Evaluation Notes

Notes I made for the self-evaluation that are actually quite a helpful summary of the key points of my work this term:

(from my blog, incl summer work:)

• Roots in the summer project – ‘deep storage’ in the natural world – tree rings/coral
• In the summer project as well as my work this term my process is to generally do a wide pool of research and then hope inspiration strikes from here
• The idea of the stored data being really old – a look into ‘deep time’
• Still a lot to get from this topic – tree rings, coral, rocks (different layers, sediments, fossils etc), the melting of glaciers and the permafrost and the trapped bubbles of gas from the early atmosphere (good link to environmental side?), landscape archaeology
• Even early on in the summer project I was looking at how nature can form its own record
• Also potential avenue for exploration with how the landscape as a whole can store information – link to aspect of local history, archaeology, walking etc (not as well explored as yet but I’ve done a bit, such as Hamish fulton?) – a good link could be through ancient stones in the landscape as they have elements of both human and geological history tied in (link to ‘The Living Stones’ book)
• I would like to look more at aerial photography and maps (again, have done a bit of map-work but would look to do more)
• Since my summer work I have definitely moved more into 3d work, although I do still think I could push my use of materials further, through the workshops (maybe easier next term now I’m inducted?) and just generally e.g. with resin
• Maybe a theme is I could be generating more physical work? I spent quite a while at the start not making much physical work as I was researching, and then the work I have produced is quite time consuming so as a result I don’t feel like I have a huge amount to show
• Could do with another round of research almost?! I maybe feel as though research has petered out a bit since the start? Or has it just got more physical/making-based?
• Lichen is an area for further exploration – map-like, also can be used for dating and is found on rocks, type of lichen likely reveals something about the rock/climate?
• Have done a fair amount of collecting, mainly from walks – something I could develop further? At the moment I haven’t really established a purpose/what I’m going to do with what I’ve collected
• Most influential/relevant artists this project: Otobong Nkanga, antony Gormley, peter randall-page, tara Donovan?, eric ravilious? (‘the ancient signs of humanity on the landscape’), hamish fulton, Rachel sussman, bryan nash gill (process-led), thomas demand (ish – how does the removal from the initial object affect the work?), hiroshi sugimoto, tania kovats
• I like the idea of a monument to a landscape – it’s something I’ve picked out in several artist’s work/different sources but that I’ve literally not explored at all
• Concept has migrated towards the idea of the time/story bound up in an object – still a link to deep-time, but the paper sculptures try and capture an idea of time – possible link to meditation/zen
• Thomas Guest and Paul Nash article – quite pivotal to my project/way of thinking – idea that you don’t have to capture something accurately/I don’t have to research and learn everything about a subject – sometimes it is more effective to capture the ‘idea’ of something
• This links to the idea of handing over control to the materials (surrealist ideology) and imagined stones/maps etc – again something I would like to explore more – could introduce idea of rules when drawing these, inspired by some of peter randall-page’s work
• Idea of taking a unique fingerprint of a landscape through its topology – sort of a monument to the landscape? Could do of a mined site, where the topology is literally impacted by man – link to my work from last year, interaction between man and the landscape
• Another idea is the deep time movement of rock – explored through repeated tracings? Not particularly excited by this idea/sure of where it would end up given the time it would take to make
• Hiroshi Sugimoto – idea of looking at a shared landscape with ‘the ancients’ as a way of accessing deep time (which his seascapes and looking at rock faces both do?) – ‘revert us to our innocent minds’ – link to idea of zen/meditation?
• Like the idea of a sculpture containing something, potentially unknown/unseen (from gormley’s work, and actually anish kapoor’s as well?) – what is contained within an object, metaphorically and physically – another future idea
• Good method of working with journal and then expanding in blog form? A good balance between the two methods?

(from my journals:)

• Giuseppe Penone (suggested early on) – carved trees and fingerprints
• Researching ‘archaeology’ Tate results – Thomas Guest and Paul Nash, as mentioned above
• Sketches focussing on line – not done a lot of ‘representational’ sketches – at the time I was just doing them to fill time almost, I didn’t see much point to them, but now I look back on it they are a good link between the physical rocks I collected and the sculptures I made – moving between 2d and 3d
• CSM visit – good and interesting to visit museums that aren’t strictly art museums as a form of research but this one in particular highlighted to me that it was more of the everyday rocks I was interested in (?!) – museum environment was quite sterile (take this into consideration when presenting my work?)
• Robert macfarlane
• Did a few walks – good for thinking of ideas and gathering material – not sure how much I want to involve it in the art though? More of a process than becoming part of the finished piece?
• Paper rocks – time bound up in the object, repetitive/accumulative – handing over control to the materials (to an extent) – the clean white paper means they pick up marks easily, adding to their story?
• Definite potential for further exploration with stone monolith-type objects – looked at several artists with a similar subject matter such as paul nash and Barbara Hepworth
• Could capture the idea of the growth of my objects, through timelapse? Or a kind of stop-motion animation?
• ‘humans are poised to stamp an unprecedented legacy deep into the earth’s geological memory’
• ‘time is an immeasurably large object you cannot move and are caught in’
• The map as art
• Rock circles – change over layers – erosion – natural variation/unpredictable
• Same ideas^ but in 3d with paper tree ring?
• Could explore painting on rock – where tide can come in and erode over time
• Consider use of natural materials – chalk