NOVA DOCUMENTARY RESPONSE

INTRODUCTION

During our introductory lesson to second year art, it was recommended that we watch this documentary to inspire us to explore the boundaries of our art and beyond. Straight off I found the documentary hard to focus on due to the videos and animations incorporated...a little weird too (without meaning to offend, they were very impressive animations, just not what I was expecting) but I kept an open mind and learnt some valuable lessons from the video.

THE VIDEO

THOUGHTS

Rebecca Ward--Seventeen is Sharp

I found the beginning artist who talked about using construction tape (Rebecca Ward-website/portfolio here) interesting as use of colour was something I had explored in first year. The tape was suspended into a kind of installation and then the artists cut the strips to make them thinner but the graphic nature of the vivid colours of the tape were particularly interesting to me and I might want to look at incorporating this into my sculptures.

The artist who made a sellotape cast of a face (Mark Jenkins-website/portfolio here) and then put clothes on it and a wig was unique and this method of creating casts was something I had never considered before. With enough layers, this could be an original (and cheap) way of creating a cast of a face, as I am attempting sculpting portraits and busts, the opaque nature of the tape could be used to convey a powerful message, especially when juxtaposed with another sculpture or, in this artists case, the brightly coloured clothing and wig.

There was also an artist who talked about not wanting to sign his work any more because he wanted it to be less individualistic. There was another artists who talked about this later in the documentary but who felt he needed to be famous enough for it first. This made me reflect on the idea of art being individualistic and it is. In the cases of highly successful artists a majority of buyers pre-order work without even knowing what it looks like. For example, an artist I have been looking into is Damien Hirst and according an article detailing his 'comeback' exhibition in 2017, Treasures From the Wreck of the Unbelievable, it was not highly successful, however buyers had still pre-ordered some of the work, making his name a brand and not his artwork itself. I think this outlook is wrong because the art doesn't carry meaning to the buyer or maybe even the artists, it is reduced to being a name brand and the point of the piece is missed almost entirely.

Lucy McRae-Gold Sequins covering Human Body

I also enjoyed the work of Lucy McRae (website/portfolio here) from this documentary-she displayed masks made of push-pins and talked about how the art industry frustrated her, as her work was so morbid and categorised as 'video'/'performance' etc most curators would tell her that as her work couldn't be categorically defined that they couldn't display it.  I found her artwork definitely 'macabre' but I enjoyed the elements she incorporated into it such as the push-pins and this is something I would like to incorporate in my own sculptures too.

THINGS TO CONSIDER IN FUTURE WORK

• To incorporate objects such as safety pins, sellotape etc into my sculptures as it could add  new dimension to my work as the colours contrast the clay and new meaning too.
• To reflect on scale in context with the meaning of my work.
• Also, to reflect on the meaning behind my art work so that I can make it as genuine and personal as possible which will help me to convey a stronger meaning behind it.