Diagnostic Blocs

'Passenger' (Prelude to St. Peter)

Made in the style of 'The downward Spiral' art by Russel Mills, Actual work name being 'Wound'. The Album was an influence for the client's music so i worked in the tones and hues of that art to really get across the rotting, disgusting, angry aesthetic of the other album to make the work a sort of Bridge between both work, visually.

The Black represents the frame of a car window making it look like it's a view from the back of a car, out of a window. which for me anyways, put across this feeling of just watching the world go by and feeling relaxed.

'Road Rage'

Working off the pasenger theme of the the other one, I changed gear and ade it more like anger related to being in control. So there's some white nlinbes to represent the lins in the road and the darkness represent driving at night. I can relate with it, red represents violence and bad thought, yellow represets the decay of the spirit of the person in control.

'Caught In Flight'

Probably my favourite one, utilises a ripped-up book. acrylic paint, some chalk, foe-feathers and a black wire. I imagine a beautify bird flew into a live electrical wire and got zapped like in cartoons and was instantly reduced to ash and a bloody mist, while firey yellow sparks fly from the wire. But visually It's just intense, it's got movement I hink it's colours really pop and it's justa. really memorable, striking image and is probably to date, my favourite abstract piece of art which I've made. Since I just feel like it really puts across this specific feeling of loss, pain and an angry sadness.

'Buried By The Banks'

A work that was meant to really enacpsulate the meaning of some of the lyrics of my personal favourite track on the album i was doing work for.

It's not my favourite, I think the white is too intense, the contrast there is toojarring for the mod i'm going for which really should be more tame.

'St. Peter'

The Pictures were made on standard A4 paper, using acrylic, Ink, Oil Pastels, Soft Pastels, Feathers, Wires, Tape, Hot Glue, Staples, and this strange white pen that has white ink that’s a bit like Tippex.

I personally Think it all turned out pretty well, I think I personally prefer the red one with feathers. But I’d say the chosen one is a close second. Definitely a fun little project to do. Was payed for it, so I can definitely put that in some sort of portfolio. Client was happy with results, payed 200 pound sterling, got in contrast with high quality camera professional to take higher resolution images than seen here

Paula Rego

"If you put frightening things into a picture, then they can’t harm you. In fact, you end becoming quite fond of them." – PAULA REGO

SITUATIONAL CONTEXT

Paula Rego was born in Portugal, 1935. Under the Regime of Oliveira Salazar. A government described as ‘Corporatist – Authoritarian’.

PERSONAL CONTEXT

Her art style gradually shifted from abstract to representational art, she preferred using pastels to Oils. There are feminist political messages in her art mixed with Portuguese folk stories and Iberian cultural elements. She’s most well known for her work related to children’s storybooks. She was catholic, had ‘Catholic Guilt’ and had an intense belief that the Devil was real.

Alright, so. I don’t like feminism and that sort of stuff So I’m not going to be looking at that sort of art because I feel like I’d naturally not like it as much because of our contrasting opinions about it.

But this one interests me. I can put politics aside on this and just examine it for what it is, and I’d say it’s a pretty beautiful and exciting dark painting.

I think it does have some cliche dark themes such as ‘the corruption of innocence’ which is an overdone convention of that sort of genre of art. But It’s just so interesting, It was apparently based on a photo in the Iraq war. All the characters seem to be Gender ambiguous or female, I assumed at first the blue wearing rabbit in the middle was male, but in the original photo, that figure was female. But in the Alice in wonderland stories, which I strongly reckon this is based off of, the rabbit is Male. Why does that matter? well, to me it sort of changes the meaning of it for me, since men and women are not interchangeable in art. both sexes have distinct symbolism and meaning attached to them. the expected role of a man of the battlefield is of a soldier, brave, storming the front, heading into danger. The Role of the woman when you first think of it in a realistic and historical sense, you first would assume a civilian, non-combatant. Caring in this instance for her children and trying to keep them from the destruction they’ve found themselves in.

