Cross Critique October/November 2018

Cross critique, Day 1

Tuesday 30^thof October

Today was the start of our cross critique. 2^nd and 3^rd years met down in the big studio space on the lower ground floor. After a brief introduction Peter – our personal tutor, paired people up with someone from different years. I was partnered with a girl named Danielle, we had an allotted amount of time to discuss our work to each other and explain where we are in our practise. Danielle’s work revolves around the theme “Rape”. As of her practise at the moment it is quite personal. She likes to reflect the effects such a traumatic experience can have on a person! Her work as she puts it is 80% about the person and their emotions and then 20% to do with the act of painting, technique and medium. She wants to extend her subject matter behind personal matters. She wants to use her artistic talents to betray the terrible effects of rape.

I then explained my work to Danielle and made it clear although in early stages what I am currently working on revolves around the psychological, the emotional and the atmospheric experiences and reactions to my paintings. I told her how I like to get more intimate with paintings through using my hands rather than a paintbrush in such an instance. It may work in some of my paintings when I am trying to have a realistic approach and want to betray a certain or specific image but when I want my painting to be expressionistic I like to use my hands. Our discussion was successful and when our allotted time was over we re-joined with the whole group and we had to inform them of what our partners practise involves and what they may display on Thursday. I found this interesting as it gave me a first-hand experience to see what others may interpret my work to be and what essence they received. I am glad this happened and surprised how much It helped me. Danielle even suggested how some of the ideas I have been having could come into my current practise and I am very grateful for her suggestions as it has made me think of where I am going to take my work next and it has been something admittedly I have struggled with recently. I have definitely discovered how important all the workshops, meetings, tutorials and cross critiques are to my practise. It helps me develop my practise which is vital! I think after meeting with Danielle it would be interesting to keep in touch with her and up to date with her work as both of our artworks currently involve a lot of emotive subjective matters but we both have the intentions to move forward and develop our work to more than that. Danielle also agreed that there was a weird mutual connection revolved around our works. It definitely put my work into a more understandable position when I heard her say that 80% of her work is to do with the subject and maybe only 20% to do with the act and medium itself. I think it is very important to keep connections in the art world, especially those who inspire you.

 We then got moving and played around with layout concepts for the exhibition/critique on Thursday. We claimed our spaces where we would display our work shortly after. I found the perfect space for my work. Initially I was going to just show one of my paintings but it is part of a series (which I should hopefully have finished for Thursday) and I feel like it would be a lot stronger placed alongside the initial piece. I chose my space specifically as the screen/ wall was placed by the window but I went to the other side to where it was shadowed and darker. This will fit quiet well with the dark atmosphere that comes along with my paintings. Tonight, I just need to finish up the other two paintings and fingers crossed I can get all three of them displayed tomorrow after my lecture. I found this meeting to be very successful for the reasons I have just stated and I am excited for Thursdays session where we will discuss our work more in depth and get critiqued.

Day 2

Thursday 1^st of November

Today’s cross critique was a huge success! Peter had an approach which was very helpful to my practise in particular. Before the artist could talk about their work the audience/ the rest of the students got to comment on the work, what they seen, how they interpretate it and what they think. This was helpful to me especially because my work is all about how the viewer sees my work. It is hard as the curator of the painting to view it without intent as it was me painting it this whole time and giving it this context. My work is made for the viewers experience, for what they feel and what the atmosphere is like because I am interested in the psychology of it all. I got a lot of feedback this way and it really benefitted my practise. I could see what I needed to do in order to create a more “successful” piece. I need to change minor things that have a major impact on how a painting is betrayed such as colour choice and styles of painting. In the third part of the series of paintings it was meant to be calming but because I used black paint for the background it was betrayed as weary and more chaotic where as I had the first painting, visually was chaotic but had a calming effect. So these paintings presented at the cross critique where all created by using just black, white and red intended to create a certain atmosphere. So this was the information and feedback I needed in order to move my practise forward. My previous paintings from last year had an element of scent so Peter my personal tutor to took it upon himself to sniff my paintings and weirdly everyone followed and started to do the same thing. This sparked even more ideas for my practise as I liked the intimacy of the audience getting up-close and involved with my work. I personally believe a successful piece is one that involves, perks curiosities and engages the audience.

With every exhibition, presentation, cross critique or whatever it maybe I get more intrigued and involved. These sessions really have been helping my confidence when it comes to my practise but also to engage with others and theirs. Nicole presented her jar with the story I curated base on her and her passion for these inanimate objects and she played around with tones of voices and morphed them and I loved how it turned out!! Well done Nicole!! 

One last notable piece was one by Kerry McSweeney. Although not present in the critique she definitely made such an impact through the act of giving and working with her subject energies. I think I liked it so much as I could relate it to my practise or at least what I would like me work to do. Her work was incredible at making a memorable impression through the act of gift giving. My aim isn’t to give gifts to everyone but rather to create an impact – a memorable impression. I am still working out how to do that through my own practise and I will continue to experiment and get evaluations of my paintings to see which ones are memorable or at the very least impressionable.