Reflections on the group crit Date: 28th October 2022

The first step was to state the aims and objectives of my project as storytelling. The critique reflection is a starting point to explore how I tell the story. In the critique, I learned about art and essential ideas that I could use as a reference. It also made me realise that in considering religious painting, it is necessary to look at the history of the spread of the religious thoughts.

It is said that religious paintings were sometimes painted for the illiterate public. Unlike art for viewing, religious paintings should have a pattern based on scripture rather than being realistic, sensual and subjective. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the artist's imagination can create different expressions in the painting.

This process has led me to consider the use of metaphor. For example, David Hockney's curtain series depicts different types of curtains, such as tapestries, shower curtains and stage curtains. This is generally symbolic. Those curtains are reminiscent of theatre and the stage. They are also distinct from the natural scenery, so to speak, in which they were performed, as they appear to cut out a particular moment from the stories.

Postgraduate Lecture Programme: Catrin Webster　　Date: 5th October 2022

Hearing her talk, I became interested in how she embodied her physical experiences into her painting. I realised that the artwork has the potential to internalise everything that surrounds her, not only her experience but also space and spirituality and even gender. The most curious thing about her paintings is the combination of colour and line strokes. It makes me think about how the natural environment affects her spirituality. At the same time, it also evokes the feeling of the body expanding into space.

Speaking of space, it relates to the artwork, Merzbau by Kurt Schwitters. He was inspired by an experience working as a drafter at the factory in Hannover. At that time, he said that the war made him realise his preoccupation with gears and wheels and that machines are an abstraction of the human spirit. His interests connect to more human-made things. On the other hand, it could also expand his mentality and physical sense.

Let us go back to Catherine's work. I want to focus on Television Drawing and consider it. The concept is expanded to several dimensions - time, movement and sounds. Interestingly, these unconnected phenomena are internalised in a single person by perception. As for my projects, I consider connecting different phenomena in my print works. I would study people's beliefs, like exploring the spiritual movement by combining poems and drawings.

 Unit 1 Perspectives on print　　Date: 16th November 2022

This tutorial gave me the possibility of a wide range of print matrices. Printmaking can be considered size, format, materials and number of editions directly connected to artists’ style. This time, I also got the chance to start refacing my personality and character as an artist. I researched more print works I was interested in from this tutorial.

Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara’s Stones is a portfolio of 12 lithographs. They made those prints in the conversations between them. The rough combination of poems and illustrations recalls the letters or, sometimes, like the shared journal. Moreover, the poetries show their relationship was so close in a romantic way. If I focus more on the media of writing, especially the diary format, it can be essential to understand the artist’s concept. This work is reminiscent of their inner experiences, although not a diary, because of the texture.

Edvard Munch has reproduced his painting in printmaking, such as etching, lithographs and woodcuts. For some artists, prints help to spread their works. In addition, many experiments for colouring and compositions are possible in printmaking. So he used different colours in his woodcut print. The colour combination invited other emotions and his mentality.