So, If it is a man and the convention is flipped so that he is retreating with children, that means something. If the woman was off storming the front lines in the line of fire, that would say something too. But that’s not what the painting focuses on. It’s the ambiguous rabbit, who’s wearing blue colours, which in modern times are associated with males, but in past centuries have been the colour of women due to them being calm and quiet colours.

With the way the rabbit holds the baby rabbit covered in blood with those dramatic highlights from above it just gives me the message that it’s like light from the heavens is shining upon them, but the way it casts such dark shadows under their eyes in such a dramatic way gives me the feeling the painting is meant to be an expression of ‘God has abandoned us in this mess’.

Now that I think about it the small woman in the bottom right corner is apparently wearing a military dress. And smiling at the rabbit. But despite this being a feminist artist, not much attention is actually given to that part of the art, which is quite admirable, It’s not nice to always have such blatant political messages rammed down your throat, especially when you really want to like a painting.

I also feel like the stork with a claw in the dress of the rabbit in the bottom left corner is an analogy for the sexual abuse which occurs during wartime.

Maybe this piece is meant to tell us that war reduces us to animals, after all the only human person looks like the person who’s seen the least conflict. The only one with a clear expression of jolliness. Look at the face that small rabbit is giving her, the face of disgust. the face of ‘You’re too late’ or of ‘haven’t you done enough?’.

Above images are ones taken for photography class. In the end I made a little book of all the pictures I took, but hugely distorted. In the end, the printing messed up the colors a bit and left white patches on some pages, really killed the color a lot too. So yea, even though that’s a shame, I’m still very proud of it and did extra work on it at home to add a black cardboard cover to it, to protect it and make it really feel less cheap and so that you can pick it up and think “wow, whoever owns this must be pretty proud of it”

The Book titled ‘An Unfortunate Sequence Of Events’ is a short visual narrative which details a society falling apart. The Plot I had in my head was Mass Hysteria and chaos rocking the old order, the country becomes polarized over an issue, societal bond rots away, giving way to an unfiltered and unstoppable force of action and destruction fueled by hate and a sense of betrayal, One side falls, the side on top now begins to oppress, this wheel may turn repeatedly as the victimized group takes power, violates the other, then the cycle resets. This continues until society itself becomes mentally strained and stressed enough to break, much like the mouse Utopia: everyone dies. Insects pick our corpses apart as we finally decay into nothing. But this story only emerged in the assembly part of it, every image was made based off the visual quality and should be able to stand by itself. The Story is secondary, and just my own interpretation of a series of pictures that came about in their order by visual chance.

Workshop

in the workshop we worked with metals, hitting them into different shapes, blow-torching them to make them more malleable, the works. We also put them through metal rollers with other imprinting items such as feathers and fabrics to leave interesting marks on these little scraps. The end result was as follows:

Artist: Russell Mills

29 Sep, 2019

Russell Mills Is an Artist from Yorkshire, he then worked in London to get more connections and commissions, but has since moved to Cumbria, hating the London lifestyle and art scene. He’s over the years also done work in other places such as LA as a commission for Nine Inch Nails. Where he worked in a massive warehouse making large quantities of predominantly metal mixed-media artworks.

Some grimey, disgusting, somehow sinister sounding instrumentals to accompany his art which I think compliments it.

Because his art (to me) seems dark and the previous adjectives really fit in with a lot of it.

This piece makes me think it was part of the series done for Trent Reznor’s ‘Hesitation Marks’ album, a retrospective album on his music career, re-examining earlier times in his life and his state of mind in past albums with an even-minded, disconnected view. The analogy that Russell Mills came up with to explain this in art was an autopsy. So we have very cold, medical art here. With little hints and signs of what was before still bleeding through now. Things all jumbled up like a puzzle needing to be put together. It looks really visually appealing to me.

This one, I have no clue for what it was made, which is somehow more fun. I’m lost and I like it a lot, sometimes context ruins the mystery. sometimes questions are more important and interesting than answers. I have no idea what he used to make this. Maybe it’s a canvas with glue on it which he waited to dry then covered in paint? really hard to tell. looks really beautiful through, Like a spiral maybe a red corridor in the dark.

