Andrew Foster Guest lecture

Andrew Foster, artist/ Illustrator from London came to give us a lecture recently. Andrew gave an brilliant talk about his work and also him as a person. Andrew said he stop doing lectures for a while as he found them dull, which was quite humorous. He mentioned the sex pistols being his favourite band and the attitude they had  being able to do anything you wanted really inspired him. He stressed strongly throughout the lecture that you have to have fun doing your work, or else what’s the point, which I agreed with. He started his work by simple copying music covers.Then he started to draw random objects but started to take away parts of the objects to see how far he could go before it stops communicating what it is. His example was of a chewing gum rapper. Ian Wright inspired this notion of him drawing something then stripping it down to nothing. Steven said he has to make work to understand the world, if he is not doing some work he finds himself lost. Andy whorhol was another artist who had a impact on him, because of the scale of some of his work. Steven is a religious man, he is very close with family which I could relate to. He was straight to the point throughout his lecture, and extremely honest and upfront, I found his personality to my liking I felt like everything he was saying I agreed with, his morals an so on, I felt like he was someone to look up to. so there was a very personal liking to Andrew for me. To add to this Andrews work was quite weird and strange which also appealed to me, not all of his work, some were quite hard to look at. Again Andrew stressed the fact we work to serious, we need to laugh and have fun which I totally agreed with. He’s interested in people who say what they want to say, he’s interested in students they inspire him. He told an interested story about a big job he was offered by liberty to do their shop windows. Steven mentioned that the shop was located in one of the busiest parts of London so he had to get this work right. He stressed over the work and didn’t really know what to do, But one of his friends told him to go with it and have fun with it, At the end he got an amazing amount of press and more jobs from it, I believe that story had a hidden meaning. But because of the press he got and the jobs he was creating work he was known for, so he was getting a little bored, this is when he went back to his roots and started to do something he enjoyed. He came up with a brief about Britain, he loves Britain. the project was about the good and bad sides of Britain. in some of his work there features a tiger, Steven associates him being this tiger, The tiger representing him as this lazy person. In his later work he started to involve props to communicate his work. Steven also mentioned his crazy fetishes for hair, Lace again quite humorous. I Felt Stevens lecture was utter brilliance, He about his personality which was great and also how that personality links with his work strongly. I feel I know Steven quite well after that lecture. Another great experience, I enjoyed listening to Steven.

Karen Lecture

Recently Karen Gave us a lecture about her street inspiration work. She made some interesting points throughout the lecture that links with the street graphic project. One of these points being about subcultural studies, that being an area of investigation. Another point she made was looking at different spaces. Spaces that have changed from being something like a  building for example, and how over time that space has changed and become a new space say for the homeless. Another interesting point was about identity, and how identity is formed by social experiments, got me thinking a little. She mentioned factors that effect the streets like political and social factors. Music being a massive part of street culture. I also learned a new word, Zeitgeist, which is German and means spirit of the age or spirit of the time. Overall Karen’s talk made me think a little different about the project in a good way. I appreciated her interesting input.  

Yorkshire Sculpture park

Recently went on a trip with the course to see the Yorkshire Sculpture park. As well as them being sculptures on show there was also an exhibition featuring work by Mark Hearld’s birds & beasts as well as some other artists work. I have personally never heard of Mark heard before or seen any of his work, so it was quite interesting to discover this artist. His work stems from a love of the British countryside, Curiosity for objects and a magpie approach to collecting. Mark is known for his Brightly coloured collages and lithographic prints. Hearld has taken inspiration from the park to transform the YSP Centre. Hearld Works Closely with skilled craftsmen to realise his ideas. I personally found his work really cool, I like the quirkiness of his designs and his overall style. Mark has done a huge amount of work, collages, prints, sculptures, book covers, loads. But what I personally loved was the cabinet of all his hand drawn type and images, I found that the best viewing attraction of his exhibition, just because it shows how he works. I thought that his work really captures the British countryside, His use of vivid colour and brush strokes really imitate that environment.   Great experiences and an Amazing artist and will be added to my list of favourites.

When finished looking at the exhibition me and my friend decided to go check out the sculpture park. I kind of underestimated the size of this place whilst walking around and also I wished I wore appropriate clothing, because it was quite muddy. Other than that there were some weird and wonderful sculptures in the park and was a brilliant experience.

You can view my images on my shutterfly site

http://anthonysuttonphotogallery.shutterfly.com/ 

First Cut exhibition

Just a collage of work form the exhibition, apologises for the quality. If you wish to see all my photos visit my shutterfly account to view them.

