Saturday, December 11, 2010

Spieghtstown Project Finalised

This image is also one of many just like it that have been composed base of multiple images of Bridgetown in order to give the viewer a sense of what the buildings of Bridgetown look like and how developed and modernized on it's various levels.
This image is one of many that i have composed, which is made up of various buildings and structures located in the Speightstown area which i spliced horizontally on as many as three levels in order to give a scense of optical illusion and also for the viewer to be forced to see Speightstown on many levels allowing the viewer to see what Speightstown was like in its early development up until now. The buildings of Speightstown all depict a place where most buildings still remain in their almost original state which where mainly seen as warehouses which included living accommodation which would be located on the top floor of the warehouse, but with passing time some buildings when though various changes such as being turned into stores, but the architecture of the buildings continues to remain in an undeveloped or unchanged format of storage area whether it be store or other wise at the base and living quarters at the top.  
This image again is composed of spliced images of Speightstown, but this image like others like it depict the narrow street that is Speightstown, which no longer is being seen on many different levels but in one undeveloped fixed view of perspective.  


Sunday, November 28, 2010

Spieghtstown Project

My project will be based on the Architecture of Spieghtstown's building and how they differ from that of Bridgetown's Architecture and design. The project will consist of a series of photographs composed together to create a series of buildings form both locations which shows the clear differences between the two towns on various levels.

Artist Talk with Sheena Rose

The artist talk with Sheena was very informative in terms of the entire process in which she had to go though in order to be accepted into the program based in South Africa. The various artists had many different works of art, styles and views to offer, especially that guy who was trying to create the art movement of  Aganza. After seeing that presentation it really opens up me eyes and hopefully the eyes of all who were there to the ridiculous, stereotypical judgments of the world we live in which leads one to believe that Africa is just one place with one capital and one town surrounded by uneducated savages living in mud huts buried in the tallest thickest grass you can find under the watch of lions ready to kill the "natives". I can't help but wonder what the other areas of Africa have to offer in terms of culture and artistic talent after seeing Sheena's presentation.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Tim Hawkinson: Art 21 Biography


Tim Hawkinson was born in San Francisco, California in 1960. A graduate of San Jose State University, he later earned his MFA at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1989. Hawkinson is renowned for creating complex sculptural systems through surprisingly simple means. His installation “Überorgan”—a stadium-size, fully automated bagpipe—was pieced together from bits of electrical hardware and several miles of inflated plastic sheeting. Hawkinson’s fascination with music and notation can also be seen in “Pentecost,” a work in which the artist tuned cardboard tubes and assembled them in the shape of a giant tree. On this tree the artist placed twelve life-size robotic replicas of himself, and programmed them to beat out religious hymns at humorously irregular intervals. The source of inspiration for many of Hawkinson’s pieces has been the re-imagining of his own body and what it means to make a self-portrait of this new or fictionalized body. In 1997 the artist created an exacting, two-inch tall skeleton of a bird from his own fingernail parings, and later made a feather and egg from his own hair. Believable even at a close distance, these works reveal Hawkinson’s attention to detail as well as his obsession with life, death, and the passage of time. Hawkinson has participated in numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including the Venice Biennale (1999), the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, (2000), the Power Plant in Toronto, Canada (2000), the Whitney Biennial (2002), and the 2003 Corcoran Biennial in Washington, D.C. Tim Hawkinson resides in Los Angeles with his wife.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Final year Associates Degree Exibition Paintings and Drawings

