New Project Brief

The start of term 3 and we kick-off with a new brief to develop a pitch for an artwork that is either gallery or public based. I am quite excited by this brief as I have a couple of ideas bubbling away that I would like to explore further and the fact that it can be as humble or extravagant as we wish makes it all the more exciting. Probably the big difficulty for me will be deciding which idea to take further for this pitch though I guess I can always revisit the other ideas later down the line!

First things first, I have a rough idea of the kind of work that I am interested in making (for the time being anyway). As mentioned in my earlier post, I am interested in motion, time and space, and in particular, to somehow make visible this idea or phenomenon of motion that we find in nature. The  kind of motion that I am most inspired by is both organic and erratic...like fallings leaves, the flow of water or the movement of a flock of birds. From this perspective, I guess my enquiry is phenomenologically based. From the last few projects, I have gained a better understanding of the processes by which I am interested in, drawing being one that features quite prominently. Other experiences that I am interested in is colour and how colour/light might be a medium used to express motion.  

Composition 8 (Komposition 8), July 1923. Oil on canvas
Source: Guggenheim Online

Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the  hand which plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul

Wassily Kandinsky

One of my earlier interests in art came from looking at the paintings by Kandinsky. I was fascinated by the idea of how according to Kandinsky, colour  possessed different qualities, including a vibrational frequency. He used colour as well as certain forms e.g. points, lines, geometric and biomorphic forms to express movement and rhythm in in his paintings, much like a musical composition. If that is the case for creating 2 dimensional works, how might I integrate some of these ideas in creating work that has a 3 dimensional-spatial quality? That is one of the questions that I will endeavour to explore in this project!

Drawing - Motion - Time - Space

Over the last few weeks I have been reflecting on the work I made in the first and second term, the emerging themes, and the areas that I am interested in developing further and doing more in depth research. It is becoming apparent that drawing is a large part of what I am in interested in, not in the representational sense, but as a process and as means of making sense of time, rhythm and space. Within that, light and colour are also integral to the expression of these ideas. It all feels like a big jumble of ideas in my head...which hopefully will start to make sense as I consciously integrate these interests and ideas into future projects.

One of the artists that I came across in my research is Takehito Koganezawa, a Japanese artist whose work brings together drawing, performance and video. I am fascinated by his works, especially the simplicity of some of the drawings, which when animated creates a whole new level of experience that is both mesmerizingly beautiful and meditative.

                                (RGBY) RG, 2004


In his work Dust, the rhythmic yet chaotic movement of the dust particles reminds me of movements found in nature.

                                Dust, 2010


Some of his drawings are compositionally simple yet poetic, with a lightness of touch that also appear to possess a sense of rhythm and movement.

                           Untitled (The Weather Project)
                           2009, color etching on Hahnemuhle paper 300g, 4 works, each: 42-1/2 x 31-1/2 inches, 
                           108 x 80 cm (framed), edition of 18
                           photo source: Christopher Grimes Gallery


His work has definitely given me much food for thought about the direction I want to take and how I can perhaps integrate animation into my own work.