Fishing hooks into a red / orange canvas covered in blue… Blue something. Is it paint? it looks more like powder. the effect looks like it’s the surface of an alien planet or something. looks very strange and interesting. Leaves me in a state of wonder at how the effect was achieved. Seems brutal, sharp and cruel. there’s something upsetting me about that fishing hook. the Red wire looks so powerfully contrasted with the blue. It looks like the painting’s about to be torn apart any second and have a huge gash ripped into it. A violent scene that’s on ice. Much like the appearance of red, roughly patched-over in cool blue hues. I feel like it would ruin the mystery if I knew how this work was made.

This looks rusty and disgusting, so industrial. I love it. I want to touch it, I want to hold it. There’s something about the rust. I think it reminds me a lot of my childhood. there used to be a big metal, rusty swing at the bottom of my grandmother’s garden. and another one at the top of the garden. It looked well-made but like it had fallen apart with age, when you sat on it, you smelled like rust, that smell you can taste. You can taste the copper color just by looking at it. My mouth is tingling just by looking at this. If you swung on those things they’d creek and throw orange-water everywhere, the rust had mixed into the water and turned into a bright orange liquid that would fly everywhere. So yea, strong memories from this. But I also can accept that other people would probably hate this, having no personal memories conjured by it, instead just seeing this as ugly metal. Once again, wish i knew how he did it.

Looks like someone’s trying to link a car battery to a bee hive. I can taste batteries when i look at this, I like the background of this a lot. Those little red squares around it add a lot. How did he do this? also, sounds like a small detail to pick-up on, but you see those little yellow and red strips? and that little beige loop? Really like those details. no clue what that is, and I don’t want to know either. I prefer not knowing and instead just getting some sort of feeling from them, without having the actuality of what they are in a literal sense bogging my mind.

I have no clue what anything is. But it looks angry. It looks wild, it looks somehow personal. That black background makes it. If this was in a white room, I think I’d hate this piece. The black room completely transforms it into a sort of story of somebody falling off their hinges and destroying everything around them with power tools and burning everything to the ground, maybe because they already feel like the most important thing in their life is gone. A real narrative starts to emerge. Once again. No clue how it was made but i like it a lot.

This is something I’d have up on my wall. There is so clearly a visual language at play. You can taste, feel and smell it just by looking at it, and you’re not even certain what you’re looking at. I feel like i’m looking at a vast red desert with power chords running through it with the sun setting or rising in the horizon, or that there are sparks starting to fly from these chords which bring life to the night sky like an electric aurora borealis. Reminds me of the 2015 Mad Max movie

A Distinct cultural influence has entered the picture, in a more literal sense, it just looked like it barged itself into the picture ‘s frame in fact. This looks like the artist is immensely frustrated at society and the world and is trying to burn it all, leaving that ashy color over the black, which looks like scorched marks, over the rust-colored world. It’s past angry and is now just fed-up and cold. The dream catcher is meant to capture the nightmares and bring good dreams. This may be message about he wants to burn away the bad in his life and the world, so good things can finally come forward. It also adds structure to the painting. Much like how destruction may be the only thing keeping this man’s psyche together in hard times, after a point anger is what fuels you to move on, not the good things. Some people just sit at the transitional period of ‘neutral’ want to do nothing but feel sorry for themselves and die. No, this is distinctly past that. This has gone so far past that point that it’s breaking out of it’s gray-box and coming out at us and everything else. It wants to hurt us, It wants to kill us. Because it’s had enough of us. It’s fed-up. That’s my reading anyways.

I think this was a commission for a band. look at these goddamn textures. God I love them. I want to be able to do this.

No clue what chemicals or techniques were used here but it looks, worn, battered, and beautiful. I imagine this is how the artist feels during it’s creation. Or maybe not while creating it necessarily, since I bet these are pretty fun to make.

summery: I’m in Love with the work by Russell Mills despite them being very abstract because of what they make me feel and how I can just look at so many of them and just be in awe at the techniques used, and the effects he can achieve.

