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