Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Lifedrawing



I wanted to extend life drawing into the 3 dimensional . Here are some attempts using clay. However the figures are quite unfortunate looking and I think I will have to entitle the series "lonely paraplegic women".

Waiting for the Kiln







Thursday, October 28, 2010

Artists I have been looking into

guo-qiang- wolves


Polly Morgan
Berlinde De Bruyckere


Freud The Uncanny




I have been doing a lot of research on Freuds essay The Uncanny. You too can read it here

http://people.emich.edu/acoykenda/uncanny1.htm

It is basically an exploration of what causes fear of an object. Freud explains that most people have the misconception of thinking that it is unfamiliar objects that cause fear. However it is mainly familiar objects but placed in an unfamiliar way or setting. It is the way that something is familiar yet foreign all at the same time which results in a feeling of uncomfortably strange.

In this essay Freud talks a lot of a man called  Ernest Jentsch. Jentsch was the first person to explore the idea of the uncanny in his 1906 essay, On the Psychology of the Uncanny.  Here Jentsch explains that what is most uncanny are objects that look alive even though they are inanimate objects.

I think this has something to do with my choice of using a taxidermy animal in my work.  There was something interesting to me about using an object that looks alive but is dead.

Casting in porcelain





Unfired porcelain. The hooves are hollow. I pour the porcelain into the cast then remove it after 20 minutes. Then leave the cast to dry.  However a lot of the casts have broken at the joint between the hoof and the knob.





Drawing of what I want to do with the deer hoof cast.

Here is a study of a sculpture in Gents Fine Arts museum . It is by Auguste Leveque and is entitled Fall of Sodom.  I really liked how the figures merge into the sculpture, creating a sinking feeling. This is what I also admire about Rachel Kneebones work.