End Of Russell Mills Analysis

Time At The Foundation Course

Posted on 22nd Sep 2019

A Journey Of a Thousand Miles Starts With A Single Step

JOHN F. KENNEDY

Before I started, I thought I’d get my own desk, that I’d really feel free to sort of do whatever I wanted. I was sort of worried if anything there’d be not enough push from tutors and that there’d be too much burden on me for coming up with things to do and projects to start. I felt like I was about to enter free fall, just all the time in the world that I could use however I chose.

I listen To this on my way here a lot. Mainly on the days I feel Numb and Tired.

In reality, I Have no desk or even a chair, my corner always smells like the harbour, I have so much work I literally sweat with how fast i have to work in painting class, And to do it in time I have to do abstract work, which is usually my least favorite type of art. i feel in that way I’m sacrificing what i love and selling-out what I am just to be able to meet the quotas. i get trying new things I do, and I know they’ll just say “well, we’re trying to push you out of your comfort zone” or something like that. So I won’t raise these complaints. I get so much homework. I have work on the weekends and therefore just 1 day off to be able to have a day to myself, and that obviously then must be all work. It put a lot of stress on me. on ME, for context for anyone who doesn’t know me, I never stress-out. It can be one day before an exam and I won’t worry, While everyone else is quaking. I’ll be fine. but with this, man. I can’t tell you how worried about doing well I’ve been, How much I’ve been working on ridiculous stuff I know I don’t care about and how spent I feel. I won’t quit though. I’ll let this course break me before I quit it. i’m very stubborn about that fact.

The most fun thing related to the course so far has just been burning CDs

for the Long, lonely car journey I take everyday to get there. here’s a picture of 2 of them, which i draw over. The backdrop is a map i made. in full about the size of an A3 paper I think. took days. But I love slow, but detailed work, the opposite of what the foundation course is forcing my hand into taking part in.

I can try to get away, but I’ll strap myself in, I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears, I can feel it killing away at all of my bad parts. I don’t want to listen, but it’s all too clear.

TRENT REZNOR

For the first time here, in fact, just in my life. I’m alone here. I’m so far from home and it really feels it. That’s the bad part, it feels like it. you know what I mean? I really, really do feel far away from those I love and care for, and I feel like i’m far away from anyone who cares I exist. I’m so alone here. I don’t click with anybody here. Everything feels artificial. I feel like everyone pitties me and thinks I’m some kind of loner. Probably think there’s something wrong with me, Probably think I have some sort of social anxiety disorders. I have plenty of friends, I have Emily, Huw, Huw Hopkins, Tom, Miles, Ryan, Adam, Ben, Joseff, Ellis, Ash, Frey And a girlfriend, I have my social group, I have plenty of more peripheral friends and acquaintances, I work at the Tills in ASDA I can talk to strangers Just fine, stop treating me like I have some sort of difficulty. Man, I can’t bear it there in a lot of ways. Sometimes this slips away and I don’t feel this intensely about it. But when I think about it properly like this? it makes me angry. And that’s odd, I don’t get angry. I always get sad instead of angry, just feel goddamn sorry for myself. And just to preface me saying that, I don’t have any mental conditions unlike a few people I know who are artists *cough* Miles *cough*. And I’m a really regular, fun-loving guy. Who’d usually be a class-clown in any other situation. But, this place upsets me. Socially and from a work perspective. I really hope something changes soon about all this and I snap out of it, because right now? I feel miserable or angry at all times there.

At least Now I know exactly what I am.

Pwllheli Harbour

Walked around the docks, took some pictures of the 'Big Tuna-Can' Building. The Dying Sun of the behind distant mountains to the east and the dark crawling sky of the west over my home town.

Falmouth Eden Project

Went To Falmouth withe the Course to check out the university, first however we took a tour around the Eden Project, where I took many photographs.

