urban texture pt 2

 Plaster moulds/ finished piece
these are the series of fabric and plaster moulds i created to represent different aspects of the city.

inspired by crumbling walls

                                                                         my little work corner at home

 a 2D representation of rust

my classroom studio piece all set up

Contextual research

Antoni Tapies
Antoni Tapies was a distinquished Catalan artist. is work is an example of an artist who uses alot of texture in his work. Tàpies mixed pigment and varnish with unconventional materials, including marble dust and sand, to create dense, wall-like surfaces that are both blank and teasingly
 mysterious.




Tàpies's achievement was to create highly intuitive, enigmatic images that have the potential to change our perception of reality, but defy reduction into a few lines of analysis

 

 Mark Boyle
Mark Boyle was an influential artist born in Glasgow and known for his work in the cultural UK Underground of the 1960s around the Traverse Theatre,

 These pictures - highly accurate painted casts that operate somewhere between painting and sculpture - involve the meticulous re-creation of randomly chosen areas of the Earth's surface using resin and fibreglass (as well as real materials from the site) and have been exhibited internationally.



 

Heather Knight

Heather Knight’s porcelain creations reflect both her love of modern design and her admiration for the natural world. She is passionately committed to the hand made aspect of her work, and delivers pieces that display impeccable craftsmanship and an eye for detail. Her distinctive pieces frequently echo sea creatures, coral, and shells. The smooth unglazed porcelain exterior of her work marks a sharp visual and textural contrast between the glossy, frequently candy-colored interiors

 

Aberto Burri
It is in this exhibition: a fiercely lyrical vision made out of rags of rough sacking stitched to each other as well as the canvas. Among these ochre tatters and patches are occasional holes that reveal a blackness below, like the darkness beneath the riffled surface of a wheat field. And blazing above this horizontal landscape, it seems, is a red harvest sky. Such perfect metaphors all condensed in one: the patchwork of fields, the crop sewn directly into the ground, the conjuring of grain out of grain sacks.
Quite why the eye should read the painting – if it can be called a painting – this way is anyone's guess. For there are other viewers who see it as the evocation of a reclining nude, or the close-up of a bleeding body; and still others who regard it as strictly abstract. But Sacking and Red, as it is called, has an intense presence that has something to do with the red paint, and something to do with the sacking, but above all comes from the curious combination. The red radiates heat across the gallery while the sacking draws you close: it's an appeal to sight, scent and touch.

artist statment

at the begining of the 1st year when we were first given the brief, i was looking at how our sense of touch helps us to appreciate our surroundings and how it helps me to "sense my space". however i felt my pieces looked more decorative then trying to describe a particular texture.

since this approach wasnt working as well as i hoped i thougt i'd go in a different direction but stay on the same theme. i enjoyed working with and investigating different textures so i wanted to keep this the main subject of my project. i was looking at natural textures such as tree bark, leaves, the ground etc. but i wasnt getting much enjoyment out of re-creating these textures and they began to look very repetitive and something thats been done a million times before.

i then began to experiment with fabric and combining it with different substances such as liquid latex, clay and wax. i wanted to see how people would interact with them with in a space. i was quite happy with how they turned out but felt that i couldnt go any further.

since ii am from the country but now live in the city, i thought that this would make for a more interesting source of inspiration. i went around the city and took pictures of all the interesting textures and patterns that i could find. the main textures that i could find were rust, plaster peeling off buildings, paint peeling off and gravel/ rough texture.

i began experimenting with plaster. i found this very interesting. in the end i have a collection of fabric ad plaster moulds that represent different aspects of the city. for instance the pattern that i found on the foot paths, wall crumbling to create a flaky texture, peeling plaster off buildinds etc. i didnt want to make my plaster pieces look too obvious as to what they are, as texture involves the sense of touch.

in the end, although the brief was challenging at times i did enjoy doing the project. i wanted to go outside my comfort zone and create pieces that i wouldnt normally do. it took a lot of trial and error but i was quite happy with my finished pieces.

my final piece!

My finished piece came about because of an accident. I was experimenting with plaster and fabric, i dipped the fabric into plaster and pressed corrigated cardboard onto it. when it dried i wasnt too happy with how it loojed for i began to rip some of the plaster off. this looked pretty well so i carried on so that only a trace of the imprint was left. My tutors were also interested with how it out and wanted me to do a series of them in different fabrics and with different imprints.

Since the theme of my project is texture i wanted to find some interesting textures around the city for inspiration for my plaster pieces.  through out the city i found a lot of crumbling walls and plaster from buildings, i also found the footpath to look quite interesting so this became the source of inspiration for my plaster pieces