BERLIN * BARCELONA * NEW YORK

Whenever I travel I try to be disciplined and keep a visual diary. Admittedly this tends to take the format of rough drawings, notes and found ephemera while I'm actually away, ready to be refined and finished once I am home. This is partly because drawing on location can be a tricky business depending on the weather or the amount of nosy tourists around, usually though it's because I'm just too busy enjoying myself! Below are some pages from the visual journal that I started in Berlin when I was there earlier in the year. Quite typically I nowhere near filled the sketchbook so I've decided to add to it when I go to Barcelona and New York in a few months time. I'm hoping that this journal will provide me with some fresh inspiration as I am keen to head in a new direction with my Masters work in the new year.

Emilio Vedova: Berlinische Galerie, Berlin

'Vedova was made an official artist-in-residence in Berlin just two years after the construction of the wall in 1961. Working in a studio formerly occupied by the Nazi sculptor Arno Breker, he created the Absurd Berlin Diary 64, a colossal assemblage of jagged wooden pieces, aggressively painted in clashing colours, which conveyed the trauma of the divided city. Hung from the ceiling or arranged untidily across the gallery floor, often linked by hinges like parodies of medieval polyptychs, the panels also illustrated the artist's desire to liberate art from its conventional setting in a frame on a wall.' Read more here.

Julie Verhoeven

Today I found an old copy of Dazed and Confused from 2002 and did a double-take at the cover. It startled me because it reminded me so much of the painted mannequin I recently made for my last Masters project. I had completely forgotten about this photoshoot for make-up although I recall that at the time I really liked it as it was illustrated by one of my favourite artists Julie Verhoeven.
It's weird to think that the memory of these images could have hung around in my sub-conscious and in some way inspired me to make something so similar. It constantly amazes me how much as artists we soak up inspiration from everywhere and regurgitate it in our own way. It makes you question whether it's even possible to be truly original anymore.

Photographs by Jenny Van Sommers

Berlin

About a girl

About a Girl (2009)

(Found mannequin: Monoprint, collage, lazertran.)

'Once destined for the skip, 'Alice' and her dismembered limbs now serve as a canvas for my most indulgent whims. Forever collecting; ideas, images and objects which transcend cultures, styles and genres, the things that inspire me are many. Music, art, film, fashion and concepts are forever in my mind and like Alice, I swallow them all. However, as Alice found in Wonderland, giving in to all that is tempting can lead to overwhelming consequences. This feeling of claustrophobia and inspiration overload is represented through the layering of image and text. References to popular culture are crudely recreated as monoprints and applied to the surface of the mannequin using a transfer medium, each one fighting for attention. Rather than presenting Alice as a whole, her torso, legs and arms are left as separate parts, her tattooed limbs representing the many facets of my eclectic desires.'

Where is my mind....

I've been scribbling away in my journal a lot recently trying to make sense of all my ideas. One thing I have established is that as per usual I am overwhelmed with inspiration. Admittedly I am a total image junkie, my picture files at home and at work are brimming with images gathered from all over the place, I have actually had to limit myself to only visiting FFFFound once a week as I fear my laptop can't take much more (note to self: must get an external hard-drive) and with just about everyone having a blog nowadays opportunities to spy bucketloads of visual loveliness are endless. Anyway back to the point, I have decided to make a piece that in some way celebrates all the things that inspire me, new and old, contemporary and classic. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to make yet but I do have a brilliant old mannequin that is begging to be drawn on so watch this space.

A thought that goes through my mind A LOT when I begin a new piece......

Class Acts exhibition, Holden Gallery, MMU

Above (the work as I imagined it when displayed)

One Person's Trash.... (2009)

(Collection of 11 ceramic and paper altered plates: Monoprint, collage, lazertran.)

'As a collector of discarded ephemera sourced from car boot sales, charity shops, flea markets, ebay and my grandma's cupboards I have over the years accumulated shelves of objects. Often cheap, kitsch, usually originating from the 1950s/60s and always worn, used, chipped and fraying, these things are my treasures. Sentimental, nostalgic and bearing a patina accumulated from years of human handling and attic dust, the stories attached to these things resonate in my work. The layers within my collages are representative of the various stages of an object's life from production to circulation. Each china cup, glass ornament, wooden peg, tin box, plastic toy has had more than one owner, originates from across the globe and has ended up on my shelf in Norway Street. It seems fitting therefore that the representations of these objects retain their domestic identity by displaying them in frames and upon the surfaces of second-hand plates hung in a traditional domestic fashion.'

(Unfortunately the folks at MMU didn't actually hang them on the wall at all which kind of took away from the concept a bit and meant that my lovingly crafted caption made no sense. Oh well, I suppose they were lacking wall space, they did however secure them to plinths with some serious straps so there was no chance of them falling.)

Maker's Palette

After discovering Lazertran (a really effective transfer medium) I have applied some of my monoprints and drawings onto both paper and ceramic plates ready for the Maker's Palette exhibition at MMU. I'm pretty happy with the results although inevitably there are some that I like more than others. My favourite is probably the Sweeney Todd plate as it reminds me of that amazing scene in the film where suddenly the screen is filled with colour, in total contrast to everything that comes before and after. I also rather like the second seaside plate mainly because it gave me an excuse to include a candy stripe paper bag in the collage. I'm a little obsessed with these bags, they are just so joyful. As for other folks, well they seem to like the teacup plate the best.