Wet Acrylic

Had some left over paint on my pallet that looked pretty after I was done painting, I took a few pictures and applied higher vibrancy filters. The end result is some honestly extremely pretty pictures.

The College Greenery

walked outside one morning into the treeline, found some chairs which had been left behind.

Covered with leaves, trees and rust, I took 4 pictures and that felt like enough.

Reminded me of Prypiat after the Chernobyl meltdown, I put some filters on them and intensified the brown.

Sketchbook Work

The Following image carousel shows some images from my sketchbook from this period of work.

Lots of experimentation with different styles and techniques, along with using new mediums to work with and try to make new patterns using those mediums, to really make something new and interesting.

In the end I think I developed, or have begun to develop at the very least, a sort of visual style.

5 Artists' Analysis & Review

Maggi Hambling. I watched a video about her, sent by Iwan. By accident i watched 2 videos about her. A video came on in autoplay and I kept watching it. Interesting woman, she has a sort of ‘in the moment’ style. Feels quite emotionally driven, She never knows how a piece is going to go, tries to channel her feeling and what she sees directly into the canvas or sculpture. I’ve heard people saying that kind of stuff before but I really get what she means when she shows her art. No clue if I like it. I think it’s intriguing. It’s odd and ugly in a way that’s aesthetically pleasing for a certain type of emotional state. I watched her video on Bloomberg as well, on subverting expectation. I like a lot of what she says with feeling like the drawings she made aren’t hers, that she channeled something else, the bad ones are the ones made by her, because she got in the way. Reminds me of what Musician Elliott Smith said to do with songwriting, where a song knows where it wants to go. you’ve just got to let it flow out of you and learn how to not get in the way of it. i think it’s a message about losing yourself in your work to the point where you reach that point of switching off mentally and just letting it happen. The art comes from something past the conscious mind I guess. they’re going to their work and almost just venting their raw emotions into it, like talking to a friend. It sounds pretentious I think; very artsy. But I get it. Maggi Hambling: She’s actually alright and seems pretty cool!

Victor Pasmore is one of those abstract painters who is also into abstract architecture and sculpture. believing that abstract art is a way for artists to change architecture and then society, an idea brought around in the 1930s. Reminds me of brutalism and other abstract disgusting, miserable awful styles which make me think of the soviets and their use of depressing sharp shapes, and Gray concrete in an already cold environment. An insult to the Russian wooden styles of old and the beautiful architecture of of previous eras such as their St. Basil’s Cathedral. His work over that artificial pond looks authoritarian and oppressive, and to say the least: unpleasant. And that’s not what the community wanted. He seems like a nice man, I like his personality and a lot of his attitudes from what I’ve seen of them. But I don’t like much of his work. Victor Pasmore: Nice Guy, ‘meh’ work.

Guillan Ayres, From her brief monologue of being discriminated against by the french by saying ‘the English can’t paint’ I was invested and on her side. I hoped that she had some sort of messaging in her art like ‘Screw France for that 100 years war in medieval times’ or ‘ France preformed poorly and cowardly in WW2’ or maybe at the very least ‘Ha-ha! I CAN paint France, so take that!’. But her work is more a celebration of life and more positive messaging, about expressing emotional truth or whatever. It doesn’t speak to me much, It looks pretty sometimes, far better than the soviet roughness of some other abstractions, it instead seems graceful and fluid. If Victor Pasmore was a large drum for a marching band or trombone, Guillan Ayres would be one of those little Italian Guitars or the high-keys of a keyboard. Playing some romantic, happy message you can’t understand because it’s in some foreign language. That’s really abstract I know. but look at their work and you tell me I’m wrong. Also, I’m looking at pretty abstract stuff, so cut me some slack. Anyways, Guillan Ayres: 6/10, kinda nice, but I’d probably never be in the right mood to enjoy it, I’m not impressed by the techniques used. But Some people out there like it, and I can at least acknowledge it’s better than a lot of abstractionists’ works.

