Tara Donovan

During my 3D block I came across Tara Donovan, a site specific American artist who uses everyday items to create highly detailed pieces of work.  Her large scale sculptures feature an item which is usually multiplied and repeated, such as the use of numerous straws or styrofoam cups. As my brief was to reuse found objects, and as I had found numerous mini white cups, I decided to work in a similar style to her. In the end I ended up creating a large 3D sculpture out of mini white sauce cups which I hung from a blank white wall.

Below is one of Donovan's pieces which stood out for me. It is also the piece which influenced my work the most. 'Untitled' was done in 2003 and features many cups which are attached together. Her use of a simple repetition technique creates something deeply complicated of what would be a simple singular object. The overall look of this sculpture is organic as it seems to flow and grow out of one another - somewhat looking like a microorganism of some sort. Her use of lighting in this photographs makes it look clean and fresh and due it its large scale takes up all of the pictorial space of the photograph. 

Donovan is one of the artists so far who has really captured my interest and I would like to explore more of her unique styles in 3D contemporary art and design. her work has not only informed me that a simple object can be made into something complicated due to the sue of repetition, but she has also opened my eyes to the mentally stimulating world of 3D.

Wikipedia (2013) Tara Donovan. [Online] Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Donovan [22/10/2013] 

Image: http://blog.art21.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/DONOVAN_portrait_2005_v1-e1270734564405.jpg [22/10/2013]

Image: http://www.acegallery.net/artists/donovan/TD-UntCupsD.jpg [22/10/2013]

Sarah Lucas

“Where’s it all going? What are we fucking up to, if anything, that we all think is so important?”

(Sarah Lucas, 1996)

I first came across Sarah Lucas's work during my textile block and was captured by her highly provocative work. I was introduced to her because of her use of furniture in some of her earlier works which portrayed visual puns of a sexual nature. My work within the textile block didn't represent bawdy or explicit representations of the human form, instead I linked the two due to the use of furniture. Whilst Lucas uses everyday objects to create a piece of art, I created an everyday item out of a piece of fashion. 

Lucas is an English artist and is a part of the Young British Artists who first emerged during the 1990s and her work has been likened to other artists such as Francis Bacon and Damien Hirst. To the left is a self portrait of herself called 'Fighting Fire with Fire'. This piece of work was part of a series of twelve photographic self portraits in which she challenges the stereotypes of gender and sexuality. We see her in a masculine 'macho' pose yet she still looks defiantly feminine. Another one of her pieces is to the right. 'Mamum', a 3D piece is made out of pairs of tights which are filled creating the image of numerous womens breasts. This not only is not a surprise, as Lucas's work is usually quite controversial, but also gives a sense of solid femininity. Tights are used daily by women and to be filled to create a solid structure gives a sense of rigidness and power. Nevertheless, the complete structure is organic. Not only is the piece flowing, the limited palette of natural colours could be said to represent an earthy well grounded woman of the 21st century. A woman which Lucas repeatedly tries to portray.

Collectively I like Lucas's style, she not only addresses issues such as misogyny whilst criticising narrow minded thoughts, she also creates stimulating ideas - her audience can interpret, reflect and ask questions which arise in contemporary society.

Burrows, W (2009) Sarah Lucas [Online]. Available: http://wayneburrows.wordpress.com/sarah-lucas/ [21/10/13]

Stonard, JP (2000) Sarah Lucas, Artist biography [Online]. Available: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sarah-lucas-2643 [21/10/13]

Image: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/P/P78/P78449_10.jpg [21/10/13]

Image: http://pfeiferthompson.squarespace.com/storage/jointhebigpicture-sarahLucas-04.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1350905523918) [21/10/13]

Modern Painters (September 2013)

As my last review covered the topic of Fine Art and Fashion, I decided I would look at a article which focused on Fine Art. I found an article in Modern Painters on Tatiana Blass, a Brazilian artist who focuses on allegories of the break down of communication.

I looked at a screen shot of one of her video pieces produced during 2012. It featured two actresses who were sat in the middle of a white room with tons of spools of different thread attached to them. This takes up a large area and creates an artificial ordered setting. They then decide to move about and create a colourful web of thread in which they cannot escape. This disrupts the order and makes it more of an disturbed asymmetric setting caused by random movements. The screen then ends on dialogue spoken by one of the actresses, "We are in real trouble".

Whilst I do like this piece I don't fully understand her thought process behind it. Nora Abrams, an associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, claims that Blass poses "questions that her work tries to answer", but what her question was for this piece I have yet to understand. Nevertheless, her use of everyday spools being disrupted is a simple yet successful finished piece of contemporary art.

(Hanson, S.P. (2013) 'Waxing Poetic', Modern Painters, September 2013. 

Vimeo (2012) [Online] Avialable:  http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/353/110/353110207_640.jpg [8th October 2013] )

Frieze (No.158 October 2013) Review

I went on and looked at Frieze. In this I found an article on Alan Reid, a New York based artist who combines Fine Art and Fashion into one. He creates "paintings of fashion". Reid likes to paint models and clothing - sometimes references to sex and poetry are present in his work too. 

To the left is one of his canvas (1.7 x 1.2m) pieces done with acrylic and foamcore. Only one subject is present and she is taking up the centre of the pictorial space. She dominates the scene even though both the background colour and her skin tone have an equal light intensity - causing her to somewhat blend into the pale pink exterior. Due to its lighting the image is soft and seductive which her face expression also exerts. Basic line drawings are used for the details of her dress which is the only thing which is monochrome with two cartoon croissants accompanying it.

 I believe the two different aspects of the canvas painting, the realistic fine art painting of the woman and her abstract piece of clothing (fashion), successfully merge and work together well. Reid proves that within contemporary art different aspects over-cross and one doesn't have to stick rigidly to traditional art forms. Reid himself believes that fashion and paintings are dependent on each other rather than being mutually exclusive.

(Howe, D.E. (2013) 'In Focus: Alan Reid', Frieze, Issue 158)

Novum 10.13 Visual Communication

For my 6th review I looked at  an article on Iwona Przybyla which was in Novum. Iwona creates typographical embroidery (a series of 3D letters organized out of string). She placed this series in a book of hers, which to her surprise, was a huge success. She received positive reactions from everyone who saw the book and was acquired by the Museum Meermanno in Den Haag. Her work is on a smaller scale and is interactive. The letters are geometric in their finished product and normally consist of only one colour on a white pictorial space. Due to the books complex mechanics it appears to be very ordered and mathematical however this is not the case. Iwona is what I would call a very confident artist. She doesn't plan what she is going to do and disregards methodical methods. Instead she 'goes with the flow' - "she realised that experimentation is always the better way".

(Image http://www.designboom.com/weblog/images/images_2/lara/818_images/iwona_90_degree_typography/90%C2%B0_typography08.jpg [01/10]13])