Bonsai 1 & 2

Linkage

Transition 1

Epic Battle Extention

My Sculpture / Instillation entitiled Epic Battle

Epic Battle
The battle takes place in a bamboo forest between two samurai warriors, who represent the cultural clash that took place in Japan during the feudal era. The two warriors are sculptures, using a combination of traditional samurai armour crafting techniques and more conventional methods of construction, using sheet metal, real leather and a wide variety of other materials. The combatants do battle in the middle of a bamboo forest, created using both real bamboo and a triptych of paintings of a bamboo forest which reads from right to left in the traditional Japanese way.
The paintings reinforce the idea of a clash of cultures and a tragic end, showing a transition between two styles of painting, drawing attention to the struggle between traditional and foreign cultures. The struggle is denoted by a more era appropriate style of painting on the canvas to the right which consisted of strategically placed confident, single, disciplined and flat brush strokes using various pressure intensities to create a sense of dimension and perspective. The canvas represents the traditional aged paper used in feudal era Japan which shed tears that run down the canvas as it is forced into a corner and then defeated by another form of painting and culture, one more influenced by the western world, represented by the impressionist painting style which consist mainly of freer brush strokes which concentrate on and emphasise light on objects.
The two warriors are depicted mid battle, seconds after a deadly strike by the black samurai. The red samurai wields a Naginata, a traditional Japanese fighting spear which was fabricated to resemble a Black Dragon Naginata, found during research done about traditional armour designs and construction. The internal structure of the Red Samurai Armour is arc welded steel pipes, which represent the rigidity, inflexibility and almost unbreakable foundation of a traditional culture. The internal structure of the Black Samurai Armour is constructed using nails, screws and multiple pieces of 2x2 Pine and aged Cedar which represent the weaker, unstable,  unrefined foundation, and more fragile nature of a new culture attempting to replace an older one. The black samurai uses a katana which was fabricated to resemble the Gendaito, which carries the shape of a sword designed during the current era.
The project was chosen because of a fascination with Japan and its development as a nation. It depicts a world different from ours, where warriors attempted to hold to a code of honour and respect for both themselves and their enemies.









Photography I find interesting and appealing because of thier Renaissance depiction




(NIFCA) National Independence Festival of Creative Art????????

To my knowledge the requirements for this Barbadian Based Festival are extremely clear and these are;

A) Be an Artist or aspiring Artist
B) Be a local or Barbadian
C) Have 4 works of Art no more than 3 yrs old no matter what the the mediam
D) Showcase them

THESE ARE THE RULES OF EXHIBITING , OR SO IT MAY SEEM . IT  APPEARS THAT THEY ARE MANY OTHER UNWRITTEN RULES WHICH HAVE YET TO BE PUBLISHED.
These unwritten rules of which are govern through a system of bias, prejudice and regurgitation facets of Barbadian society state that one can exhibit works of art but it must all be Barbadian base to receive any form of award or recognition, IE, pieces with elements such as Chattel Houses or a rasta man  husking coconuts of a public beach or even some form or interpretation of our local  Black-belly Sheep because these are things that apparently define Barbados's culture. I say WHAT CULTURE. In mine and many other persons opinion Barbados has no set defined "Culture" so how can people expect someone to create a work of art on something THAT DOES NOT EXISTS? The answer for this is simply we can not. 
What we consider to be our Barbadian culture is nothing more than an assimilation of fashions, trends, mannerisms and styles from international influences which can be observed daily on the many forms of media which are blatantly broadcasted and inhaled with out a second guess from Barbadian locals. The question of identity crisis is often a factor because the same people who object to anything that is not 100% Bajan art are the persons who watch American broadcasted television, wear and own American manufactured things and live European influenced lives and then scream bloody murder and rejects works of art when a Barbadian  Artist creates a piece that is not Barbadian based but rather internationally oriented.
In my opinion the country we call Barbados is so culturally screwed up that i do not believe that it will come to a point of cultural realization in my or my childrens lifetime, and this i based of of one reason and one reason only and that reason is that Barbados is a conformist society the exists to follow the examples and cultures of other nations and call the poorly pasted together clippings of other cultures our own, while still rejecting certain aspects of the very influences collected.

In concluding this post i say that it will only be after this narrow minded, follower of a country we live in opens their eyes and ears to the international world past the tourist that come to or shores and the and the selective nature of the media only then will you see  and understand other cultures and begin to get closer to identifying or own in every way namely in art oriented aspect thus allowing us to be able to judge artistic talent based on true merit instead of assimilated, selective bias.