Albert Irvin, I like some of his marks, He says they’re not very expressive and that the canvas itself is doing most of the effect, so I don’t want that endorsement to sound too high, but that’s most of my compliments about him, I suppose a lot of the colors go well, but that’s not his point. It’s meant to be seen more of a visual diary of how he feels than an aesthetically pleasing thing. looking nice may not be the point, it’s documentation. I can’t quite bring myself to hate it, but, I’m not thrilled by it. I can see it, it mages me wonder I suppose, but most stuff make me wonder if it’s called art. The velvety rich colors of the work shown in the video is just a road he drove down with positive, rich colors. there I am, thinking “why am I here?”, “why share this with me?”. I don’t care if you have a nice rich drive around in the city to be honest, you swapped out some of the colors and reduced the quality of the image to make it look positive, made the color of the buildings roughly the same color as this background box, but maybe a bit darker. Man, I just can’t make myself care much about it. The other one, all I can do is look at the bottom of the work, see that half-trangle at the bottom and think it looks like part of the McDonald ‘M’ on that raw, bright red background. And those strips going through is the road you turn-off to McDonalds using. Makes it nostalgic, but sort of trashy to me. I know for sure I dislike that one. Albert Irvin: roughly the same position as Guillan Ayres on my list of best-to-worst artists.

Fiona Rae, I like her table set-up. I think she’s immensely polite as a person, I think her painting is alright. The way she talks makes me think If I was there, in person I could really get the scale and would appreciate how big it was and I could sort of fall into the painting and get a bit more lost in there. But I’d say there are some more techniques here that I really, really like with strange strokes which blur lines and colors mixed with drips of paint which go in directions which contradict your viewing perspective, giving a feeling of life and motion to the works not only from a context of what’s going on, but perspective wise, keeps your mind guessing and flipping it around in your head, making you almost play with the image in your head. It’s a quite orderly thick-lined and cartoony, child-like style, with some chaos and madness over it. I probably like her art the most out of the artists I’ve seen in these videos on a fairly visual level, or maybe competing with Maggi. Maggi’s style seemed more mature and her techniques genuinely impressed me and blew me away at times, so maybe she wins by a little, but fairly close behind anyways is Fiona. Fiona: 7/10, 8/10 on the really good ones. I just like a lot about the energy and movement of the art, all the way to the set-up of how she works. Plus she seems like a really nice person. I know you should try to separate the artist from the work. But It’s actually hard to do and also I feel like the context of art often adds a lot of value to it, but can also at time detract from it.

Video That was heavily edited into being more unusual and artsy, pretty comedic and strange, ended up being a lot of people's favourite version.

The More raw version, less editing by a long-shot, has more of a narrative and can be followed more coherently, but is actually less funny, Missed the Dadaism feeling of the other one.

Me and 'How I Got Here'

Me standing next to the large 8 A3 spanning work.

'How I got Here'

mixed media work that's meant to tell a bit of an overview of my life, events in my life, memories, moods and thoughts.Everything from when I was a baby, to earliest memories I actually have at about 5 years old and then the rest is fairly recent events from the past 4 years.

'Life Room Painting'

Painting and mixed media art that was done by-eye in person in a life drawing room that was boiling, so i used excessive hot colours to get that sort of mood across of oppressive heat.

'Doom'

An acrylic painting based on the Doom 2016 video-game poster.

'3 Mirrors'

A self portrait which was done from eye, as opposed to from photograph, used paint, graphite,dip pen ink, pastels and charcoal.

'Fractured'

A work which contains 9 A3 pieces of paper, it's meant to symbolise my new start at the college , the thought i was having, the feelings i was feeling and also illustrate certain interests and also my journey to the college everyday: General themes include sadness, loneliness, resentment, paranoia, anger, dismissal and a feeling of being homesick and lost.

Manchester Art Gallery

In the art Galley I took plenty of pictures of what we saw so I could maybe learn a thing or two. There were some spectacular, breath-taking pieces of art in there and I'd love to go again to really soak in the techniques and visuals some more within my lifetime.

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