http://anthonysuttonphotogallery.shutterfly.com/

First cut Exhibition Manchester

I recently went to Manchester to visit ‘The First Cut’ exhibition. I personally love Paper Cut work, but I also went for my recent project StreetGraphic, Since it involves putting together an exhibition. I paid close attention to the whole aesthetics of the exhibition, looking closely at how the exhibition was constructed, What the exhibition included and also the people visiting the exhibition. the exhibition featured work from various artists around the world, The work was truly amazing, the artists have a incredible skill to produce their work. Artists included Peter Calleson a personally favourite of mine, Rob Ryan also another favourite. I also discovered new artists like Yuken Teryua who crafted a beautiful piece of work out of a burger king bag. Another artists I discovered was Justine Smith, she created a money map of the world and also a gun from dollar bills. So many brilliant artist, you must go see this exhibition. When approaching the main exhibition room, there on the wall was a huge description of what the exhibition was about, from there I entered the main room, Absolutely massive room, Artwork immediately captured my attention. There were Huge pieces and also very small pieces where you have to get real close to see their work, I Enjoyed the comparison of the sizes. Like many exhibitions there are always notices at the side of each work describing who it is and what it is, so I noted that down. Looking around at the people visiting, it was quite varied from young children with mothers and fathers to Students  and adults of all ages, so this exhibition really gathered a range of people. I couldn’t help overhear people taking about how amazing the work is and the continuous mentioning of patients the artists must have, I totally agree. I spent a few hours in the exhibition as it was quite busy I advise going early in the morning to get so that you get to see everything. The exhibition poster was really nice, Simple design which I love. The image for the Poster is created by the cutting knife head this was duplicated to form a jagged circle, very interesting work, using the tool most likely used by all paper cut artists, so it had to be used in the poster. Overall it was a great experience seeing the work, I very much enjoyed every minute. I recommend visiting it before it goes. 

Rick Poynors Guest lecture

Writing with pictures was the title or Rick Poynor’s lecture. I have personally never heard of Rick before so I didn’t know what to expect from him. Rick Poynor is a British writer, critic, lecturer and curator, specialising in design, media and visual culture. He is Visiting Professor in Design Criticism and Research Methods at the postgraduate Royal College of Art in London. his work ‘writing with pictures’ was about the pictures themselves telling a narrative. Rick Always travelled, whilst on his travels he use to take pictures, but not ordinary pictures, he was attracted to weird and bazaar juxtaposition of objects, like industrial sites, typography mixing together. Early in his life photography was not important to him in a sense, he never really thought of carrying it on. But as he travelled he kept on taking pictures, And also the influence of many photographers gave him that urge and push to really start taking photography seriously. His style of photography never changed, he was still taking pictures of strange places he felt had some sort of story behind it, like for example an abandoned building, he felt as if this was once a building and now it’s been destroyed and it was that story and communication that lead Rick to continue and further his photography fetish. I believe Ricks work and lecture was heavily useful for my project ‘street graphics’, His style of photography really inspired me and gave me a new way of looking at my current project.  

Steven Chamber Guest lecturer

Stephen Chambers was born in 1960 in London. He trained at Central St Martin’s and Chelsea School of Art in London. He has exhibited in Europe and the United States in Solo and Group Shows. He was elected a Royal Academician in 2005. Steven split the lecture up and discussed him as a person throughout and of course his work. We had some trouble with lighting in the lecture hall as the sun was quite low, so his paintings, mainly the colour of his paintings were distorted slightly. Stephen Chambers’ work projects an abstract, minimal and decorative feel, Colourful images of figures are grasped in a kind of suspended narrative. His work is lead by curiosity, And it’s this curiosity he wants to drive into the viewing audience. Steven often draws out his thoughts and ideas with pen and ink, He believes doing this is a very important practice as some of these drawings may be developed into paintings. His paintings differ in size, ranging from very small canvases to quite big. His early paintings depict narratives, From examples shown early on, his work is very flat with bold background colours consisting of just one colour. An occurrence of flat human figures placed in different scenes, along side an array of scattered furniture, and appliances which seem to have been placed to convey a disruption in the natural law of gravity . Steven describes those paintings as if he was remarking gravity. As he showed more of his work you could see his style becoming more obvious. More bold, warm backgrounds appeared to keep the viewer engaged, and again the occurrence of human figures that were placed in strange environments.  As he progressed  he started to involve patterns into his paintings/ Prints, but also starting to leave the human figures out. Steven produces prints as well as paintings. He did not experience print making in college, As he aged he began to work in different print workshops and studios so that he would create different work that he eventually publishes himself. From his existing painting work he has made 3 contemporary performances, where his art was the backdrop for the performers. Other than his strange paintings Steven often painted from life, but of course included his quirky, decorative style. His paintings are a feast for the imagination but are also extremely well crafted. Relying on flat backgrounds of intense, seductive colour and pattern, their sheer beauty pulls us into his strange and complex world. Overall I quite like Stevens work and enjoyed hearing from him. His simplicity, flatness, strangeness and pattern work really attracts me as a viewer and leaves me wondering about the story these paintings are trying to tell. His work will be forever an inspiration

Alien Ant Farm – Movies (Intertextuality)

In the lecture we were asked by Catherine for a music video that has signs of intertextuality. Someone said alien ant farm movies. The video depicts scenes from other movies. This gave me more of a clear example of what intertextuality was as well as the image of the magazine.

• – Some examples of intertextuality references are more problematic to decipher.

End thoughts
I have learned about intertextuality and what it is as a bases. Seeing examples of intertextuality gave me a better understanding to what it is. I feel Catherine explained this subject very well and left me thinking of examples of intertextuality references.

Example of Intertextuality

Catherine showed us this example of Intertextuality in the lecture.

Lecture Four – Intertextuality

Intertextuality – post-structuralist approach. The notion of ‘Authorship’ is problematized. 

• Barthes in his seminal text declared ‘the death of the author’ and ‘the birth of the reader‘; claiming that ‘a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination’ (Barthes, 1977,p148)

• The idea that texts owe more to other texts than to their writer/maker is central to Barthes claim of the death of the author.

It’s never a complete rip off – but still has references. 

• Reflective of reality 
• Authenticity, authorship, originality 

Intertextuality – term coined by French linguist Julia Kristeva in 1960’s. 

• Analysis of texts in terms of two axes; 
• a horizontal axis connecting the author and reader of a text.
• a vertical axis, which connects the text itself to other texts.