about new ways for me to make autobiographical work.


The two images below are from the gift shops, in think they were in The National Portrait Museum and the V&A, but i'm not entirely 100% sure, as I bought so many books and cards etc.!


Tuesday 5 March 2013

Sketchbook work





These pages from my sketchbook are the development ideas for a short film that I am filming on Friday 8th March.

The film will start with me "eating" crisps and cubes of chocolate, which are illustrated and painted, made from paper. The consumption of these fatty foods result in SPOTS!!!!!!!!!!

I have composed the images below using the props that i have made for the short film, a cardboard frame and an illustration from MPA.




Friday 1 March 2013

Boo Ritsen



"Boo Ritson has an unusual way of creating her portraits. Instead of painting a sitter who poses passively from afar, Ritson actively involves her models in the creation of her work, by painting directly on their skin and clothes and photographing the results. Her images are a mixture of her own narratives with recognisable motifs of Americana, including an abundance of greasy fast food that oozes paint trails of ketchup and mustard." - Sourced from Creative Review website, 2009.